The Snow Globe (Southern Vampire Mystery)

The Snow Globe

Sookie looked at the snow globe that sat in its special Plexiglas box above the cash register. It had been just about this time three years ago that her life had begun. She smiled, remembering how, at the time, she thought her life was ending, but that was the funny thing about fate. It came when you least expected it.

Three Years Ago...

Sookie and John Quinn married right out of high school. He was the town's golden boy, captain of the football team and everyone's favorite son. He was louder and stronger than anyone else. His classmates revered him and mothers wished he would date their daughters. No one understood why he chose mousy, stick-in-the-mud Sookie for his girl, not even Sookie. In her junior year he had seen her in the library. He smiled at her in that larger-than-life way he had and he held out his hand. She shyly offered her own and that was that. John started to give her rides home, and then he gave her rides to school. He walked her between classes and brought her to his games.

Gran was so happy her Sookie had landed the town hero; she just about threw her granddaughter into John Quinn's arms. In no time the little house on Hummingbird Lane was crowded with pictures of Sookie and John. There were pictures with John in his football uniform and pictures at his sports banquets. There were pictures of the two of them before junior prom and then before senior prom. It was the night of the senior prom that John asked her to marry him and she couldn't say no. He'd taken her virginity later that same night after the dance in a room at the Motel 6. Sookie knew that meant it was forever and within a few months of graduation, she was standing in the little church she had attended most of her life, being married. They moved in with John's mama in another little house on the other side of town. John already had a job at the local lumber mill and Sookie was expected to learn how to be the right kind of wife for him under his mama's supervision.

Every Sunday they would go to afternoon supper at her Gran's house following Church. Most nights John would go out without her. Some nights he went to the gym. Other nights he went out with some of the fellows from the mill. For the first year of their marriage, at least two nights a week, they would go out, just the two of them. 'Date nights' John called them.

During the day Sookie worked as a waitress at First Alarm. It was a restaurant right in town that only served breakfast and lunch. It was close to where they lived and Sookie walked there most days. It was a popular place, and people liked her ready smile and her ability to remember their orders. Her tips were good and Sookie used the money to buy small things. Most of the money she gave to John for their bank account. They were saving to buy a third car, one for Sookie.

Yet as their marriage passed its second anniversary, John started finding reasons not to go on Date Nights. That didn't mean that he didn't want to make love, it just meant he would wake her up when he got home. Sometimes he was gentle and loving about it, sometimes not so much. He was a big man and Sookie knew that what John said went. That's how it was. She also knew that he didn't want any children yet and she made sure of that too. She didn't want to disappoint him. She never had, but somehow she knew that if she did, it would not go well for her.

Then one night, close to their third anniversary, John's mama said she wasn't feeling well. John wasn't home, but that wasn't unusual. John's mama told Sookie she had a sick headache and she needed Motrin. She told Sookie to drive to the Walmart using the car her son bought her.

Sookie drove slowly; worried she would get in an accident. As she put on the turn signal to enter the parking lot, she could see flashing lights ahead. She pulled into the lot and found herself walking with the rest of the crowd to see what happened. Theirs was a small town and everyone knew that if there was an accident, it was likely someone you knew or knew of.

As she walked closer, her arms wrapped around her, she could see Sheriff Andy Bellefleur. His face was grave. She could see the outline of the twisted car and something in her head went numb. The car was John's car. There was an ambulance. In front of her a woman said, "Oh my God, they're dead!"