Death by Chocolate

easily
grabbed Louise’s arm in mid-strike, twisted it, and sent her to the porch deck
with one easy movement.
    But sometimes... karate
just wasn’t enough.
    She let Louise slap her.
    Then she pulled back her
arm, made a fist, and let it fly. A moment later, Louise was doing a graceful somersault
off the porch and onto the sidewalk. Her landing, however, was far less elegant
than her flight.
    Louise ended up flat on her
back, where she rolled around on the ground, shrieking in pain and holding her
jaw. From the cracking sound Savannah had heard when she’d made contact, she
guessed was at least dislocated, if not broken.
    “I’m going to sue you,”
Louise yelled as she scrambled to her feet, still holding her face with both
hands. “I’m going to have you arrested, you lousy bitch. I’m going to—”
    “Oh, shut up and go home,”
Savannah told her. Then she chuckled. ‘You might wanna stop by the hospital on
the way, though, and get that jaw x-rayed.”
    It wasn’t until Savannah
was back in her house with the door closed behind her, her friends and sister
gathered around her, that she started to genuinely feel happy again.
    Maybe she’d gotten a guy
arrested today for murder, a guy that she really liked. But she’d also had the
privilege of decking Louise Maxwell.
    The day wasn’t a complete
write-off.
     
    * * *
     
    After the Magnolia team had
finished celebrating and had gone home, Savannah sat in the living room with
Cordele, who seemed a bit less morose than usual. It was a welcome change.
    “I was thinking of going home
tomorrow,” she said as she reached for Diamante and pulled the cat onto the
sofa beside her. “Classes start up again in about a week and a half, and I’ve
got things to do at home.”
    “That’s too bad,” Savannah
said, stretching her legs out on the ottoman and settling back in her chair. “I
was thinking that since my case is closed, I’m pretty much free and clear for a
few days.”
    Cordele perked up. “Yes....
and....?”
    “And I was thinking that
since my sister is visiting me all the way from Georgia, maybe we could spend
some quality time together. We could hop in the Mustang and head up the Pacific
Coast Highway. Drive up to Big Sur, hike around in the woods up there, walk on
the beach, hang out, you know.”
    “Really?”
    “Sure. Why not? I’m not
exactly rolling in the dough, so we’ll have to stay in cheap motels and eat
fast food.... or cheap produce, if you prefer.”
    “Fast food’s okay, once in
a while.”
    “Sound good?”
    “Sounds great!”
    “There’s just one thing.”
    Cordele’s smile evaporated.
“I know, I know... no talking about the past.”
    “No talking about bad things in the past. We can’t pretend that our childhoods were rosy, but we can
set them aside for a few days and get to know each other all over again in the
present, can’t we?”
    Cordele studied Savannah’s
face for a long time, then said, ‘That’s what you do, isn’t it? You just ‘set
it aside.’ That’s how you cope with what happened to us.”
    “I have to, Cordele. It’s
the only way I can live.”
    ”Then you’ve really
forgiven them—Mom and Dad?”
    “If you mean, have I
forgotten what happened? No. I remember. But I deliberately make myself not
dwell on it. It’s over.”
    “Don’t you feel like....”
Cordele paused, searching for the words. “Like they still owe you somehow for
what they did... for what they didn’t do?”
    “No. They don’t owe me
squat. To want something from them is to be tied to them, waiting for something
I’m never going to get. Why bother?”
    Cordele sniffed and reached
for the box of tissues on the end table. “I wonder if Mom and Dad did their
best. I wonder if they were lousy parents because they didn’t know any better
or just didn’t give a damn.”
    “Who knows? Who cares?”
    When Savannah saw the look
of pain cross her sister’s face, she left her chair and moved over to the sofa
to sit beside her.
    “ I care,” Cordele
said. ‘That’s who.”
    Savannah took her in her
arms and rocked her, as she had when she was a child. She smoothed the short
dark hair. “I know you care, sweetie,” she said. “I know you want to know. But
hell, they probably don’t even know. At this rate, you’re going to spend
your whole life trying to figure out what was inside somebody else’s head.
You’re going to take all those classes and read all those books, and search
your memory and your soul