Page 92 of The Usual Family Mayhem

“Easy,” Celia said. “You should write.”

Gram nodded. “Get paid for those wild stories you create in your head.”

They spelled out my dream. Make up stories. Write all those fantastical ideas that I shoved aside as soon as I entered the workforce. But I had to be realistic. “How do I afford to eat in this scenario?”

Celia leaned over and squeezed my hand. “You will always have a soft landing here.”

Always. I knew it, felt it. Saw it every day in how they treated each other and supported me. I messed up repeatedly and their only requirement was that I get back up and try again.

Jackson told me he was lucky about how he grew up. Actually, I was the lucky one. Not during the first six years but in every year after.

“I know it’s probably terrible to say but I’m happy both of your husbands died earlier than expected and you two found each other.” I could admit that here, in private, at this table. Anywhere else would be a big no-no. Wishing people dead wasn’t the polite Southern thing to do.

Gram snorted. “It took them long enough to go.”

“Mags.”

“What? I’m not wrong.” Gram took a sip of her tea. “It took so long in my house that I had to help the process along.”

Every thought I had screeched to a halt in my brain. I could hear the crash and pileup. “What did you just say?”

Celia gasped. “She doesn’t need to be burdened with this part.”

“She can handle it.”

That comment touched off a back-and-forth between Celia and Mags. One that didn’t include me. They continued with each throwing out an argument and the other one ignoring it or talking around it. I caught only pieces because they talked in code. Phrases rather than full sentences. At one point, Gram even used an acronym I couldn’t decipher.

All the bickering led to one conclusion. A fact that was both shocking and not. Their secret. It was all but set out in lights in front of me.

“You both poisoned your husbands.” Yep. I said it. That was the answer we’d avoided until now.

“Not quite.” Celia put up her hand as if to stop the runaway conversation. “Mine really did die in a car accident. That’s when I discovered he’d squandered all the money and used my name and social security number to acquire more debt.”

Gram pulled out a snort here. “He got lucky because he deserved a harsher way out.”

Okay. Wait a second. “Worse than dying in a fiery crash?”

Gram shrugged but Celia pushed on. “We don’t kill other women’s terrible husbands. The women decide what they need to do.”

Gram saved her biggest snort for right now. “We would if we could get away with it.”

Celia didn’t flinch. “Sometimes removing the threat is the only way out. Not always, not even most times, so we present all other options first.”

“If all else fails, we provide a how-toguide and the necessary supplies,” Gram added.

Supplies... yep.

How in the world was I going to explain all of this to Jackson? Or keep these ladies from getting arrested? Those were two of the questions banging around in my head at the moment.

I needed this one answered first. “I don’t want the two of you to get in trouble. So, where are thesenecessary suppliesnow that they’re no longer in the locked cabinet?”

I was wrong. Gram had one snort left. “What did you think we kept in that locked shed in the backyard?”

Chapter Forty-Three

The shed. Not the pantry. Not the baking annex. The shed.

After a wildly eventful morning and a delicious lunch of leftover pot roast, I stood outside, looking at said shed. I’d spent my whole life assuming the most interesting thing in there was the lawn mower. In hindsight, who would lock down a lawn mower? Then there was the fact Gram had a gardener who took care of the grass, and he brought his own equipment.

---