Free Shem Creek by Dorothea Benton Frank Page A

think so. ”
    “You’re right. I mean, I suspected he was seeing someone for a number of reasons. First, he seemed, I don’t know, cheerful, that is to the extent that your father can seem cheerful. And, when he bought my ticket to South Carolina, I knew something was up. But, I never thought in a million years that he was involved with someone at that level. It was shocking.” I looked at Lindsey and realized she felt sorry for me for getting bamboozled and I hated that. To make things worse, I had given Fred a little jab, and I knew that was in poor form to speak badly of him to the girls, but now and then I couldn’t help myself. Hell, I wasn’t a saint, you know. But I tried to redeem myself by saying, “Look, it’s okay now. I am happier and so is your father and so are we all . . . so continue!”
    “Okay. Eventually, we went back inside and Operation Kill Thanksgiving continued but, with slightly less enthusiasm, because it was pretty depressing. Our next step was the silent treatment. Whatever Patti asked us, we gave her one-word answers. It was truly a beautiful thing. I loved it.
    “So, where are you going to college, Lindsey?
    “Dunno.
    “So, Gracie? Do you like sweet potatoes?
    “No.
    “Have you ever gone to the Macy’s parade?
    “No.
    “We could tell by her body language that Patti was uncomfortable because she had failed to charm us right off the bat. Daddy shot us multitudinous looks of threatening anger and we would stare back at him with innocent blank faces. I knew he thought we were torturing her, when actually we were torturing him through her. We didn’t give a damn about her. He, however, was supposed to care about us. Eventually, in between flipping channels on the television, he finally started getting mad, which was what we had hoped for.
    “Patti said something like, Do you girls like the turkey livers fried? To which we both replied with a loud Ew! Gracie made some extreme gagging noises for special effect. Anyway, Dad slammed the remote so hard on the arm of his chair that the batteries fell out. Patti left the room to baste her bird.
    “ Dinner’s almost ready, she said over her shoulder in an exasperated voice.
    “Rather than deal with Dad exploding, we quickly changed tactics. Come on, Gracie, I said, let’s go help Patti in the kitchen.
    “Daddy eyed us with suspicion. Who could blame him for that? Sure, Gracie said, why not? You’re right .
    “Silence for a moment from Dad. Then he sat back down and prepared to resume ignoring us as humans. But before that he hurled us a threat.
    “ Finally! Daddy said, and took a deep breath. You had better be nice. She means a lot to me. Bring me a beer and help Patti. Your old man needs a moment of peace around here.
    “Not for nothing, but what would he do if we were not nice? Withhold our allowance? Um, he didn’t give us one?
    “Anyway, Gracie took Daddy a Budweiser and I leaned against the counter watching Patti. She was peeling carrots, letting the skins fall into the garbage disposal.
    “ You’d better grind them as you go, I said.
    “ Why? she said.
    “ I dunno, I said, and shrugged my shoulders. It’s what Mom does though .
    “That was when the nice Patti left and the real Patti looked me right in the eye and said, Look, sweetie, I don’t give a damn how your momma does things, okay?
    “I thought, Well! Jeez! How about that? Hmmm, Patti Elliott had a temper after all. But as a member of the Breland clan, I’d been dealing with angry adults all my life and mood swings were my specialty. I took a deep breath and rose to it. I wasn’t ready yet to remind her that as far as we were concerned she was still below insignificance in our world. So I quickly said, I’m sure you don’t . Before she could show me some more tooth, I added, Want me to put plates on the table?
    “ Suit yourself, she said. Dinner’s in thirty minutes .
    “Just then, Gracie came back and I said, Hey, Gracie, grab four dinner plates from