Free Milk Glass Moon by Adriana Trigiani Page A

apartment, in his life. There is an ease to him that was never there before. “You look better than you’ve ever looked. I’m not kidding.”
    “That’s what happens when you find the place where you fit.”
    “Weren’t you nervous to move here?”
    “Oh, God no. I couldn’t wait. I’m just glad I finally made it.” Theodore looks at me and smiles. “You look good.”
    “Oh, come on.”
    “No, you do.”
    I follow Theodore into the kitchen. A bar counter separates the kitchen from the living room, and he’s set the small dining table and chairs in front of the counter with white china and a white tablecloth. Then we hear a buzzer.
    “Dinner’s on.”
    “Dinner?”
    “I can’t possibly top Charlie Mom’s Chinese. Wait till you taste the honey spareribs. Sit here so you have the view.”
    Theodore answers the door. A cute Chinese kid delivers two brown bags. Imagine. Dinner delivered hot to your door. How I wish I had this sort of setup in Big Stone Gap! Theodore unloads the bags, filling the table with small white boxes. “Tell me why you didn’t bring Etta.”
    I tell Theodore every detail of the coal prank. He listens without interruption.
    “What was the punishment?”
    “We made the kids shovel the coal back onto the truck and resod her yard.”
    “They got off easy. I would’ve made them shovel the coal into wheelbarrows and walk it back to Appalachia.” Theodore loads my plate with all sorts of delicacies—tiny shrimp, fluffy rice, chopped vegetables. “Etta organized five other kids to pull this off?”
    “Yes. I couldn’t believe it. She was in charge, but she had Misty Lassiter egging her on.”
    “Tayloe’s daughter?”
    “Yeah. She’s got all of Tayloe’s beauty and talent plus a cunning criminal mind, which really adds to her allure.”
    Theodore smiles. “That bad, huh?”
    “Well, I’m a little put out by the whole thing.” I stab a sparerib. “I feel like I can’t trust Etta now, and I hate that. If she’s not climbing on our roof, she’s pulling pranks. I don’t want to monitor her every move. I don’t want to hover. But she doesn’t leave me a choice.”
    “You need to keep her busy.”
    “She’s in the band; she plays basketball before school; she works with her dad on weekends. How busy can I keep her? I don’t know what else to do, short of sending her to convent school.”
    “There’s a good one right across the river in Jersey.”
    “Don’t tempt me.”
    “Back when I was teaching kids, I noticed patterns—”
    “What kind of patterns?” I blurt nervously. As usual, my mind leaps to the worst-case scenario.
    “Relax. It’s just that the smartest kids were the ones who pulled stuff. Now, I’m not talking about the suck-up brainiacs, I’m talking about the kids who, no matter how many clubs and activities you put them in, still have time to cut up. Etta sounds like she’s bored. She’s hanging out with older kids, she’s got time on her hands during the school day. These are all the classic signs of a troublemaker. You have to help her find a way to engage her mind.”
    “I’d like to find a way to engage her heart,” I tell Theodore plainly.
    “What do you mean?”
    “I’d like her to think of other people and their feelings. Don’t get me wrong. I know it could be worse and I know she has a good heart, but she’s more headstrong than loving.”
    “She sounds like Mrs. Mac.” Theodore leans back and laughs, remembering my mother-in-law. “That was one tough lady. She had that cane. She didn’t carry it around because she needed the support, she used it to intimidate people. She was always banging it on the floor or catching a closing door with it. I remember I was in the post office once, going out, and she was coming in. I was in a rush, so I sort of sprinted out of there. She stopped me and said, ‘Mr. Tipton?’ And then she whacked me on the butt and said, ‘Youth! Always in a hurry!’ ”
    “How about when she came into