Read Dorcas Online

Authors: Dara Girard

Tags: #fiction

Dorcas (2 page)

BOOK: Dorcas
3.7Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

“I can't leave you here.”

“It will only make him angry. Please Mummy.”

“No. Get your things.”

“I can't leave him. He loves me. I just made him angry.”

I stiffened with anger. “Your father never touched you and you let a man you lay with do this?”

Dorcas touched my sleeve to calm me. “You won't come with me?”

“No. It won't happen again.”

“He promised you that?”

She nodded. Michaela froze when she heard a car door close. “He's home early. Don't say anything. Please.”

I opened my mouth, but again Dorcas touched my sleeve, this time with more force. “We won't.” She went into the living room and sat down, as if nothing had happened. That was how Michaela's husband found us when he came in carrying two dozen red roses and a gold necklace. I smiled at him and had to admit that Aletta had been right. I didn't like his eyes either.

 

***

 

A year later Michaela gave her husband a son and four months after that he put her in the hospital with three fractured ribs, two black eyes and a broken nose. By that time it had become a family crisis. Dorcas' three daughters, Aletta and myself got together in the waiting room wondering what to do next.

“You see how he eats,” Dorcas said. “That could work in our favor.”

Aletta frowned. “How so?”

“A man like that can be poisoned.”

Deena shook her head. “She wouldn't have the nerve.”

“And it's against God,” Aletta added.

Dorcas raised her voice. “Don't talk to me about God, when a man like that can be deacon in a church and not be struck down by lightning the moment he enters.”

“There are other ways to get her away from him.”

“She's too afraid. He said he'd kill her.”

“She has to go to the police.”

“Someone has to convince her.”

“I will,” Deena said.

And to my surprise she was able to persuade Michaela to press charges.

I held Dorcas' hand throughout the trial and Hudson's acquittal. Yes, the judge let him go because of his slow smile and charming ways. He said that hitting a woman was common where he came from and that he didn’t know American ways and wouldn’t do it again. He told lies about Michaela and made his actions seem justifiable. He walked out. Dorcas didn’t move. But she began to smile.

“Yuh gone mad?” I asked her.

She only stood and turned to leave.

***

Michaela tried to get a divorce, but Hudson wouldn’t let her. He threatened to take full custody of their son.

Dorcas went through her savings, trying to help her daughter with her legal fees. But no matter how disappointing the defeat, Dorcas’ smile never left her.

“She has me worried,” I told Aletta one evening after Dorcas had left us. We'd just had tea together at Aletta's flat. We usually meet at my house, but for some reason my husband decided to catch a cold and stay home that week.

“It's that smile,” Aletta said.

“You noticed it too?”

Aletta set her tea cup down with a clatter. “How can you miss it?”

“If you didn't know her, she just looked calm and happy.”

“Yes, but we do know her,” she said, her tone grave.

“What could it mean?”

“I don't know.” Aletta sighed. “But she worried me with her talk about God.”

“She was just angry.”

Aletta shook her head. “And yet she smiles.”

I thought about that smile all night and I thought about it even more the next week when Hudson went missing.

Dorcas came to my house and the smile was gone, but her candyfloss voice was pleasant. “If anybody asks. I was
not
with you and Aletta last Thursday.”

I still remember the cool round feel of the marble as she placed it in my hand.

 

***

 

“Did you get it?” Aletta asked me that night, her voice tense.

“Yes. You?”

“You gone daft? Why would I be asking you if I hadn't?”

“We must do as she asked us,” I said.

“It’s not right. She was with us. Why should we lie?”

“We made a promise.”

“We were children,” Aletta countered.

“Doesn't matter.”

“She won’t change her mind. I’ve tried.”

“What if we don’t?”

“Do you want to risk it?”

I remembered Dorcas' words that we would die if we broke our promise. I didn't believe it, didn't want to, but an icy shiver of fear swept through me. “No.”

Aletta sighed. “I wonder why she's asking us to do this now.”

Two weeks later we found out. A body was found burned beyond recognition. Through dental records it was identified as Hudson. Dorcas confessed to the murder. She admitted to poisoning Hudson and then dumping his body and setting it alight. Naturally the police were skeptical. How could a woman of Dorcas' age and build have carried his body to a clearing and then torched it? However, no matter how long they questioned her, she didn't waver. The police were certain Michaela was somehow involved, but they could find no evidence to support their suspicions and she had a solid alibi--a broken wrist that Hudson had given her--that had sent her to the ER. Dorcas gave no other names and took full responsibility.

Michaela was just as distraught by her mother's confession, but there was an air of resignation when I visited her. Her plain little face was eerily composed. Her broken wrist in a sling. I helped care for her son and tidied up her place. When I glanced out the window I was surprised to see her garden was blooming. All the weeds were gone. I wondered how she had managed that after surviving such a severe beating.

Dorcas was indicted and later convicted. I remember the look between Deena and Dorcas and I thought of Michaela's garden and how the weeds were gone. I knew that Michaela couldn't have tended to the garden herself, and how as children Deena and Michaela had been so close, just as their mothers had been. Although they were not related by blood their souls, at times, seemed to be as one.

Although, I didn't want to, I imagined Deena being angered by Michaela's latest hospital visit and deciding to do something to stop him. I imagined her poisoning Hudson and then discarding the body somewhere. I imagined Deena telling her mother what had happened and Dorcas coming up with a plan. I imagined Dorcas burning his body. But of course, that's all just an old woman's conjecture. What could I know of such things? The truth could be vastly different.

The investigation is closed, but I know the truth: Dorcas was with us the night Hudson disappeared. But it's a secret I have to keep. I won't dare let it escape, even though I hate keeping it. Besides, it's not such a stretch to believe Dorcas' story. Everybody knows that Dorcas Mortag burns everything she touches.

 

The End

 

 

Other Titles

 

If you enjoyed
Dorcas
don't miss Dara's other stories...

 

 

A Home for Adam

A Gift for Philomena

Miss Lana Wilson

 

Or collections...

 

The Lady Next Door and Other Stories

Five Holiday Tales

 

Or novels...

 

Illusive Flame

Honest Betrayal

The Sapphire Pendant
(Book 1 in the Clifton Sisters Series)

Table for Two
(Book 1 in the Henson Series)

Gaining Interest
(Book 2 in the Henson Series)

Careless Rapture
(Book 3 in the Henson Series)

Familiar Stranger

The Daughters of Winston Barnett

The Henson Brothers
(Includes the novels
Table for Two
and
Gaining Interest
)

Out of the Past
(Includes the novels
Careless Rapture
and
Familiar Stranger
)

 

Discover these books and more at www.iloripressbooks.com

 

About the Author

Dara Girard is the award-winning, bestselling author of more than twenty novels including
Table for Two, The Daughters of Winston Barnett
and
Honest Betrayal
. You can visit her website at www.daragirard.com

 

Copyright Information

Dorcas

Copyright 2013 Sade Odubiyi

Published by Ilori Press Books LLC

Cover and Layout Copyright 2013 Ilori Press Books LLC

Cover Photo by Potapova Valeriya/123rf

 

 

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any fashion without the express written consent of the copyright holder.

 

Dorcas
is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed herein are fictitious and are not based on any real persons living or dead.

 

 

BOOK: Dorcas
3.7Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Sold to the Sheikh by Chloe Cox
Torn by Druga, Jacqueline
The Best I Could by R. K. Ryals
A Private Affair by Dara Girard
Mine at Last by Celeste O. Norfleet