All That She Can See(45)

‘Sally. Please. Talk to us,’ Cherry pleaded. ‘Tell us what this is all about.’

‘Sally… you don’t just go to my mother for readings. Do you?’ Chase said quietly. He had remained standing and Cherry looked up at him in confusion. What was going on? Sally shook her head, more tears pouring onto the slate floor.

‘What do you mean? What do you go there for?’ Cherry asked.

Sally steadied herself with a few deep breaths and once her lip had stopped quivering she said, ‘I go there… to snitch.’





16





The Snitch





Sally sat on the floor clasping a cup of tea with both hands but the shock had made her bones cold and there was no warming her up. She was now sitting cross-legged and refused to move anywhere more comfortable.

‘So you became a sort of… spy? For Velina?’ Cherry asked, rubbing Sally’s shoulder.

‘Not sort of. That’s exactly what I am.’

‘But… why? Why would you do that?’ Cherry was trying so hard not to judge but the news had come so out of the blue she couldn’t help but feel betrayed.

‘It wasn’t out of choice.’ Her lip started to tremble but she shook her head and blinked several times, pushing the tears back down. ‘I was married, did you know that?’ She smiled. ‘We were childhood sweethearts. Met when we were just fifteen. He asked me on a date and took me to the ice cream parlour. We shared a banana split and that was it.’ She looked wistful for a moment, lost in her memories. ‘Just like that our fates were intertwined so when he died, he… he took a part of me with him. It’s inevitable, I guess. We were married for over twenty years so of course that was going to happen. I went to Velina and Danior hoping they could help me. I was desperate – there were so many things I never got to say to him, so many things I wanted to apologise for, and Danior said she would help me.’

A muscle in Chase’s jaw jutted out from his cheek.

‘I went back to them, time and time again. I was fed lie after lie and so much false hope at each meeting but I couldn’t see through it, until one day Velina said something that didn’t match up. Ron and I had this ridiculous way of saying we loved each other. I’d kiss the air twice and he’d shoot the kisses down with his hands as if they were guns. Just a bit of fun, y’know. Something no one else understood apart from us.’ Sally became a younger Sally as she talked of times gone by. Cherry caught Chase wiggling his fingers subtly towards the window but only he could see Nostalgia, waltzing outside the window.

‘There was one particular session when Velina told me Ron was in the room,’ Sally continued. ‘I asked her what Ron did when I kissed the air twice and she said he simply blew kisses back at me. It was like flipping a switch. In an instant I realised it had all been lies and deception. I couldn’t take it, I couldn’t believe that all that time when I thought I had this connection with Ron… Well, angry doesn’t cut it. I shouted, screamed, I even ripped down half of that bloody beaded curtain.’ Sally laughed bitterly. ‘I stormed out of their shop, determined to out them as frauds when Danior caught up with me and told me she knew.’

‘Knew what?’ Cherry asked, drawn in.

‘She knew about…’ Sally swallowed hard and spoke into her lap, ‘… my… other man.’

‘Other man?’ Cherry’s hand faltered at Sally’s shoulder.

‘You cheated on Ron?!’ Chase gasped.

‘Please don’t judge me,’ Sally said. ‘I loved Ron, I did, but I fell for someone else too. I never wanted to hurt anyone. It just happened.’

‘But, Sally,’ Cherry said, glancing out the window. ‘That doesn’t justify —’

‘I know! It’s been over thirty years. I know what I did and just how wrong it was and I’ve had to live with that guilt every. Single. Day.’ Sally sniffed. ‘And then Danior… she saw me with… the other man after Ron’s funeral. I was breaking it off,’ she added quickly before Cherry’s expression could contort into one of disapproval. Sally kept her composure but the tears kept pouring down her cheeks. ‘I loved Ron with all my heart, I really did. I still do. He really did take a part of me with him when he died and I just wanted to move on and honour his memory. It was my small way of trying to make it up to him but when Danior found out, that was the end of that, and the end my life as I knew it.’

‘How?’ Chase asked.

‘I wasn’t the only person to love or miss Ron. Everyone knew him, everyone loved him and the whole town mourned him. Everyone would have burnt me at the stake had they known what I’d done.’

‘Why did anyone have to know? What you did was wrong, but it was still your business. No one else’s. And you were trying to move on,’ Cherry said.

‘It became Danior’s business as soon as she realised she could use it to her advantage.’ Sally’s lip trembled.

‘My aunt,’ Chase said, ‘has a way of using people’s personal and private information against them and to her advantage. I’ve watched her do it over and over again. Had I known, Sally, I —’

Sally held up her hand and shook her head. ‘This was my bed and I had to lie in it.’ She took a sip of tea. ‘Danior said that she’d tell everyone, that she’d announce it at a town hall meeting or at church or she’d tell each of her clients when they came in to the shop. She threatened to turn me into the most hated woman in town and I couldn’t face losing anything else after losing Ron. I was scared.’