Free The Silver Star by Jeannette Walls Page B

it was perfect. We were all experts at pretending.”
    “Don’t be ridiculous,” Uncle Tinsley said. “You’ve always exaggerated everything. You’ve always had to create your little dramas.”
    Mom turned to us. “See what I mean, girls? See what happens around here when you try to speak the truth? You get attacked.”
    “Let’s just have tea,” Uncle Tinsley said.
    We all sat down. Liz poured and passed the cups around.
    Mom stared into her tea. “Byler,” she said. “Everyone in this town lives in the past. All they ever talk about is the weather and the Bulldogs. It’s like they don’t
know or care about what’s happening in the outside world. Are they even aware that their president is a war criminal?”
    “The weather’s important if you live off what you grow,” Uncle Tinsley said. “And some people think President Nixon’s doing a pretty good job trying to wind up a
war he didn’t start. First Republican I ever voted for.” He stirred sugar into his tea and cleared his throat. “What is the plan for you and the girls?”
    “I don’t like plans,” Mom said. “I like options. We have several options, and we’re going to consider them all.”
    “What are the options?” Liz asked.
    “You could stay here,” Uncle Tinsley said. He took a sip of tea. “For a while.”
    “I don’t consider that an option,” Mom said.
    Uncle Tinsley set down his teacup. “Char, you need to give these girls some stability.”
    “What do you know about looking after children?” Mom asked with a tight smile.
    “That’s not fair,” Uncle Tinsley said. “I do know if Martha and I had been blessed enough to have children, we never would have gone off and left them.”
    Mom slammed her teacup down so hard I thought she’d break it, then she stood up and leaned over Uncle Tinsley. When anyone criticized Mom, she went on the attack, and that was what she did
now. She was raising two daughters completely on her own, she said, and they were turning out darned well. He had no idea of the sacrifices she’d made. In any event, she was an independent
woman. She had her own music career. She made her own decisions. She wasn’t going to stand here and be judged by her brother, a broken-down old hermit still living in the house where he was
born in a dead-end mill town. He’d never even had the wherewithal to get the hell out of Byler, and she had not come back to this godforsaken place to answer to him.
    “Get your things, girls,” she said. “We’re going.”
    Liz and I glanced at each other, not sure what to say. I wanted to tell Mom how good Uncle Tinsley had been to us, but I was afraid she’d think I was taking his side, and that might make
things worse.
    “Didn’t you hear me?” Mom asked.
    We climbed the stairs to the bird wing.
    “Jeez, they hate each other,” I said.
    “You’d think they’d at least be polite,” Liz said.
    “They’re supposed to be the grown-ups,” I said, and added, “I sort of don’t want to go. We just met the Wyatts, and I really like them.”
    “Me, too. But it’s not up to us.”
    Uncle Tinsley was sitting at a writing table, scribbling on a piece of paper, when we came downstairs carrying the two-tone deb-phase suitcases. He folded the paper and passed
it to Liz.
    “The telephone number,” he said. “Byler two-four-six-eight. Call if you need me.” He kissed us each on the cheek. “You two take care of yourselves.”
    “Thanks for letting me bury Fido near Aunt Martha,” I said. “At first I thought you were a little grouchy, but now I think you’re neat.”
    And then we walked out the door.

 
CHAPTER TWELVE
    Mom drove as if we were fleeing the scene of a crime, passing cars on the road to Byler and running the stoplight on the south side
of town. She was gripping the steering wheel as if her life depended on it and talking a mile a minute. Mayfield had really gone downhill, she said. Mother would have been appalled. It looked like
Tinsley