Chapter 1

Old Bill Kerner had been eating his early dinner at the Chatham Cafe almost every evening, six days a week, ever since his wife died, oh, must have been three years ago. I'm pretty sure Bill would have been there seven days a week, only the place was closed Sundays.

He liked the food, he liked the owner, Harry Arnold, and he liked all of us waitresses who served him. But I was pretty sure old Bill liked me best of all. He always tried to sit in my section, when he could figure out where it was. He always treated me real nice. Most folks called me "Jennifer," but Bill Kerner, he always liked to call me "Jenny."

I'm Jennifer Leigh Bible, and I'm a single mom. I'd been waitresing at the Chatham Cafe for four years -- ever since I graduated from high school, right here in New Concord, Ohio. I had a little boy at home, Timmy, who lived with me and my mother. Timmy's six, now.

See, I got knocked up while I was still in high school, and I wanted to keep the baby -- but not the baby's daddy.

Now, Timmy's daddy was an OK boy, but I knew better than to think we ought to get married. I got child support from him -- well, mostly from his Daddy, really -- for a couple years after little Timmy came along, and I managed to get my high school diploma, but then that boy took off somewhere -- I don't know where -- and the child support took off with him.

Well, that's all right. I don't blame Ronnie for knocking me up; not anymore than I blame myself. He maybe wasn't anything to write home about, and I never thought hardly at all about ever marrying him, but he was the first boy who ever got into my pants.

You know all those stories you hear about girls who have sex too early, and with boys that don't half know what they're doing, and then the girl don't like it?

Well, it wasn't that way, with me. It was good -- damned good -- from the very first time Ronnie Mayhew did me. And it wasn't love, neither. I knew, even then, I didn't love that boy, Ronnie. But I found out, right away, that I loved what he could do for me, in the back seat of his father's Buick. Oh, man! I found out right quick, I was a girl who liked her loving!

And Ronnie used a rubber, that first time -- and the next time, and, I think, the time after that, too, but we were awful eager to get to it, and, sometimes, we'd just get too excited to worry that much about protection (and, Oh God, it was even better, without the rubber), and we'd just take a chance.

So it was the old story. We took too many chances, and finally, I got pregnant. I can't say I was all that shocked. I knew where babies come from, and I knew we'd taken some risks. So, you see, it wasn't all Ronnie's fault by any means. You know that old "stiff prick" saying? Well, they could say the same thing about some other body parts, too, if they wanted, and it would be just as true.

A wet pussy ain't got no conscience, neither.

Well, I went ahead and had my baby, and I did OK. My mama helped a lot while I was in school, and she never threw it up to me, how I'd screwed up and gotten pregnant. After high school, I got the job, there, at the cafe, and Timmy and I lived with my mom in her house. She took care of Timmy when I was working, and the three of us got by.

We got by pretty good, actually. Least, we did until recently. Mama's health started to fail, and the cost of the drugs she needed, just to get through from one week to the next, was awful high. We got some help from the State on that, but not nearly enough. We were too well-off to get a full ride from Medicaid, but we were way too poor to pay for medical help all on our own.

So the squeeze started making things pretty hard.

New Concord is just a small town, and everybody pretty much knows your business. Everybody knew, for example, all about me and Ronnie Mayhew and my little boy, Timmy.

And everybody knew that, awhile back, Old Bill Kerner had lost his wife of forty-some years, and that his two children lived clear across the country out on the west coast somewhere, and weren't around much, and that he had that nice place, set way back off Clearwater Creek Road, that he lived in all alone, since his wife, Sarah, had died.

It wasn't a mansion, Bill Kerner's place, but it was a right nice, big house for one single old man to live in, alone. I guess Bill wasn't all that old -- seventy, maybe -- but of course he seemed pretty ancient to me. He was in pretty good shape, for an old guy, but he was 'way older than my mother, for example. Mama was only in her fifties, but, her being so sickly and all, it made Mom seem pretty old, too. So I thought of Bill Kerner as a grandfatherly sort of fellow.

Well, I guess I thought wrong.

It started out when I was trying to find some extra work to help us pay mama's medical expenses. I was already working as many extra shifts at the Cafe as Harry Arnold, my boss, would stand for, and it still wasn't bringing in nearly enough. What I figured I could do was maybe clean houses for people. But the only time I had available was after hours at the cafe, or on Sunday, when I wasn't waiting tables.

Folks mostly didn't want you coming in to clean their houses at night -- nor on Sundays, either.