Free Counting on Grace by Elizabeth Winthrop Page A

sit down to dinner.
    “Don't do no harm,” Mamère says.
    “Sausage!” Pépé demands. He is stabbing at the potatoes in his bowl, looking for meat. There ain't been none since we had to pay Madame Boucher extra to look in on him mornings. I'm still on learner's pay. Mamère's pay is down too ‘cause of me. And Delia's not making up the difference with her two cranky machines. Even with me working,we've fallen farther behind on the store bill. Papa says Mr. Dupree is cheating us, but there's no way to prove that.
    Mamère shakes her head at Pépé. “Eat up,
mon père.”
    “Sausage,” he cries again, and throws his wooden spoon across the room. It slaps up against the wall and crashes to the floor. The brown gravy water leaves a long drip mark.
    Nobody speaks. Then Mamère nods to Henry to pick up the spoon. She pulls herself to her feet, takes it from him and heads over to the bed to feed Pépé. Before she can get to him, he throws the bowl. It hits my mother square in the chest and bounces off her onto the floor. Her arm rises up automatically the way it does when she's reaching for the shipper handle and before she can stop herself, it swings across and smacks my grandfather full in the face. The sound of her flat hand against Pépé's old cheekbones makes a noise in the room like a bullet.
    Papa pulls Mamère away and goes to comfort my grandfather. Delia dabs at the gravy stains on my mother's skirts, but Mamère don't seem to notice. She is staring off at some distant place, swaying a little. I squat down to mop up the spilled soup.
    “Maybe Pépé should go back to Canada,” I say to myself. I'm so tired that my voice slurs around and I expect nobody is really listening in the commotion. “He would be happier then and we could be eating this food, not wiping it off the floor.”
    Mamère cuffs me on the top of my head and the blow is hard enough to snap my neck back. I go still.
    “And maybe you could learn your job,
mademoiselle
, instead of thinking you're quick or smart enough to do mine.And then we would have food to eat and shoes for your brother and all the sausage Pépé deserves.”
    Everything is my fault. I'm the slow doffer and the one who made Pépé throw his bowl, which made her slap him. I'm more trouble than I'm worth. Maybe that sickly sister of mine should have lived. Maybe she would have turned out better than me. A bubble of fury rises up inside me at the idea, but for once, I know enough to lock my lips together. Seems whenever I talk I get myself in trouble.
    I squeeze the soup-gravy rag into the sink and slide back into my own chair. The soup is cold now and hard to swallow, but I force it down. If I don't eat, I won't sleep. And if I don't sleep, I won't doff no better in the morning.
    After supper, Mamère kneels in front of Pépé before we gather for the rosary to ask his special forgiveness and his blessing. He looks at her out of his cold blue eyes and nods, but he don't speak.
    Papa has to lead us in the rosary. Pépé's fingers move the beads, but he mumbles so low in his beard that we cannot tell whether he is praying or prattling nonsense again.
    Later I hear my father say that we'll have to tie Pépé to his bed when we leave in the mornings. That way he can't go wandering off and we won't have to pay Mrs. Boucher. My mother don't answer. Or maybe she does and for once, her voice is so low that I can't hear it through the wall.
    I remember the night Miss Lesley caught us dancing. How long ago that seems.

    It takes me four whole weeks to come off learner's pay. Two longer than most kids. Some days go better than others, but I can't count on my fingers to behave. They don't hold the learning in them the way my brain can hang on to a word in a book. I wish I were a machine. Then there'd be a reason for my mistakes and the loom fixer could oil my roll drive or straighten my spindles and that would be the end of it.
    Arthur tells me it's ‘cause I'm too smart for the work. If