Divine Grace Read Online Free

lobster but never tanned. Whatever 18

    skin wasn’t red or pink stayed pasty white, and she’d given up tanning early on.
    Owen preferred to always have the lights off when they did have sex, and he often told her it was because he didn’t want to see her body shape.
    Maybe he imagined someone else in bed with him who was skinnier, and it was easier for him to fantasize with the lights off. She was a plus-size gal but not morbidly so. At least she didn’t think a size sixteen or eighteen was obese. She had a round, generous butt and big breasts, but at least her waist was small, which always made it difficult to find jeans that really fit right.
    She’d always hated her thighs but most days felt like she’d come to grips with her attributes, except on the days when Owen would start in on her, usually at meal times.
    Most men would be grateful to have a woman around who liked to cook and bake. Not Owen. He expected all those things, but when they sat down to eat, he felt it necessary to question whether she should eat this or that because it might make her fatter. Not fat. Fatter. Often, when he was drunk, he’d even called her Fatty. She did her best to consider the source of criticism. He was out of shape himself. He didn’t have a regular job. He worked odd jobs here and there but really didn’t contribute financially all that much. When she did ask for help with groceries or utilities, he acted as if she’d asked him to open a vein for her.
    He’d been her boyfriend in high school, and after graduation they just sort of continued on with the status quo. When her mom passed away a few years before, it seemed to make sense to let him move in and help out with living expenses. She felt safer with someone else in the house.
    Lately, whenever Jack came in the store, which had been frequently, he teased her, asking when she was going to dump her boyfriend and go out with him. She’d always assumed he was just kidding around. What if she weren’t encumbered with Owen? Would Jack seriously ask her out? Unless she made some changes, she’d never know.
    She pulled in the driveway, and there Owen sat on the front porch, drinking beer with one of his buddies. Beer she’d paid for, not that she drank the stuff. He belched as she walked up. She cringed at the greeting she got, but his next words truly horrified her.
    “AC ain’t workin’.”
    Oh, no.

    19
    There went her emergency fund. She had scrimped and saved everywhere she could to build that fund up so she wouldn’t have to use credit for emergency repairs. She hated to start over. What if she didn’t have enough? She walked in the house and started opening windows. He must have just gotten home from who knows where, otherwise he might have seen that dinner was on the stove. They undoubtedly would have scarfed it up themselves, leaving her little, if any. She even knew what he would say.
    Something helpful and supportive like, “Have a salad,” or “There’s mealshake in the fridge.” Salad was an appetizer, and she hated mealshakes.
    She hated him, too, sometimes.
    She checked the breaker to see if it had been flipped. Maybe that was all that was wrong. No such luck. She turned the central AC unit off and turned on all the ceiling fans in the house. She fixed herself a bowl of stew, tore off a small chunk of the fresh bread and buttered it, and sat down to eat, pondering her next move. She had planned to go to Rose Marie Warner’s visitation tonight at the funeral home in town. Now she didn’t feel like she had the strength to get ready for it. She would pay her respects tomorrow.
    Plus, she felt if she went tonight that it would seem too much like she was seeking Jack out.
    She got out the phone book and looked in the yellow pages for an AC
    repairman. She called a couple of them to see what their rates were and when they could come out. One repairman said he was booked ahead for three weeks. She couldn’t afford the rates of the other repairman but