Free Meteors in August by Melanie Rae Thon Page B

stay in Mississippi,” my father said. “Nothing but Mormons in Salt Lake City. Here in Willis, folks are Lutherans. If they don’t like it, they should move.” Mother suggested we could tolerate one alternative, especially since Freda Graves had worked some minor miracles: keeping Minnie Hathaway away from the bottle and persuading Lyla Leona to look for another line of work. But Daddy said, “You tolerate one thing and pretty soon you’ll be tolerating everything. We’ll have the Indians dancing around a buffalo head on a stake in the middle of Main Street if we don’t keep a lid on this.”
    I longed to see for myself what went on at these meetings, but Mother forbade it. Knowing how little she admired Reverend Piggott, I thought she’d be glad to try something else. My mother’s father was a minister, and she never forgave him for hearing a call that made him desert his wife and child. I began to suspect she had little use for religion of any kind.
    I remembered the time when Nina was chosen to play Mary in the Christmas story. For three days before the performance Nina moved as if in a trance, smiled as if her knowledge and her pain were too great to bear. She barely ate and refused to dirty her hands scrubbing dishes. I did her chores gladly, satisfied with my small sacrifice.
    The night of the play, Daddy was so proud he could hardly sit still. He wanted to jump to his feet and applaud till his palms burned. Reverend Piggott laid one hand on Nina’s golden hair. “Like an angel,” he said, “the vision of the Virgin herself.”
    Nina was still glowing the morning after her debut, but Mother told her those pious ways didn’t wash at home. She made Nina eat her bacon and fried eggs, made her scrape the plates and scour the grease out of the pans.
    Later I found my sister thrown across her bed. She sobbed so hard I thought her bones would shatter. “I hate her,” she said. “I hate her.”
    I believed my mother was as good as anyone I knew, better than most, fair and forgiving. I didn’t think people could be good unless they feared God—or at least their parents. My mother’s folks were dead. If she wasn’t afraid of the Lord’s retribution, what kept her on the right path? Sometimes I doubted I had the proper respect for God, but I dreaded the punishment of my father and tried to do the right thing most of the time. Trying to understand all of this only made me more curious about Tuesday nights at Freda Graves’s. Sooner or later, I knew I had to worship in that house. I thought of myself speaking in tongues, having a private language just between me and God, having a voice so sweet He’d hear every word. My soul billowed up with the joy of it. My heart beat too fast, a flutter like wings in my tight chest.

8
    â€œ WELL, I hope this is the end of it,” Mom said. It was a Tuesday night, and she was referring to the cherry pie Miriam Deets had just delivered, warm from the oven, to show her appreciation to my father. Miriam had appeared at our back door with her gift just as we finished our supper. Two of her tow-headed toddlers clung to her skirt, bunching the material in their sticky fists, hiding behind her and peeking at us with wide animal eyes.
    â€œThe end of what?” Dad said.
    â€œDon’t play the fool with me, Dean. I know all about that chicken.” We’d already been to church three weeks in a row.
    Daddy didn’t look at me straight, but caught me with the edge of one eye, a glance that said he’d just as soon rip out my tongue as see my face. “This pie has nothing to do with any damn chicken,” he said.
    â€œThen to what, pray tell, do we owe Mrs . Deets’s gratitude?”
    â€œI got her husband, Lanfear, moved from pulp to planing—another buck an hour.” Mother had to ask him to repeat the words, and even then she looked as if she couldn’t