Waking Up in Dixie Read Online Free

cloths from the cleaners on the way.
    Teeth cleaned and whitened on Thursday.
    And her regular hairdresser’s appointment on Friday; not so dark with the color this time.
    Respectable. Predictable. A decent life, all in all.
    She and Howe would see each other in passing, always pleasant, always polite.
    Even though Howe had helped her friends, he’d only done it under duress. So she’d given him the cold shoulder all week. Now, though, guilt told her she should be happy that Howe had relented about the Harrises. She ought to be happy enough with her life.
    She focused on the blessings God had given her. Their son Charles was such a darling, and even spoiled Patricia would eventually come to appreciate her as a mother one day, if only when she had children of her own.
    Speaking of mothers, Howe’s mother was mortal and in her mid-eighties; that was big on Elizabeth’s gratitude list. Augusta Whittington would croak one day, and Elizabeth would be the one who could rest in peace. No longer would she be Princess Di under her mother-in-law’s critical eye. The thought relaxed her.
    Maybe next weekend Elizabeth would slip away and take a drive up into the mountains. She was free. Charles and Patricia wouldn’t be coming home from college for another month—unless Patricia ran out of money again, in which case, she’d show up at the bank and wheedle it out of Howe before going back to Athens. If the weather was bad, she could read. She loved to read, as long as the books had happy endings.
    Something ought to have happy endings.
    The pipe organ signaled the end of the sermon and her daydreams, so she stood and opened to the hymn she’d marked with her order of service. She got through the first line before realizing Howe hadn’t risen beside her. Mortified that he hadn’t woken up, she gave his foot a firm poke with her own, but he remained seated, eyes closed.
    Everybody in the rows behind her could see, so she tipped slightly toward him and said out of the corner of her mouth, “Howell, wake up.”
    Usually, the use of his name was enough to get his attention, but he didn’t respond.
    Elizabeth bent to whisper an adamant “Howell, wake up” in his ear, but when she did, he started to tilt toward her, his eyes still closed.
    A bolt of alarm shot through her as she sat and pushed him back erect. “Howell?” she whispered, gripping his arm.
    Dear God, he was pale as paste, and stiff.
    But his chest was moving. He was breathing.
    Elizabeth turned to see Mitt Wallace from the club on the row just behind them. She grasped his forearm and drew him toward her. “Mitt,” she whispered as the choir started recessing down the aisle, “something’s the matter with Howell. Help me get him out.”
    Her husband would be humiliated if anybody realized the state he was in. God forbid, he should have a seizure in public, or worse. His battle-axe of a mother had made it clear from the beginning that appearances must be maintained at all costs, and Elizabeth had spent the past quarter of a century seeing that they were.
    So far, the recessional had distracted everyone enough to keep them from realizing what had happened. By some miracle, Howe’s mother was busy mouthing for Catherine Wilkerson to meet her in the vestibule as the choir passed, so she didn’t barge in and take over.
    Mitt came around and helped Elizabeth lift Howell. At six one, Mitt was as tall as Howe, but even with adrenaline working in their favor, they struggled to get Howe up and out into the side aisle, then into the minister’s study as inconspicuously as possible, his feet dragging across the polished stone floors.
    Once in the study, they heaved him onto the velvet three-cushion sofa.
    Mitt grabbed the desk phone and called 911, while a panickedElizabeth rubbed her husband’s hand and demanded, “Howell, can you hear me? Howell!”
    “My friend is unconscious,” Mitt told the 911 operator. “He’s breathing, but unconscious. We’re in the