Free Monday I Love You by Constance C. Greene Page B

the sermon, one of my earrings dropped off and made a pinging sound on the church floor. I scrabbled around under the pew looking for it until Aunt Rena hauled me up by my belt, glaring at me so I knew I’d better wait until church was over before I continued my search. After the last hymn, I found it and screwed it on tight so it wouldn’t pop off again.
    When we filed down the aisle and out into the sunlight, the first person I saw was Eric. He came right up to me and said, “I like your ear bobs.”
    â€œWhat?” I said. “What’d you say?”
    He pointed. “I like them ear bobs,” he repeated.
    Well, that caused us to break up then and there. I have never heard such English in my life. I couldn’t respect somebody who said “ear bobs” for “earrings.” I was a snob, I know, but I couldn’t help it. Shortly after, school started and Eric took the bus to the regional high school over in Clayton and I never laid eyes on him again.
    Right after Eric and I broke up, so to speak, my father and I went back to Hoboken, where we came from. He said I had to start school too, though I would’ve been quite happy without it. Aunt Rena was sad I was leaving and threatened to enfold me in her massive arms and embrace and kiss me, but I skinned out of reach and she had to be content with a handshake. Aunt Rena was all right. I just couldn’t face her spitty kisses.
    We got home on a Tuesday and were just sitting down to supper when my mother trailed up the front walk, dragging her suitcase in one hand like it was filled with rocks, and dangling her high-heel shoes in the other.
    â€œWhew,” she said in greeting, “doesn’t get much hotter ’n this, does it! September’s always the hottest month.” We were having corned beef hash. She said she’d have some. She chatted about this and that, and when my father said at last, “Where you been, Grace?” she only let her long red fingernails trail across the back of his neck and said, “Here and there, Frank, here and there. But home’s best.”
    Oh no you don’t, I thought. You’re not getting away with that, not that easily. Not after what you did. You tell us where you were, what made you go off like that, leaving me and him and not telling us where you went, what you did. You have to explain.
    I looked at my father. I wanted him to demand an explanation in a cold, hard voice, wanted him to tell her we’d done fine without her, she could just take her shoes and suitcase and go back to where she’d been. But I knew he wouldn’t say any of it. One look at his face and I knew he was dying from love, from happiness that she’d come back. That was all that mattered. To him. Inside, I was so angry, so clogged with rage, I could hardly speak. They wouldn’t have heard me anyway. They had eyes and ears only for each other.
    I hung around, cleared the table, expecting at any moment she’d say she was sorry. I opened my mouth once or twice to demand an apology, but each time, I closed it without making a sound. The words wouldn’t come. I wanted to hit her. I ached to hit her, smack the smile off her face.
    How dare she just come back and act as if nothing had happened! How dare she!
    â€œI’m sorry. I’ll never do it again.” Those were the words I wanted to hear. I ached to have her put her arms around me and say, “You’re my own little girl, Grace. I missed you. I’m sorry I went off and hurt you so.”
    But she was silent and so was I.

12
    Doris lived in a trailer out on Old Town Road. Kenny gave her the trailer as a wedding present, she said. She would’ve preferred a set of china, maybe with some place settings of silver thrown in, but he had his heart set on living in a trailer. When he got out of the Navy, that is. Kenny was stationed in Tokyo, Japan, at the present. Had been for a while. He had to leave