Jackson - Backseat Saints

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright 2010 by Joshilyn Jackson

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Grand Central Publishing

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New York, NY 10017

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First eBook Edition: June 2010

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ISBN: 978-0-446-56917-0

gods in Alabama

Between, Georgia

The Girl Who Stopped Swimming

For Lydia of Netzer, the patron saint of never being wrong.

Im so ridiculously over-blessed.

This is my fourth book with Caryn Karmatz Rudy, and she is like editorial heroin. Im addicted to her keen insight and insatiable love of getting the words right, and so she is hereby forbidden from moving to France to be a perfumier and/or running in front of a taxi. Jacques de Spoelberch has been my agent and good friend ever since I pulled his name out of a book and he pulled my letter out of his slush pile. I cannot do without either of them.

Im privileged to have a mighty army of friends and advocates at my publishing house who fight with flaming swords to help my work find its readership: Jamie Raab, Martha Otis, Karen Torres, Chris Barba, Emily Griffin, Amanda Englander, Harvey-Jane Kowal, Evan Boorstyn, Elly Weisenberg, Miriam Parker, Nancy Wiese, Nicole Bond, Peggy Boelke, Anne Twomey, Liz Connor, Thom Whatley, Toni Marotta, Les Pockell, and Cheryl Rozier.

The above list hardly covers it. I have endless thanks for everyone at Grand Central Publishing; they gave me my dream job. And thanks to the host of righteous handsellers in bookstores of every stripe who have allowed me to keep it. I am hugely indebted to all of them, from Jake Reiss and the Alabama Booksmith Gang who were kind enough to read my first book in MS form, to the bookseller halfway across the country that I have never met who just put a copy of Backseat Saints in the hands of a reader and said, Oh, you have to try this one!

I misplace modifiers as if they were my keys, and sometimes I think I am on a mission to let no comma pass unspliced. It is terrifying to think I once taught English to Americas youth. God bless copyeditors in general and Sona Vogel in particular. STET!

Big thanks and night whispers to the community of writers and readers and friends who give me their time, support, patience, and martini recipes: Lydia Netzer, Karen Potsie Abbott, Sara Fonzie Gruen (Wait, did I just by the process of elimination make myself Ralph Malph?), Anna Schachner, Julie Oestreich, Mir Kamin, my Best Beloveds at Faster Than Kudzu, and the crew of foul reprobates who WoW around with me in BoB. Lok'tar Ogar!

Jill James put me up for weeks so I could learn firsthand how a small-town southern girl would see the gorgeous, eclectic, and endlessly fascinating Bay Area, and she went with me to have our cards read and our auras cleansed. (They were filthy.) Tarot maven Deb Richardson read for Rose.

Boundless thanks to the quiet heroes of Building Futures with Women and Children (especially Dr. Liz Nickels) in San Leandro, California. They are working tirelessly to end violence against women, and their input was invaluable.

My family (Scott, Sam, Maisy Jane, Bob, Betty, Bobby, Julie, Daniel, Erin Virginia, Jane, Allison) and my extended family (Macland Presbyterian Church, especially the very Slanted Sidewalk-ers and smallgroup) are my living home. Thanks for reminding me daily that Love wins.

Most of all, I thank you for reading.

Amarillo, Texas, 1997

I T WAS AN AIRPORT gypsy who told me that I had to kill my husband. She may have been the first to say the words out loud, but she was only giving voice to a thing Id been trying not to know for a long, long time. When she said that it was him or me, the words rang out like church bells, shuddering through my bones. For two days, they sat in the pit of my belly, making me sick. I had no reason to trust her, and Id as soon take life advice from a Chinese take-out fortune cookie as believe in tarot cards, but Id lived with Thom Grandee long enough to recognize the truth, no matter how it came to me.

So on Thursday morning, I got my Pawpys old gun, and I lay for my husband near Wildcat Bluff. Thom liked to run a trail out there. It was too far from the picnic grounds to attract most day-trippers, and he got his miles in early, when he could trust it would be his alone. That day he had me for secret company.

Not two hours ago, Id gotten up before the sun to make him real biscuits. Id cut Crisco into flour until it felt soft, like powdered velvet. Id mixed the dough and rolled it and pressed out circles with the top of a juice glass. Id fried bacon and then cooked two eggs sunny-side up in the grease. I had loaded his grits with salt and cheese and put thick pats of butter to melt on everything that looked like it could hold butter. There must have been a thousand calories in fat alone floating on that plate.

Id often made him devil-breakfasts like this after fights, so I hadnt thought of it as a last meal. It was more of an absurd apology. Like me saying, Baby, Im scared I might blow holes in you later, but look, I made you the naughty eggs. Last night Id made sex for him, too, in the same way, buttery slick and fat with all the things he liked best.

An hour before the sex, hed held my head sideways in his big hand, my other cheek pressed into the cool plaster of the wall. Id been pinned, limbs flailing helpless sideways, while he ran four fast punches down one side of my back. Then hed let me go and Id slid down the wall into a heap and hed said, Lord, Ro, why do you push me like that?

I didnt say a word. He knew the answer. We both knew; I was a good wife most times, but I was made like nesting dolls. I had something bad, some other girl, buried way down in the meat of me. That inside girl was the thing that needed to be hit, that deserved it, and I called it to her. Last night, Id lay coiled on the floor at Thoms feet, wondering why a big man like him couldnt hit through, could never hit me hard enough to reach her.

On Tuesday morning, Id driven my elderly neighbor, Mrs. Fancy, to the airport. Shed come over the week before with a plate of her hot cheese cornbread and asked me if I would drive her. She was on a fixed income, and I knew four days of airport parking would be a trial for her, so Id lied and said Id love to spend a solid hour fighting highway traffic. I owed her more than a ride to the airport, as good as she had been to me.

We can take my Honda, Mrs. Fancy had said, smiling her thanks at me with her brown eyes squirrel bright. Youre saving me the parking, Ro. At least let me save you the gas.

Since my ancient Buick got about twelve miles a gallon with the wind behind me, I was happy enough to take her in the Civic. That would have been the end of it, if I hadnt helped Mrs. Fancy tote in all her luggage. The gypsy was standing near the airports little coffee shop like shed been waiting for me. Like shed known that I was coming.