Sparked by Lily Cahill Read Free Book Online

about it.”
    “So it was a good kiss!”
    Cora sighed. Some battles were best fought in silence.

 
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER SIX
    Cora
     
    Cora walked through the door with Bethany and saw three men sitting at the kitchen table eating giant sandwiches and drinking beer. The first was Butch, Cora’s beefy older brother. Next to him was Ralph, Butch’s annoying, ruddy-faced friend. And finally, Cora’s father, Huck—a man who spent more time drunk than sober and looked twenty years older than his forty-one years because of it. All of them had the characteristically dull eyes that told Cora they were already tipsy, even though it was only just four o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon. Which might have explained the mess.
    All the makings of the sandwiches were scattered across the table: the last crust of the bread Cora had made only a few days ago, the empty butcher’s wrap that once held the entire week’s supply of bologna, and a scraped-clean mustard jar. There was even a tin of sugar spilled across the table that no one had bothered to sweep back up. Surely they hadn’t used sugar in the sandwiches? If a stranger had come in, they would have assumed a child had been there.
    She wasn’t even going to ask where they had gotten money for beer. It certainly hadn’t been from an honest day’s work. Not a single one of them had a steady job. They made their money through odd jobs or gambling or other such things that Cora tried not to think about—and tried to shield Bethany from at all costs. 
    “Butch!” Bethany whined. “I had it perfect before I left. What did you do?”
    Butch cast her a glance that made her go quiet.
    “Wasn’t anything else to eat around here,” he said. “What’d you expect?”
    “Shoulda’ been somethin’ in the ice box, you ask me.” Huck said, glaring at Cora. “It ain’t right for the head of the household to have to fend for himself.”
    Cora sighed. She knew she shouldn’t have expected her father and brother to welcome her home with open arms, but the words still stung. What was she supposed to do? Tell the future? Couldn’t they fend for themselves for even three days? They hadn’t even asked how she was feeling. The two of them were selfish brutes and she’d have left home long ago if she hadn’t known Bethany would have to fill her shoes.
    “I’m sorry, Cora,” Bethany whispered. “I tried. I swear.”
    Cora squeezed Bethany’s shoulders and whispered in her ear. “I know, baby. Why don’t you go out to the bushes by the river and see if you can’t find us any chokecherries for supper?”
    Bethany glanced over at the men and conceded, walking out the same door she had just walked in. Cora set about to clean up the mess.
    “I heard you were sick too, Butch,” Cora ventured, half hoping that it would rouse some sort of interest in her own ordeal. “How are you feeling?”
    “What do you care?” Butch grunted. “You writin’ a book?”
    She knew that was the most compassion she would get from him. The two of them had been close once, when they were very young. But years of their father’s cruelty had slowly pulled them apart. Cora missed the old Butch—the one who taught her to skip rocks at Perseverance Lake, the one who used to carry her books to school when she was too little to carry them herself. But that had been a long time now, before their mother had died. 
    She often wondered what would happen when their father was gone. Would Butch relax back into the person he’d been all those years ago, or would he follow in the self-destructive path of their father? Lately, the days were few and far between when she thought there was still hope for him.
    Ralph stood up and let out a long burp, eyeing Cora to see if it impressed her. It did not. Cora ignored him and kept working, but he sidled up next to her, leaning on the counter like he was smooth as butter.
    “Sure lookin’ good there, Cora,” Ralph said. “You should get sick more often.