Free Dovey Coe by Frances O'Roark Dowell Page B

has done nothing but try to tear this family apart all summer,” I said, standing to go inside to bed. “As far as I’m concerned, he done got what he deserved.” I’d been dying to say that very thing since the conversation started, and it felt good to finally get the words out of my throat.
    Daddy laughed. “I don’t know that you’reright about Parnell trying to tear the family apart, but it’s hard to argue that the boy had it coming to him. That’ll teach him to make one of them Coe women mad!”
    â€œHonestly, John!” Mama said, rising from her seat. “You’d make a joke out of the Second Coming.” She followed me into the house, allowing the screen door to slam behind her.
    â€œWhat did I tell you, son?” I heard Daddy say to Amos from the porch. “It don’t pay to get any of them women mad.”
    T he next few days ran pretty hectic, everyone trying to help Caroline get ready to go off to teachers college. There weren’t a peep said about Parnell’s proposal by anyone. Us Coes just pretended like that little incident fell right off the map. Besides, we had enough emotions in us about Caroline leaving that the rest of it washed out of our heads after a day or so, though later we’d think about it long and hard.
    Me and Caroline had been sleeping in the same bed since Mama took me out of the crib, and it was beginning to hit me that pretty soon I’d be by myself in an ocean of blankets when Caroline was gone. For as long as I could remember, I’d beenwishing for my own room where I could spread out my collections of things and enjoy looking at them instead of having to keep it all in a box so as not to get in Caroline’s way. I had a good many arrowheads and thirty-two pieces of sugar quartz. Caroline was all the time complaining about the messes I made.
    So you’d think I’d be happy about Caroline going off to school, but once it sunk in that she was really going, I begun to feel right badly about it. I’d spent all my life going to sleep with the scent of her floating over me, roses and soap and something without a name that was just Caroline’s particular smell. It made me feel all cozy and safe when I was real little to put my face in her pillow and breathe in deep.
    I think everybody felt the same way I did. I caught Mama once or twice getting weepy over a sink full of pots and pans, and when I asked Daddy to pick a little on his guitar, he said he just weren’t in the right spirits for music making. Even Tom’s and Huck’s ears were drooping a little low, it seemed to me. Amos stayed to the house every day after the party until Daddy put Caroline’s things in the back of the truck and said it was time to go. That was right odd behavior for Amos, who would head out to Katie’sKnob even when there was two foot of snow outside.
    The night before Caroline left for school, she and I had us a real heart-to-heart talk, something we didn’t do too often like some sisters will, on account of how we’re real different in ways. But I wanted for us to be square on the matter of Parnell Caraway.
    â€œDid you ever once consider marrying Parnell?” I’d asked her after Mama’d turned off the lights and pulled the door closed behind her.
    Caroline was quiet a long while. “Well, to answer your question, yes, I did from time to time consider marrying Parnell. I sure did like riding over to Asheville with him and going to restaurants. That was something. I thought maybe after I finished college that me and Parnell could have us a nice house somewhere and live a fine life. You know, he was real sweet to me most of the time.”
    She paused, like she were remembering the good times she had shared with Parnell. But when she spoke again, it was clear those times held no truck with her in the light of more recent events. “But, law, when he made that remark about me being