Free A Place to Call Home by Deborah Smith

of lewd terms!”
    Aunt Arnetta had no idea. “It’s not Roanie’s fault! Don’t say anything to Mama and Daddy! I was just trying to show everybody what I think about him!”
    “You’re sweet on him! Lord have mercy, this is worse than I thought! Nine years old and running after white trash! Claire Karleen Maloney, you put that boy out of your mind! There’s no way on God’s green earth this family’ll ever let you take after that Sullivan boy! He’s bred to be thick-blooded and mushy-minded, and he won’t ever amount to a hill of beans! In another few years he’ll be lyin’ around on welfare breeding a shack full of younguns with some whiffle-tailed girl! Your folks’d just as soon lock you in the cellar and throw away the key than see you fall under his filthy-mouthed spell!”
    By the time she finished I was over my shock and well on the way to a tantrum. Never talk back to your elders. Never. I knew that, but since I had a ruined reputation now anyway, I might as well go whole hog. “Go worry aboutUncle Eugene’s cojones!” I yelled. “Daddy says he can’t find ’em anymore because you keep ’em in your jewelry box!”
    No tomato ever turned redder than Aunt Arnetta’s face at that moment. She stuttered something and her eyes gleamed with magnified tears behind her glasses. She slapped the no-salt brochure down on the table and went to look for Daddy.
    Oh, what a mess. I got lectured on all sides and punished—I lost my weekly allowance for the rest of the month and had extra work added to my regular household chores—but worse, everyone decided I had absolutely no sense at all where Roanie was concerned.
    To top things off, Aunt Arnetta was mad at Daddy for months. Daddy told me not to ever repeat anything he said about her and Uncle Eugene again. Uncle Eugene’s missing balls—like my devotion to Roanie—was the kind of embarrassment the family swept under the rug.
    I took all my writings outside and buried them behind one of the barns. A person can never be too careful with her privates. Especially if she isn’t certain what they are.
    Roanie came home finally, along with Big Roan. We heard Big Roan stayed down on Steckem Road with Daisy McClendon most of the time. That’s why Aunt Dockey and Mama didn’t go over there the next Easter. They sent Uncle Bert and Daddy to deliver the Easter baskets.
    I don’t know what kind of Easter Roanie had that spring; Hop and Evan saw him at school and said he was even more of a loner than before. I tried to talk Hop into giving him my Easter rabbit and a note I’d written; I wanted him to know I was sorry Aunt Bess had sent him away and that she’d meant well by it. But Hop said the family doghouse only had room for one Maloney at a time and he didn’t want to be stuck in it, too.
    Hop did try to talk to Roanie for me eventually, but Roanie just stared at him as if he were an enemy.
    I guess, at that point, we were all enemies to Roanie.
    That September I finally learned, firsthand, why Sean and Bridget Maloney hadn’t had enough teeth for a smile. Love is hard on a smile. It will knock your teeth right out.
    Our whole clan went to every high school football game but especially to the first one of each autumn. That night was one of those delicious, barely past summer evenings when the warm air has spicy currents in it and the moon rises full and ripe over trees flecked with the first few hints of gold and red.
    Along with related families, such as the Kehoes and the O’Briens, Maloneys and Delaneys provided about half the team, plus a good portion of the marching band and the cheerleading squad, too. Josh had been a star quarterback in his day, and Brady a pretty fair place-kicker. Now Hop was a tackle, Evan was a tackle, Harold and Arlan were tackles. Maloney and Delaney boys were part of a long tradition of running over people.
    The Dunderry High School stadium squatted solidly on the side of a hill facing a football field ringed with a