Divine Evil

details. She hadn't had to struggle with bank statements and budgets. If there hadn't been as much money, or as much serenity, as she'd had with Mike, at least she'd been a wife again. Perhaps Biff hadn't been kind, but he had been there.
    Now, for the first time in her life, she was completely alone.
    The loneliness was crushing, the house so big, so empty. She had almost asked Cam to come home with her, just to have a familiar male presence in the house. But that would have been disloyal to Biff, and he had ruled her life for so long, his death would not change her allegiances.
    Besides, she had lost her boy somewhere along the way as completely as she had lost her boy's father. It wasn't possible for her to pinpoint when it happened, and she had long since given up the effort. He had stopped being her son and had become a restless, rebellious, defiant stranger.
    He'd made her feel guilty, miserably guilty, about marrying Biff so soon after Mike died. He hadn't said a word, not one, but the way he'd looked at her with those dark, condemning eyes had done the damage.
    She paused on her way to the huddle of outbuildingsand set down the boxes she carried. The sun was bright, glinting on the green hay that would be cut and baled by strangers. A new calf scampered after its mama for milk, but Jane didn't notice. In her mind the farm was already gone, and the hope she'd had for it.
    She'd loved it once, as she had once loved her son. But that feeling for the land and for her child seemed so distant now, as if experienced by another woman. She knew Biff had been hard on the farm, just as he'd been hard on the boy, as he'd been hard on her.
    They had all needed it, she reminded herself as she hauled up the cardboard boxes again. Mike had pampered them. She felt her eyes welling as they did too often these days and didn't bother to blink back the tears. There was no one to see. No one to care.
    In a few weeks she could take the money she earned from the sale of the farm and move to Tennessee, near her sister. She would buy a little house. And do what? she wondered as she leaned against the shed and sobbed. Please God, do what?
    She had worked hard and long every day of her life, but she had never held a job. She didn't understand things like escrow and capital gains. She was baffled and frightened by the people she sometimes saw on
Oprah
or
Donahue
who talked about discovering self, starting over, coping with grief.
    She didn't want to be liberated or capable. Most desperately of all, she didn't want to be alone.
    When the weeping had run its course, she mopped her face with her apron. She had gotten through the days since Biff's death by filling them with chores, necessary and unnecessary. Already that morning she had dealt with the milking, the feeding, had gathered eggs and washed them. She had cleaned her already clean house. It was still shortof noon, and the day stretched endlessly ahead, to be followed by yet another endless night.
    She'd decided to start on the sheds. Most of the tools and farm machinery would be auctioned off, but she wanted to go through the outbuildings first, to examine and collect whatever bits and pieces might bring a higher price in direct sale. She was terrified of not having enough money, of being not only alone, but poor and alone.
    Biff hadn't carried any life insurance. Why waste good money on premiums? She'd buried him on credit. Die now, pay later. The mortgage on the farm was nearly due, and the loan payment on the hay baler Biff had bought two years before. Then there was the feed payment, the market, the payments on the tractor and Biff's Caddy. Ethan Myers at the bank had told her they would extend her time until she had her affairs in order, but the payments gave her sleepless nights.
    She couldn't bear the shame of owing. Before, she'd justified all the credit by thinking it was Biff who owed, Biff who paid or didn't. Now there was no one to stand between her and the reality of being in debt.
    She couldn't sell the farm fast enough.
    She took the keys out of her apron pocket. Biff had never allowed her to enter this building. She had never questioned him. Had never dared. Even as she fit the key into the stout padlock, she felt a prickle of fear, as if he would leap up behind her, shouting and shoving. A thin line of sweat broke out over her top lip as the lock clicked open.
    The old rooster crowed and made her jump.
    The air inside was stale and overly sweet. As if something had