Free Grace and Grit by Lilly Ledbetter Page A

the fact someone or something was not always tended to properly. I had to face the self-loathing this created. Vickie’s question made me realize that I didn’t want to quit making doughnuts or carving pumpkins or baking Christmas cookies because I was too tired to get it all done.
    I told Charles before bed that night that I’d quit work. At first he looked surprised, despite the fact that he’d staged his own protest by ambushing me almost daily with arguments on why I should quit. Then he hugged me as if the University of Alabama had just scored a touchdown. I was glad when he let me go and went to brush his teeth. I didn’t feel victorious; I felt deflated. I remembered all the times before I started working when I went to the A&P. I’d hold my breath during checkout as the cashier punched in the prices on the cash register. I was always within cents of my $20 limit, having kept a running tally of the groceries in my head, calculating the math before I placed each new item in my cart. To my relief, not once did I have to return anything to the shelves.
    The next evening, before I started cooking dinner, I gathered the family in the living room. Charles told Vickie and Phillip that I was quitting.
    Phillip asked, “Can we still go to Jack’s for a hamburger?”
    A hamburger cost fifteen cents. That expense would have to go. I recalled all the times I unsuccessfully begged my mother for a bicycle or piano lessons. I couldn’t believe it, but here I was telling Phillip
no
.
    “We’ll have to eat at home from now on. Hamburgers are too expensive.”
    Phillip jumped up and started mimicking Cousin Cliff, singing the jingle for the Jack’s ad on TV. “You’ll go back, back, back … to Jack’s, Jack’s, Jack’s … for more, more, more!”
    Vickie hushed Phillip and asked why I didn’t want to work anymore. When I explained that I couldn’t get all the housework done, she was silent at first, then she, too, became animated. “We can pitch in. I’ll clean my room every night before bed, and Phillip can clean his.” Vickie jumped up and ran into her bedroom, returning with a pencil and the lined writing paper she practiced her cursive writing on. “I’ll make a list for me and one for Phillip, and we can hang it on the refrigerator so we don’t forget.”
    Right then, I knew that whether I chose to stay at home or continue working, I’d have to live with the guilt inherent in each decision.
    I asked Phillip to find my car keys. We were going to Jack’s for dinner.
    Once we made our decision, we created new family rituals. On Saturdays we divided the chores and cleaned the house. I made Charles do his own laundry after he ruined almost all of my clothes with the blue ink pens he forgot to empty out of his shirt pocket. Between morning church and evening services on Sundays I’d fix a big pot of spaghetti or soak some pinto beans with ham hock that Vickie would warm up during the week. As she got older, she learned to make corn bread and slaw to go with supper. Phillip liked to tease her about burning everything she cooked, but she looked after him, and they were always close. During Christmas vacation, the whole family gathered around the card table folding reminders to fifteen thousand H&R Block clients to complete their tax returns early. Then we stuffed the envelopes and separated them by zip code. Charles and I gave the kids the $400 H&R paid me.
    Charles began shouldering a good portion of the responsibilities that had once fallen solely to me, such as picking up the kids from Mrs. Harris’s. As Vickie and Phillip became more involved in school activities, Charles was the one who participated in the PTA meetings, attended Phillip’s football and baseball games, andworked the concessions when Vickie was a cheerleader and in the marching band—I was grateful that not once did she have to worry about buying a uniform. Over time, he became accustomed to my working, and the day my paycheck became