And that reminded Shad he still had to do something about Wally.

Shad’s gaze slid to Karl, who was sitting with a slouch that kept him propped in his chair while his arms were folded over his chest. Karl’s head was tilted back, eyes closed. The man was known to sometimes start softly snoring during a meeting, earning him another dig in the ribs from Jill’s elbow. Otherwise quite vocal, Karl was one of the few, including Shad, who was never moved to speak in these meetings. Of course, Karl liked to remind people that everybody knew how folks who claimed God talked to them had to be schizophrenic.

When Jill first started to murmur that Shad wasn’t “good enough” for Dulsie, the family was a bit baffled by her conclusion. After all, Jill herself had married Karl, who was another upright individual who unfortunately came from an unsavory past. Jill pointed out they knew what Karl’s past was, but why did Shad remain so tight-lipped about his own history? What was he hiding?

Shad suspected that Jill’s maternal instinct, which was said to run strong in her family, had tapped into that threat which once lingered in his psyche. It made sense to Shad, except there was one thing about her intuition he couldn’t understand. Jill didn’t seem to sense this threat until after it had left him.

Now why was that?

Chapter Six

Peace hath higher tests of manhood than battle ever knew.

--John Greenleaf Whittier

Located on a back road just a couple of miles from the Meeting House, the home where Dulsie grew up had originally been built as a 1920’s bungalow on the side of a hill. It was basically a single story home with a pebbly concrete basement, but Dad, who had once worked for a contractor, changed the entire character of the place. He built an additional wing which gave the house its current mutated L-shape. Dad also widened the porch so that it spread the full width of the original house, and built a bigger back porch and pantry on the side opposite the new wing. There was little left that suggested the original bungalow.

To one side of the house was Dad’s sprawling, metal-sided workshop, and behind it sat an old, single-car, clapboard garage that now served as the wood shed. Farther back on the next hill were four long turkey barns. The driveway that led up to the house was long and a bit meandering.

Throughout her childhood Dulsie considered this place to be her primary home and the Delaney farm as her secondary home. She had been a “surprise baby,” born when her older brothers were eight and ten years old. Apparently this had caused a bit of financial hardship for her parents because Mom quit working for a few years in order to tend to Dulsie. Aunt Maddie and Uncle Pax were always very generous with Dulsie’s family, and also watched Dulsie whenever Dad was unavailable after Mom went back to work. This favor wound up being “returned” when Dulsie was in high school and Uncle Pax’s hospitalization caused financial hardship for the Delaneys. Although Shad didn’t need to be watched, he was around Dulsie’s family more simply because her parents were there to help out. That was how Shad learned just what his parents had gone through to keep him away from that woman – Dulsie also refused to give her any maternal title – and out of state custody.

The weekly dinner after First Day meeting had been going on since before Dulsie was born. It used to include her maternal grandparents’ home, but in the years of their failing health the dinner became restricted to her home and Shad’s home. Her paternal grandparents were never included because Dad was estranged from them. People who bothered to notice that he had nothing to do with his family of origin used to sometimes inquire about this, and Dad simply stated they had a falling out when he left their church.

Dulsie knew that was a cover story with only a seed of truth, but Dad had to appear as the “bad guy” to preserve the family reputation. She did have some memories of her Grandma Wekenheiser from when Dulsie was around four or five years old, and she remembered liking the woman. But she never met Grandpa until the day of Grandma’s funeral.

It wasn’t much of a meeting. Shad and her mom looked cozy compared to Dad and Grandpa. The two men barely acknowledged each other and no introductions were made. There was one time the aged but still hulking man scrutinized Dulsie with such intent that she became uncomfortable and stepped behind Shad to escape his gaze. It probably had something to do with the fact Dulsie’s resemblance to Dad meant she also resembled his mother.

Grandpa was so large that Dulsie did wonder how her father had survived his abuse, but then again none of the very few accounts her parents had related to her compared to the slightly more numerous but definitely horrific stories Shad told her. At least Dad could entertain them with humorous events that even involved Grandpa, who apparently had the public persona of being a really fun guy to be around ... a lot like Dad. Of course Dad’s philosophy was that this world was spinning at over a thousand miles an hour, so he was going to enjoy the ride before something crashed and burned.

Years ago, shortly before Shad proposed to her, she asked Dad why he didn’t share Mom’s concern that Shad harbored something dark and dangerous.

Dad explained that boys who grew up with abuse usually turned out as one of three kinds of men. Some continued to be victims throughout their lives, setting themselves up over and over to be taken advantage of. Some believed power was attained by becoming abusers themselves, so they continued the cycle. The third kind became protective. Whether they simply broke the cycle and became good men, or went a step further and also tried to help others beyond their family, they could be depended on.

“Shad’s not trying to be a lawyer because he’s a greedy shyster,” Dad said. “We all know the last place he wants to be is in front of a group of people where he has to argue a point. I’m not denying there may well be a venomous snake lurking inside him, but I think he’s found someplace else to use it, and that will never be against his family. Your mom may always be right, but that just makes her kind of annoying.” Dad then grinned fondly at Dulsie. “Don’t you turn out like that.”

While Dulsie helped Mom and Aunt Maddie get the food out on the table in the dining room, which was part of the original house and located between the kitchen and living room, Shad hung out with Dad and Uncle Pax. The men were gathered around the empty fireplace and discussed the misbehavior of squirrels. Dulsie contemplated that thus far today Shad hadn’t altered his behavior with Mom one bit.

“Isn’t it squirrel season yet?” Dad asked Dulsie when the guys were called in to the dining room.

“Has been for well over a month.” Dulsie smirked as she stepped over to the chair that would seat her at Mom’s end of the table. “You know I prefer to wait until the weather cools off. If you’re so mad at them right now, you go hunt them yourself.”

“Yeah, right.” Dad strolled over to the other end of the table. “Like I’m gonna waste my time chasing squirrels when I’ve got a deadeye daughter who can blow away every one that’s fool enough to think his nuts are safe.”

Dad had a tendency to brag about Dulsie’s shooting ability. For one thing, she was the only person he knew who could match Uncle Pax during target practice. But it was one thing for Delaney men, who had already been “dismissed” as rabble rousers by the pacifist congregation, to take up arms. It was a bit scandalous for a woman descended from Margaret Leeds to be so proficient with a weapon. Dad did question how Dulsie’s ability to bring in game of all sizes was any different from Mom’s and Aunt Maddie’s pragmatic approach to slitting the throats of chickens and turkeys.