Anne Brisden

The Lord will be pleased and I'll rest easy.

Carol leaned across the table and rested her head against my chest.

I put my arms around her and pressed her body into mine.

She smelled so clean and soapy and pure that I was sure we'd be happy together.

The days of scandal, of a white girl marrying a half-caste, weren't quite over.

But when I met Carol's parents in Abraham's dusted-off black suit and told them of my plans for a church, they seemed satisfied.

Yes.

They live far enough out of town to have no direct experience of my reputation, and they never made inquiries.

To this day, I think that maybe they didn't want to know.

I did love Carol.

but not as much as I loved the grog and the good company of the old mission boys.

I loved the stories they told.

I loved the town girls who drifted out to the lake to lie by the water of a night and look up at the stars.

After a time, of course, the mission boys died away and the girls grew into women with a tribe of kids of their own and an old man for each of them.

If one of them caught his wife out at the lake, he'd kick her ass all the way back to town.

I downed a can of Rebel Yell at the kitchen sink and threw another couple onto the passenger seat of the old Datsun.

I then set out to lay my claim to Carol and the kids.

Along the way, I stopped at the cemetery out of town, sat on a gravestone, drank another can.

I plucked a bunch of flowers from a grave to present to Carol as a peace offering.

I shook the dust off them and sat them on the seat with the last of the grog.