The Widow's Walk by Robert Barclay

Author:Robert Barclay
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780062218827
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2014-03-26T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

“I don’t mean to pry, honey,” Dale Richmond said to his wife, Virginia. “And I’m not asking you to betray any confidences. But I do have a question for you about Garrett.”

The Richmonds were enjoying their first cups of coffee before making breakfast. They loved these mornings together, and for as long as Dale could remember, he had asked the same Sunday morning question of himself: Am I feeling religious today, or merely spiritual?

If the answer was “religious,” he went to church. And if the answer was “spiritual,” he stayed home and made a big breakfast with his wife. He would then retire to the couch, where he reclined with Freckles at his feet and read the Sunday paper from beginning to end. Lately, the spiritual answer had been winning out over the religious one.

After taking another sip of coffee, Virginia put down her cup and looked into Dale’s eyes. She wasn’t sure what he was getting at, but she suspected that it might have something to do with Garrett’s private conversation with her. Although she was hesitant about discussing it, she hadn’t entered into any sort of professional relationship with Garrett. That said, there was no issue, save for that of any mother questioning whether to reveal her child’s innermost thoughts.

The unsettled nature of her gaze was not lost on Dale.

“What?” he asked.

“What do you mean, ‘what’?” Virginia asked. “If you have a question for me about Garrett, just ask it.”

Dale shrugged his shoulders.

“I’m sort of worried about him,” he said. “The other day when we were out hunting he asked me several rather cosmic questions, none of which I answered well, I’m afraid. For better or worse, I got the impression that he was doing some real soul-searching. Then again, he’s got a lot on his plate just now, and it could’ve been nothing more than that.”

Dale reached out and put one hand atop Virginia’s.

“I’m just wondering if you’ve seen a change in him,” he said. “I know I have.”

At first, Virginia hesitated. But she and Dale had never kept secrets from each other, and this was no time to start. Besides, she was rather concerned about Garrett too. Over the next ten minutes she explained her conversation with him. While sipping his coffee from time to time, Dale listened attentively. When Virginia finished, he let go a long sigh.

“Good Lord,” he said. “That was certainly some dream. So you’re the shrink . . . can you tell me what it means?”

“I think his subconscious was trying to create his perfect dream girl,” she said. “And as I told Garrett, the fact that she seemed to be straight out of the antebellum period and that she desperately needed his help only added to her allure.”

Thinking, Dale went to the refrigerator and produced a carton of jumbo eggs.

“Is scrambled okay?” he asked.

“Sure.”

“This is what we get for having such willful children, Ginnie,” he said as he cracked four eggs into a mixing bowl. “But Garrett is especially stubborn, and we both know where that came from.

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