"Ruin and Redemption"

The Revelation

“Of course I would, Izzie. I’d have to figure out what to do, but of course I’d want to know.”

“Oh.” She found herself saying. Somehow it still felt wrong in a way to break the news.

She didn’t want to be the messenger. Why was it she who had to do this? Shouldn’t it be Mindy instead?

She gave Mindy a quick kick under the table.

“Josiah.” Mindy squeaked. “I have to tell you something. Me and Derrick…”

“ I saw them kissing, Josiah. I made her tell and now I’m spoilin’ things for ya. Pass the beans, won’t ya, Woodrow?”

Woodrow passed the beans without looking at her. He was staring at Joe.

“Something happened with you and Derrick?” Joe asked, his eye fixed on Mindy.

“Um, yes, Josiah. We, we, we, um, he’s sick now, Josiah. He’s already got an infection, an’ I’m worried. I love you more than I love him, and that’s the truth, Josiah. But, but, I was lonely and scared you’d never come home. I couldn’t take the loneliness, Josiah. I missed you so much. Me and Derrick, we, we…um, Josiah, I’m terribly sorry.”

She couldn’t say anymore. The pain in Josiah’s one eye was enough.

“I, I, I think I’m finished with dinner," Mindy got up and headed to Izzie's and her mother's room, where her mother was already waiting for her and shooed her inside.

Joe stayed in his seat. Worse has happened, he thought. I’ve seen men die in front of me. I made it home. I survived. Derrick is sick. And he should be. God, what has become of me? He hated thinking like that. What had happened between his wife and Derrick? Izzie would not have forced a confession over a simple kiss, he knew that. It must have been more than that.

“Izzie? What did you see?”

“Yeah, I saw it, an’ I’m sorry I did. Wish I didn’t know nothing, Joe. They were, you know, goin’ at it. You know, Joe, what you two do in the bedroom I suppose. I shouldn’t have said nothing, but, but you had to know the truth didn’t you?” 

“Yeah, Izzie. Thanks, I needed to know. But what’s going to happen to Mindy now, Izzie? I’m worried about her. Now that she knows that I know what she’s done to our marriage. She was so proud of it, Izzie. So proud she could say no to Derrick, or thought she could. Nobody says no to Derrick, I guess. If they do, he’ll force it, but he didn’t have to force it, did he, Izzie? I’ll kill him if he did.”

“Nah, Josiah, he didn’t have to….”How did she go into the whole thing? Mindy swore Derrick hadn’t really planned on it that last time, that she would have gone along with it, that. Hell, she had no idea what to think about the last situation she had seen him and Mindy in.

“So Izzie, she just let him? She didn’t try to stop it? She wanted it to happen, Izzie?”

“Josiah, yeah, yah don’t haf to kill Derrick. Might have been his idea, I don’t know, but she seemed to like it, Joe.”