A Place to Call Home by Deborah Smith Read Free Book Online

suit and pumps. She didn’t say a word, but Sally backed off. Sally was scared of Mama and Mama’s sisters.
    “Where’s Daisy?” Aunt Dockey asked. “Isn’t she going to participate in our prayer meeting?”
    “Aw,” Edna Fae said, lighting a cigarette and nodding toward one of the houses. “She ain’t up to it.”
    Lula giggled and covered her mouth.
    Aunt Dockey got a flat-lipped, squinty look on her face and stared hard at the house. “I see. I’ll speak to her later.”
    Mama took her box of charity food from the trunk, then bent close to my ear and whispered fiercely, “You stay by the car. Stay away from Daisy’s house, or I’ll skin you alive.”
    Whoa. I was in the same league with my brothers. I nodded.
    And then, unhappily, I was alone in the yard with a dozen grimy, barefoot kids ranging from my age on down to some who were barely old enough to walk, all of them staring at my basket as if they’d like to knock me down and take it.
    “Y’all want to hear about Jesus?” I asked. Silence. I sighed. “Y’all want some Easter eggs?” Quick nods and outstretched hands.
    I fished among the hard-boiled eggs and found the candy ones first, because every kid knows the real eggs are a disappointment once you get past the decorations. But the McClendon children didn’t care. They snatched candy eggs and real eggs with the same fervor, and admired them with wide eyes, and touched the decorations, and then tore off the wrappings and peeled the colored shells with dirty fingernails, and ate slowly, relishing every bite.
    I was doubly ashamed of myself and mad at this awful place, this sad place and its left-out children, and I knew,for certain, that the McClendon sisters only put up with a bunch of praying rich women so that their kids could get a little free Easter loot. They were bartering with us, the same as they did with the men.
    And I thought about Roanie, who was so proud, and how his daddy was so mean, nobody had ever dared go down to Sullivan’s Hollow to bribe
him
with Easter eggs. I was glad—shivering, goose-bumped thankful—that Roanie hadn’t been turned into a charity exhibit like the McClendon kids.
    I heard a car coming down the dirt road, the rumble of an unmufflered engine, and lo and behold, as if he’d materialized from my thoughts, Roanie drove his daddy’s beat-up truck into the yard.
    My mouth fell open. He was only twelve years old! Yet he rolled that vintage rattletrap into the yard and jerked it to a stop, and he pushed the door open and climbed out. Then he froze, staring at me with an almost painfully surprised expression. His T-shirt was dirty and his bare ankles showed between his jeans and his worn-out tennis shoes.
    He was only twelve, and he’d driven to Steckem Road to visit the awful McClendon women. “What are you
doing
here?” I demanded hoarsely.
    My accusing tone stamped the surprise out of his face. All emotion receded behind a flinty mask. At that moment the front door of Daisy’s house banged open.
    Daisy ran out wearing a bra and a pair of cutoff jeans, her gold-plated hair tangled around her face. One of her eyes was swollen shut. “You come git him, Roanie! You come get that son of a bitch outta my bed! I ain’t gonna put up with his shit no more!”
    The kids scattered like roaches when a light’s turned on. I stood rooted to the spot, fascinated and afraid. Roanie walked into the house with his fists clenched beside him and his head down. Daisy flew in behind him, cursing.
    Oh, Mama, come out here and bring your pistol
. That’s what I tried to shout, because I knew Mama had put her little .32revolver in her purse, but my mouth wouldn’t work and neither would my feet. I was all ears, listening to Daisy’s muffled voice and the crashing noises, and then the low, slurred boom of Big Roan Sullivan’s voice. “Git out of my face, bitch, or I’ll hit you again.”
    The door slapped open and Big Roan staggered out, lopsided on his metal leg,