Them
He went to Hall on a Tuesday morning while I was still in bed.
I wanted to think all would go well. I knew it wouldn’t be easy — trust me, I knew, but I had hope that it would go well.
Judah was home by nine.
He didn't tell me how it went. I didn't ask. He made eggs and put a plate in front of me and sat across the table with his coffee and the paper and that was how we knew — both of us, without saying it — that it was done.
The Beaumont estate in October looked like something out of a painting.
One that was blissfully unaware that it was cursed.
String lights bound the veranda like the lingerie I still sometimes put on. Alright, perhaps, less perversely. Lines of black cord ran along the wooden beams, so high up I had to tilt my head back to see them. I did, for a brief moment, wonder how Judah got them up there.
It was the night of the fundraiser. Another one. Judah explained to me what it was about, and that we had to appear normal. Everything had to continue the way it had before otherwise this wouldn’t work.
I believed him. It made me sick to my stomach, but I believed him.
And I had promised myself — and him — that I would not accept jewelry from anybody. Not even him.
He’d said “good”, kissed me on the temple and had gone to meet the first guests.
I watched the cars approach through the bedroom window and thought about locking myself inside the room. He could entertain — I could fake sick. Maybe say I felt nauseous — part of the morning sickness, wasn’t it? I could fake it.
God, I wished I had faked it.
Instead, I went outside onto the balcony in my silk morning robe and did what all good almost-wives did. Stood and watched as the old lizards spilled out of their luxury cars and decided I would be fashionably late.
No. More than fashionably late. Whatever came after that — I would be it.
So, I stood and I watched the oaks sway in the soft breeze. String lights bound them the same way they did everything on the property, curling around the trunks in even loops. The Spanish moss sat neatly in the branches — same as it always did, and soaked up the soft glow from the warm glass bulbs.
I could smell all the expensive cologne from up here, and I actually got nauseous.
With a frustrated grunt I closed the balcony doors and went back inside to put on a dress in a color I hated. Green — Judah’s choice. He knew I hated it but he said colors had meaning in these functions.
Green meant taken.
Red meant off limits.
And blue — or rather baby blue — well. You get it.
I thought about the burgundy dress I had worn the last time and how Hargrove had approached me despite it.
The dress was deep emerald and made me look like royalty.
The color darkened toward black in the folds, like rain-soaked moss.
I wasn’t a fan of sleeves on dresses — especially in Louisiana heat — but these were alright.
Lace, that sat like second skin and ended around my knuckles.
The hem tickled my ankle every time I shifted, an itch I couldn't reach no matter how I twisted.
And the back was bare, held together with a dainty chainlet. No way to wear a bra underneath it.
I took a deep breath and stopped to stand at the top of the main staircase, watching the latter half of the guests arrive.
Judah appeared at the bottom of the stairs, wearing a black, fitted three-piece. He looked up at me with the look that told me he was trying very hard not to.
For a moment, I thought he might smile — that rare, genuine smile that transformed his face. But something moved in his eyes instead. Recognition, perhaps. Or possession. His gaze traveled from my face down the length of the emerald dress, lingering on the bare skin of my back as I turned slightly.
“You're late,” he said instead.
“I'm on time.” I came down the stairs.
His hand found the small of my back as I reached the bottom step, fingers warm against my exposed skin. I felt the pressure of his signet ring as it grazed my spine.
“You look beautiful,” he murmured, his breath warm against my ear as he kissed my temple. “And keep close tonight. There are men I haven’t seen before.”
“From the city?” I whispered, smiling for the crowd though my stomach knotted with dread.
“No.” His voice was barely audible beneath the string quartet playing in the corner. “Further north. Old money. Catholic.”
The warning was clear. Different rules, different appetites. I nodded slightly, refusing a champagne flute from a passing server.
“Mrs. Tureaud has been asking for you,” Judah said, guiding me toward the grand room where crystal chandeliers threw fractured light across the faces of St. Francisville's finest hypocrites. “I told her you were feeling unwell earlier.”
“My hero,” I murmured.
The elderly woman spotted us immediately, waving her bejeweled hand with the enthusiasm of a much younger woman. Her silver hair was arranged in its usual helmet-like formation, her pale blue dress adorned with pearls that matched the ones at her throat.
I thought about the color combinations and the blue of her dress, and decided — surely not.
“Mercy, darling!” She air-kissed both my cheeks, her perfume so strong it nearly made me gag.
Oh, God. It might. Actually.
I swallowed the lump in my throat, trying to breathe the air that flew from the AC above us and not the one around her. Whoever had named it morning sickness, had no idea what they were talking about.
“Are you feeling better now? Judah mentioned you were under the weather.” Mrs. Tureaud's eyes traveled down to my midsection with such blatant speculation that I nearly crossed my arms protectively.
“Just tired,” I replied, forcing a smile. “The heat, you know.”
“Oh, I do know,” she said, though the woman hadn't broken a sweat in forty years. Her air-conditioned existence moved seamlessly from house to car to church to gatherings like this. “You must pace yourself in your... condition.”
The emphasis made my spine stiffen. I felt Judah's hand tighten almost imperceptibly at my back.
“My condition of being perpetually overworked by this one?” I tilted my head toward Judah, keeping my voice light. “Absolutely.”
Mrs. Tureaud's laugh was a practiced trill. “You two are just delightful. The perfect match.”
Judah inclined his head slightly. “If you'll excuse us, Alma. I need to introduce Mercy to some of our newer supporters.”
He steered me away before I could say anything that might cause trouble. I had a knack for it as of late. Judah said those were the hormones but I wasn’t so sure.
I saw Billy emerge from the direction of the study with a glass in each hand and the expression that said he’d decided tonight was going to be a good night whether it wanted to be or not.
“There she is.” He handed me a glass. Sparkling water — he'd remembered, which was very Billy, the man who forgot nothing that mattered and pretended to forget everything else. “You look outstanding, doll face.”
“You look like you started two hours ago,” I said in return.
“Three.” He clinked his glass against mine.
The party moved the way the first one had — that same slow, curated current of people who knew exactly where they were in every room they entered. I recognized faces now. The men from out of town, the ones with the assessing eyes. Hargrove's people. The ones who thought of it as a system.
I kept my face pleasant — mostly — and smiled at the right moments and accepted compliments on the house with a warmth I had learned from Darlene. And tried not to think about anything else.
Speaking of—
Darlene found me near the fireplace and squeezed my arm saying how wonderful I looked.
I said the same in return, which was true, and we talked about the food bank intake numbers for December — because December was an important month, and whether the diocese would approve the heating repair before November.
It was so ordinary and so warm that I had to remind myself where I was standing.
Across the room, Judah was talking to Reed and Cole and two men I didn't know.
He wasn't looking at me. But every twenty minutes or so — I'd started counting, which was its own kind of problem — he found me in the room without appearing to look for me.
A glance. Just long enough to confirm something. Then back to whoever was talking.
Sister Ruth appeared at my elbow.
“The pastor looks well tonight,” she said, with the tone of a woman issuing a verdict.
“He does,” I agreed.
She looked at me sideways. “You both do.”
I kept my expression neutral and thanked her for coming.
I found him in the hallway outside the kitchen at half past nine.
Not by accident — he'd given me a look from across the room twenty minutes earlier that I'd translated correctly, which was either a good sign about us or a concerning sign about me. I had made my excuses with whoever I was conversing with, drifted in the right direction and there he was.
Leaning against the wall in the narrow hallway with his jacket off and his sleeves pushed up, a glass of water — water, not bourbon — in his hand.
The kitchen sounds came through the door. Catering staff, plates, someone giving instructions in rapid French. The party was a room away and might as well have been miles.
“Hiding?” I asked.
“Taking a moment.”
“Same thing.”
He held out his arm.
I stepped into the space he created, nestling against his side.
His arm wrapped around me, pulling me closer, and I felt the warmth of him through the thin fabric of my dress.
For a moment, we just stood there, breathing together.
I listened to the kitchen sounds and the muffled party sounds and the house breathing around all of it, and I imagined what it would be like not to go back there.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“Fine.” I considered. “Actually fine. Not St. Francisville fine.”
He made a sound that was almost a laugh.
“You?” I asked.
“Fine,” he said. “Actually fine.”
He kissed the top of my head, and we stood there for a moment, like that. Just being. His thumb moved against my shoulder, slowly, back and forth. The cross under his shirt pressed against my arm where I leaned into him.
“Sister Ruth has decided we're a fait accompli,” I said.
“Sister Ruth decided that in August.” He took a drink from his glass.
“She told me we both look well.”
“We do.”
I tilted my head back to look at him. He looked down at me. This close his eyes were lighter than they had any right to be — the grey that had been wrong on his face from the beginning and had somehow become the thing I looked for first in any room.
I reached up and brushed my fingers against the stubble forming along his jawline. “Well, I'm glad we have Sister Ruth's blessing. Makes everything so much easier.” Mind the sarcasm.
His smile was small but genuine, one corner of his mouth lifting higher than the other. He caught my hand and pressed a kiss to my palm, lingering there longer than necessary.
“Judah.”
“Mercy.”
“We have to go back out there.”
“I know.”
Neither of us moved.
“One more minute,” he said.
“One more minute,” I agreed.
It was probably two. And then two more.
Hargrove found Judah at eleven-fifteen, when the party was beginning to thin. I hadn’t seen him all evening but I had a feeling he had seen me.
The older men went first — the ones from out of town — the ones with the assessing eyes and the old-money colognes that made me nauseous. Their cars with their drivers with their escorts — that I was trying very hard not to think of — were idling on the gravel.
I watched the handshakes at the door. The whisper-goodbyes that didn’t sound like goodbyes and random sentences that did. The very specific theater of wealthy men taking their leave, which was its own performance with its own choreography that I didn’t want to learn but was learning anyway.
Judah was guiding them out. That was his role tonight, had always been his role — the host, the son of the house, the man whose name was on the deed and the ledger and the weight of three generations.
He moved through the departures effortlessly; a hand on a shoulder here, a word there, the social machinery of it running without friction.
Mercy was across the foyer, being entertained by Billy so she wouldn’t think about the spinning wheel under it all. She was laughing at something he’d said, her head tipped back.
She looked breathtaking in that dress, Judah found himself thinking as he was leading Hargrove to the door. He couldn’t wait to close it after him.
Judah let himself look at her for one second. Then he turned back.
Hargrove was the last. He held out his hand for Judah.
Judah shook it.
“Wonderful evening,” Hargrove said. His eyes moved across the foyer to where Mercy stood, but quickly returned back to Judah. He smiled. “You've made a real home of this place.”
“Thank you for coming,” Judah said.
Hargrove held the handshake longer than necessary. Yet the smile was still there — pleasant as always.
“Did you hear about that investigator?” he asked, voice dipping slightly. “What was his name. Hall, I think.”
Judah's hand was very still inside Hargrove's.
“Hear what?” he said. His voice came out even. Thirteen years of practice.
Hargrove's smile didn't move. If anything, it grew wider. “Hear he drove off a bridge.” A small pause. “Just outside Baton Rouge.” Another pause. “Tragic, isn't it.”
Judah's pulse quickened, but his face remained a mask of calm. “When?”
“This afternoon,” Hargrove said, finally releasing Judah's hand. “Highway patrol found his car submerged.” He adjusted his cufflinks. “Strange how these accidents happen.”
“Strange indeed,” Judah said, his voice controlled but hollow.
Hargrove leaned in closer, the scent of expensive bourbon on his breath. “I hear he was carrying just this one green ledger. What an odd man.” He straightened, laughing, but after a second his voice was back to normal. “Good night, Pastor. Give my regards to the lovely Mercy.”
He walked out into the October night, down the front steps, to the car that was waiting for him on the gravel.
Judah stood in the open doorway.
The night air came in — cool, thick with the smell of the lake and the moss, and a lot of rotting things besides.
Behind him he could hear the last of the party, Billy's voice, Mercy laughing again at something, the house doing what it had always done.
He looked at the drive.
At Hargrove's taillights disappearing around the curve.
He stood there until they were gone.
The door closed with a soft click.