MARILEE ABERNATHY HAD PLANNED HER suicide to the last detail. She'd gotten up at dawn, showered, and made up her face with the Mary Kay samples she'd won playing Tuesday- night bingo at church and saved for special occasions. Then she'd put on the beige linen suit and matching pillbox hat she'd bought at the Style Mart. It wasn't Saks Fifth Avenue, mind you, but it was the only place in Chickpea, South Carolina, that didn't have bright orange or lime-green polyester pant-suits hanging from a half- price rack at the back of the store.

She wore her mother's pearl choker — you simply couldn't go wrong with pearls — and the smart, two-tone, beige-and- white high heels she'd never even taken out of the box until today. She knew her shoes were inappropriate. Labor Day had come and gone and dark brown spectator pumps would have been more in keeping with the season, but Marilee had chosen style over tradition. When folks came to her funeral, she wanted them to stand back and take notice.

And say what a shame it was that Reverend Grady Abernathy had abandoned wife and church for some slut with implants and big hair.

As for Josh, Marilee couldn't even think of her son without getting a lump in her throat the size of a turnip, and the absolute last thing she needed to do was start crying again. Someone might think she'd been crying over Grady, and she simply would not have it. Not after he'd turned their fifteen-year-old child against her and moved the boy right smack into the best little whorehouse in Chickpea. That her son had gone so willingly had been the lowest blow, and the closest Marilee had come to having a coronary.

She should have seen it coming. Josh had accused her of smothering him more than once, wanting to know where he was at all times, sticking her nose in his business, just being a regular pain in the butt as far as he was concerned. Marilee had to admit she'd become something of a nag and a worry-wart. As a result, she'd ended up alienating him — which explained why Josh was now living in Tall Pines Trailer Park with his father and a waitress by the name of LaFonda Bonaire.

The scandal had rocked the town and the church where Grady had preached for the past ten years. His dismissal came with a notice to evacuate the house provided by the church. A stunned and humiliated Marilee had packed their belongings in record time and put everything in storage. She'd been hiding out at her poor deceased parents' house for the past three days, hoping and praying she would wake up and discover it had all been a bad dream. But it was real. One minute she'd had a family and a life, the next minute it was gone. It was as though a giant tornado had come through and sucked up everything she'd ever known and loved.

But none of that mattered now. What mattered was finding a way to end the pain. And she had thought she'd found it when she had pulled her car into the garage and closed the door with the engine running.

It had seemed like the perfect way to die: sit inside a closed garage with the engine running until she nodded off. Marilee didn't know squat about carbon monoxide poisoning except that it was supposed to be painless. Like falling asleep.

So why in heaven's name was she still alive?

She gazed about her vintage Ford. She still held her son's baby blanket and the rubber duck he'd loved as a toddler. Life had been so much simpler then. Marilee had gotten pregnant on her wedding night. Grady had sent a dozen red roses to the hospital after she'd given birth, even though he was still in seminary school and they were barely making ends meet. She remembered as though it were yesterday the day they brought their newborn home.

Marilee remembered nursing Josh in the middle of the night, when the house was silent and all she could hear were the suckling noises he made. Even now she could close her eyes and conjure up the way he'd smelled, the feel of his downy hair against her cheek. And later, when his eyes lit up each time she walked into the nursery, his chubby arms reaching for her. She had been his world, his universe.

Now he no longer needed her. Funny how one could dismiss another human being so easily.

Marilee's eyes flooded with tears, and she swiped at them and tried to concentrate on the task at hand. The engine wasn't running. She peered over the steering wheel at the gas gauge. The needle pointed straight up to half a tank. Marilee sighed wearily. Somehow, in all the rigamarole, she'd forgotten about the faulty gas gauge. It had caused her to run out of gas several times over the past six months because she'd thought she had enough fuel to get her home.

Obviously, it had happened again.

Wasn't that just her luck!

Marilee wrenched open the door to the car and climbed out. There were still enough noxious fumes that she might be overcome after all, but she couldn't count on it. She needed fuel. She paced a moment and then spied a dull-red gas can sitting in the corner of the garage. She paid a boy to cut her parents' lawn twice a month. With any luck she'd come up with enough gas to get her to a service station.

The gas tank was empty, and Marilee had to bite back the four-letter word on her tongue. She would not resort to foul language. She planned to leave this world with her morals and dignity perfectly intact. Years from now folks would comment on what a lady she'd been, right up to the bitter end. Marilee noted the lawn mower and hurried over to it. She unscrewed the cap and looked inside. It was full! Her joy was short-lived, though, as she pondered how to get the gas from the lawn mower into the gas can so she could pour it into her tank.

Dang! This suicide business was not as easy as she'd thought it would be.

She walked around the garage, searching. A dusty garden hose was coiled on a shelf at the back. She examined it, but there was no telling how old it was. Her father had never thrown anything away in his life. Still, it should do the job. She went inside the house for a knife so she could slice off a three- or four-foot section. A few minutes later, Marilee was trying to siphon gasoline out of the lawn mower. She swallowed a mouthful, then spent the next few minutes coughing and gagging before she gave it a second attempt. Grady had made it all look so simple the time he'd done it. Once the gas started coming, she quickly moved her end of the hose to the tank, but in her rush, dropped it. She grabbed for it but was a split second too late. Gas spewed everywhere, dousing her hair, face and eyes. It felt like someone had set her eyeballs on fire.

"Hellfire and damnation!" To hell with dignity and morals! Marilee dropped the hose and raced blindly inside the house to the bathroom, where she bathed her eyes in cold water, ruining her perfect makeup and hairdo.

There went all her plans for a fashionable funeral. Irby Denton, who owned the local funeral home, would take one look at her and insist on a closed coffin. Marilee sat on the edge of the tub and wept. And here she thought she'd used up all her tears.

Where had she gone wrong? What had she done to Grady to make him hate her so? How could two people who'd once been so much in love, who'd vowed to God and themselves they'd never part, suddenly find themselves in such a mess?

It had to be the flannel nightgowns she wore to bed. And the floppy socks that kept her feet warm during the night. It was no wonder he'd left her. She'd failed her husband. She'd let herself go. Chased him right smack into the arms of another woman.

LaFonda Bonaire was probably allergic to flannel. Finally, Marilee composed herself. She returned to the garage and shook her head at the sight. What a mess. Leaning against her car and feeling defeated, she could just imagine what Grady would say.

"Marilee," he'd say, "if you had a brain you'd have to wear a warning label."

Grady had never talked to her like that in the early years. He'd referred to her as his Sweet Pea. "Sweet Pea," he'd say, "you are a sight to behold in that new dress," or "Sweet Pea, what did you think of my sermon today?"

Now she was just plain old Marilee, who was rewarded with a weary sigh from him when she asked the simplest question. "Marilee, I don't have time to worry about the Easter pageant. That's your job." Sigh. "Marilee, why are you bothering me with questions about the Christmas cantata when you know I have to prepare my sermon?" Another sigh. Or, "Marilee, why on earth would you serve taco salads at the senior citizens' dinner when you know elderly people can't eat spicy food? Have you any idea how many complaints I've received? I swear, Marilee, if you had a brain, you'd have to wear a warning label."

There were times she felt she couldn't do anything right, no matter how hard she worked. What about all the seniors' dinners that had been successful? And had Grady forgotten just how many visitors they had at Easter and Christmas? Of course she wanted everything to go right. Some of those visitors became members.

She shook her head sadly. Maybe Grady was right. What did she know about anything? She gave a sniff. Not that Grady was some kind of genius, mind you. Otherwise, he wouldn't have gotten kicked out of the church for sleeping with a woman who had a tattoo on her fanny that read Easy Rider. At least that's what Darlene Milburn claimed, and she should know since she taught water aerobics at theYMCA. Darlene had "excused" LaFonda from class for wearing a thong bikini, of all things.

Another woman. That was the absolute last thing she had expected of him.

Marilee wondered if Grady's recent diagnosis of high blood pressure had something to do with the change that had come over him. Seemed he was always tired and out of sorts or feeling under the weather. Her mother had long ago accused him of being a hypochondriac and although Marilee had defended him, there'd been times she'd thought the same thing. Lately, he'd become so moody she'd found herself tiptoeing around him. Then one day, right out of the blue, he told her he planned to leave the ministry.

Looking back, Marilee was surprised she hadn't tried to kill herself sooner.

With a heartfelt sigh, she stood and walked into the living room. The place was gloomy and musty from being closed up for so long, and she hadn't had the heart to do anything about it the past few days, hadn't wanted to remember how warm and inviting the house had been when her parents were alive. Grady had wanted her to sell it once her mother passed on; he resented the utility bills they received every month for a place that had been closed up for two years. "You'll never find closure until you let go of that house," he'd said more than once. But Marilee had resisted. She'd planned to put it on the market later, when property values went up, then use the money to send Josh to college.

Sheets covered the furniture and the old piano where she had once practiced her scales under the tutelage of Mrs. Sadie Habersham until her behind felt as if it were growing into the piano bench. The wooden floors wore a thick layer of dust. Heavy brocade drapes locked out the early-morning sun. Lord, but they were ugly, what with those thick cords twisted together like a bunch of snakes in mating season. The tassels looked as though they belonged in a bordello. What had her mother been thinking? They'd obviously been on sale, because one thing Hester Brown had never been able to pass up was a K mart blue- light special or a clearance table.

Wait a minute...Cords?

Marilee stepped closer and examined them. Three nylon strands were braided to make one thick cord. She tugged hard. The fabric was still good and strong. She glanced up at the beam that ran beneath the raised ceiling, her mind working frantically. Her answer was right in front of her.

She would hang herself!

Marilee hurried into the kitchen, to the junk drawer where her mother had kept everything that would fit and crammed in those things that hadn't. She found a pair of scissors and went to work. Each cord was about five feet long when she pulled the drapes open. She cut four lengths from the living-room drapes before making her way into the master bedroom and guest rooms, where the same drapes, different only in colors and degrees of ugliness, hung. It was no easy task cutting through the cords, and by the time she finished, she wore a blister at the base of her thumb. Gathering them together, Marilee realized she had enough cord to hang a gang of outlaws.

Grady had underestimated her. He figured since she'd never earned a college degree that he was the smarter of the two. It didn't matter that the reason she hadn't earned a degree was that she'd had to work two jobs to support them while he went to seminary school. Not that she'd minded. They were a team, working toward a future. Even when Grady sometimes felt he wasn't meant to preach, she would reassure him, bolster his self-confidence. Wasn't that part of being a wife and team member?

Once he'd become a pastor, she'd devoted her time to church activities. She'd been good at it too, or so she'd thought, until Grady began complaining about every little thing she did. It only made her more determined to work harder. Even if Grady found her lacking, others claimed she was the veritable backbone of Chickpea Baptist Church.

A lot of good it did her now.

Marilee sat on the sofa and began tying the cords together. The frayed tassels clashed with her outfit something awful, but she had no choice. An hour later, she had a sturdy, if gaudy-looking, hangman's noose. She spent the next ten minutes trying to throw the noose over the beam, and was about to give up before she remembered the ladder in the garage. It could also be used as her jumping- off place.

Heavens, but she could be brilliant at times!

Marilee dragged the ladder inside the house and placed it beneath the beam. Holding one end of the cord between her teeth, she began climbing. Okay, so the ladder was a little wobbly. She suddenly remembered her fear of heights and became angry with herself. She didn't have time to fret about every little thing.

Pausing halfway up, she attempted once again to throw the noose over the beam, all the while struggling to hang on to the ladder. Finally! She tied it so it wouldn't pull free. Marilee knew how to tie just about every kind of knot there was, thanks to Josh's stint in the Boy Scouts.

Crouching at the top of the ladder, she slipped the noose around her neck. Her hands trembled. She had no idea how much it was going to hurt, but the pain could be no worse than what she was feeling inside.

With an angry burst of determination, Marilee stood straight up. And banged her head on the ceiling beam with such force she almost fell off the ladder. In fact, she would have, had she not grabbed the beam to steady herself. The room spun wildly beneath her and she felt her eyes cross. Her skull throbbed. Afraid she'd given herself a concussion, Marilee stood there, trying to clear her head. The floor seemed miles away. It felt as if she was standing on top of Chickpea's water tower, where she and Grady had sneaked up the night she'd turned sixteen. They'd kissed under the stars and promised to love one another forever.

Forever. So why, at age thirty-five, was she all alone in the world?