Free Tea and Primroses by Tess Thompson Page B

first I would have to tell those who loved me. I’m leaving.
    I told my parents over dinner in our dining room with the faded rose-patterned wallpaper. It was a Wednesday. On Wednesdays we had meatloaf, made of ground beef and stale breadcrumbs, with ketchup dousing the top. My mother was an angry cook. In her thin and angular body that seemed to need no nourishment other than rage, she slammed and shoved and slapped meals together. Her food reflected this. The meatloaf was dry and crumbled on our forks before we could get it into our mouths; the ketchup was charred and tasted of bitterness; the peas from the freezer were cold no matter how long they boiled on the stove; the baked potatoes were slightly undercooked, with the texture of something cold and unyielding. But my father and I knew better than to pick at our dinner or move it around our plates. My mother had eyesight that noticed every small movement, immediately interpreted them as slights and catalogued them for combat use later.
    “I was offered a job today.” Using my fingers, I scooped three peas onto my fork. The light was dim in our dining room, making the peas appear gray instead of green. When I was little, I used to think of everything in terms of our family unit. Mother, Daddy, Me: three peas.
    My father, habitually quiet at dinner, exhausted by this time, having risen at dawn and worked in the cold sea air down at the docks, gazed at me in the way he had all my life—with a subdued pride. “What’s that, Sweets?” He held his fork in midair. His hands were dry and cracked from his work; I was forever rubbing lotion into them at night. “A new job?”
    “A columnist at the Greeley Tribune . In Greeley, Vermont.”
    “A columnist. Well, that sounds real good.” My father’s eyes, light blue like mine, were alive suddenly, the evidence of his physical exhaustion hidden for the moment. “Vermont. I always wanted to go to Vermont.”
    “You already have a job,” said my mother. “A good one, considering your major.” My mother had no need for books. She was the calculating sort, endlessly scratching in the household ledger, skimping and saving whatever my father brought home. No one can run a house cheaper than I can , she had said to me just last week. Your father should be more appreciative.
    Daddy glanced at Mother with a slight smile. “Remember how I used to talk about Vermont? Got so your mother had to tell me to shut up about it.”
    She didn’t respond to him. Her eyes remained on me and her voice was cold, her pinched face even tighter than usual. “What about Miller?”
    “You could come visit me, Daddy,” I said.
    “Wouldn’t that be something?” His fork was still midair and, seeming to notice it, he set it down next to his plate.
    “Miller wants to marry you, Connie,” said my mother.
    “I don’t want to marry him.” I paused, pushing my remaining three peas under a flap of potato skin with my fork. “I don’t want to marry anyone.”
    “That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard.”
    “Now, Mary—” my father said.
    My mother talked over him. “You leave, you don’t come back. We’re not a hotel.” She pushed out from the table. “You hear that?” And then she was gone from the room. There was the sound of her heavy footsteps going up the stairs and then stomping into the bedroom, which was directly over the dining room. I lifted the flap of potato skin with my fork. The three peas were still nestled there. I squished one with my fork.
    “This meatloaf’s worse than usual,” said my father. “What’s the word I’m looking for, Sweets?”
    “Inedible,” I said automatically. This was a game we often played.
    Slapping the table, he laughed, loud, almost manically. “That’ll do.”
    “Daddy, be quiet.” I spoke in a whisper, stifling a laugh. “She’ll hear you.”
    “Oh, be damned. I don’t care if she hears me or not.” But his laughter turned silent, his broad shoulders