Chapter 22

Cora

“Where did you get this?” I asked as I fingered the HUGE ziplock baggie.

“I found it in the shed in the back yard,” Chawlie said.

“In the shed?”

“Yup,” he replied.

“My shed?”

“Yup.”

“In our backyard?”

“Yup,” he grinned.

“How long ago?”

“Couple months after we moved there.”

“Charlie ... we moved there two years ago,” I said. I weighed the baggie in my hand, hefting it to judge the contents. There was, at a bare minimum, a half a pound. I un-zipped it. The car instantly smelled like we had run over a skunk not more than a second ago. I coughed, Chuck sniffed deeply.

“There was a LOT more,” he said, innocently.

“Oh.” I said. “Shit!”

“Good shit,” he said.

I zipped the lock. The smell didn’t go away.

“No ... bad shit!”

“You brought this,” I shook the baggie by way of emphasis. “All the way from Montana?”

Imagine, if you will, my voice becoming more shrill with each word I uttered ... the rising inflection increasing as the redness of my face continued deeper and deeper until I ended.

“You had ME transporting illegal substances across the country, moving from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, crossing I don’t now how many state lines ... in my CAR?”

Screaming now.

“CHUCK! HOW COULD YOU?”

“Gees, mom. Take a pill. It’s only pot!”