because she knew that if Charlotte had died at the age of eighty, she still would have died before Lily hadfinished loving her. She cried because of the choice that lay before her: to stay married to a memory, or tomove on.
Rationally, Lily knew that Jack had a point — that Charlotte would have wanted Lily’s life to goon. But the problem was that Lily wasn’t sure she wanted her life to go on. Life seemed like a dangerouscontact sport, full of opportunities for loss and injury, with victory being only the dimmest of possibilities.
Right now, Lily wasn’t sure she even felt like being a spectator of such a sport, let alone a player.
CHAPTER 16
Lily rarely drank beer before noon. As a matter of fact, this was probably the first time she’ddrunk a beer before two P.M. in her life. But today was a special occasion — in the same sense that theday you’re scheduled to get a much-dreaded pap smear is a special occasion.
The hearing was two weeks from today, and yesterday she, Ben, and Buzz Dobson had sat downto plan their strategy. Buzz, once again, had turned his meager thoughts to the subject of Lily’s
“I was thinking, Lily,” he’d said, biting into a sloppy hamburger that squirted ketchup all over hisshirt. “It’d probably be a good idea to go ahead and pay some attention to your appearance. Get a nicehairdo, buy yourself two or three pretty dresses, go around for a couple weeks before the triallooking...looking—”
“Normal?” Lily had offered helpfully.
“Well, I wasn’t gonna put it that way, but yeah. You know, just let people see you out with Mimi atthe playground, at church maybe, looking the way people around here expect a young mother to look.”
So yesterday afternoon Lily had grudgingly called Sheila and asked what beauty shop she andTracee would recommend. If any women embodied “the way people around here expect a young motherto look,” they were Sheila and Tracee.
Sheila had been hysterical with joy at Lily’s call, sure, Lily thought, that the Faulkner Countychapter of the Stepford Wives had just recruited a new member. “Ooh, me and Tracee already have anappointment over at the Chatterbox for tomorrow at eleven-thirty,” she’d squealed. “I’m sure theywouldn’t mind if you tagged along. Oh, it’ll be so much fun! We can get our hair done and get facials, andyou can even get a Mary Kay makeover if you want. Me and Tracee won’t, though, ’cause we don’t needa makeover. And I heard they got some new dresses over at the La-Di-Da. Maybe we could walk overthere after we get our hair fixed, and spend some of the McGilly boys’ money.”