Free Going Away Shoes by Jill McCorkle Page B

her life, of those who wanted to hover too close and comfort her during a difficult relationship. When their dad headed out on a date, Jimmy said things like: At least pick one with a vertebra and opposable thumbs. One not beaten up by the ugly stick. One who won’t steal Mom’s things .
    Their mother was the real beauty of the family, or so everyone said, and she had grown more and more beautiful in these decades since her death, forever preserved in the family portrait that had hung in their dad’s waiting room, where depressed and troubled people had to sit and look at the perfect image of a perfect family. Autumn day —Pongo Lake —idyllic picnic spread: a wicker hamper draped in antique linen, bone china plate with deeppurple grapes and a thick crust of bread. Ann has often imagined the scene, striving to recall every little detail, as if studying one of those hidden pictures, looking for the missing piece, theexplanation that must be housed there, the bit of insight that has the power to pull her whole childhood together with a secure snap so that she might move forward once and for all. All that she has pulled from memory, though, is that when she lifted the basket lid, it was empty. And when she bit into one of the grapes, it was soft and rubbery, part of the artificial fruit that graced the milk-glass bowl always centered on the mahogany sideboard of their dining room. When she said she was hungry her mother said they were just there for the photograph and promised they would stop somewhere on the way home. Ann begged for the E&R Drive-In, a place famous for foot-long hotdogs and the little order boxes like parking meters at each spot. But she can’t remember if they stopped or drove straight home. She can’t remember what happened beyond sitting there in itchy church clothes, her mother’s thin cool fingers pressing Ann’s leg to keep her from jiggling, and an affected man in tight black clothing posing them like mannequins and then insisting they relax and look natural and happily joyful on this exquisite and delicious family outing.
    Their dad had a few sleepovers in those early years. He thought he was being discreet but it would have been hard to miss the parade of women tiptoeing to the front door between midnight and dawn, traces of their fragrances lingering behind, on the living room sofa and on their dad’s bedspread, the one their mother had custom made complete with shams and window treatments because she hadn’t been able to find exactly what she wanted inany of the stores. The women were probably only thirty or forty at the oldest, but in Ann’s memory, they were all old, and they all ran together, dark, light, plump, thin like funhouse mirrors, only not fun at all. Their voices went all singsongy when they saw Ann, speaking to her the way people talk to babies and kittens, sweet and fake and sometimes with gritted teeth like they could just as easily squeeze her to death like a boa constrictor.
    “Major dog fight,” Jimmy often reported with a bark or a growl, Ann relying on his every thought and belief. “Hope she was fixed.”
    If either said anything about the women to their dad, he blinked in a way that was distant and dismissive, like a robot being charged before quickly shifting topics. “How’s football?”
    “Football sucks,” Jimmy said. “And I hate school.” Jimmy had been a star athlete in the Pony League, but nothing seemed to matter anymore.
    “Well, it will improve.”
    “That’s what you said about Mom two years ago,” Jimmy started laughing then —nervous, loud laughter —and as always Ann joined in. It was true after all. Their dad had never been able to tell them the truth about how sick their mother was and instead they learned from a neighbor who wasn’t even close to them but was aggressive and nosey enough to think she had the right to try and make them face reality. She said it was her Christian duty to share the truth, and she used words like