Chapter 9
Agnes McDonald took off her flowered hat and looked around the empty house. Where could that rascal of a husband be? she asked herself. Now, he must have got-ten my message that I was coming home from Myrtle's today. I sent it to his office last night, knowing that he'd be there working late...
And then she thought irately: Or was he there!
Jealousy rose in her breasts. She just bet that he hadn't been at work, that he'd been off gallivanting with some peroxided hussy! And where was that no-good son of his, too? Out boozing or taking drugs, she bet. She stomped around the house in her sensible shoes, and the more she did, the more frustrated and angry she became. Just wait, she told herself. Just wait until either one of those bums showed up, she'd show them. Males! They were all a-like, ruining a woman. Callous beasts. Why, if she didn't have the Ladies Bridge Club presidency to consider, she'd lock them out entirely, and really cause a war! She was almost furious enough to do it anyway, and let her social standing hang. To think, the best years of her life had been wasted on men!
Sticking her jaw out, she went to the phone, thinking of calling her friend, Libinia Whye; she'd gone through two husbands and was now a contented woman living by herself with fourteen cats. It would be a pleasure to talk to her for awhile, Agnes thought. Then her eyes spied a pad of paper by the phone, and grasping it in one hand, she read the address that was written on it.
Her eyes narrowed. It was in her husband's handwriting, but she didn't recognize the address. Her mind was still a mumbo-jumbo of thoughts, her trip, her plans of getting back into the local social whirl, and she didn't zero in on the true meaning of the scribbled note, at first. Then it all crystalized into one horrible realization. It had to be her horny husband's latest conquest!
To hell with her reputation! She was going to stop' the bastard's clock this time! She had had enough!
She drove to the small house located at the address written on the crumpled up piece of paper like a mad woman. A police-man stopped her, gave her a ticket, and in having to show the car's registration, she came across a small .38 revolver in the glove compartment. She had forgotten it was even there!
It was a wild woman that walked onto the scene at that house that day. A wild woman with a loaded .38 in her hand!
She fired just one shot before she passed out with hysteria. The shot almost missed, but not quite. It hit her husband in the fatty tissue of his inner thigh. That night one of her Bridge Club members had to bail her out of the city jail, where she'd been lodged for "firing a gun within city limits." Bert's father couldn't press charges, of course. But he also wouldn't be pressing his sex life either-for a long time. The doctor said it would take at least six months before the wound would heal completely.
by then, both Susan and her mother had moved to another town and started a whole new life. They were both much wiser.