Chapter 5: Supper

I didn't nod at her.

I didn't wave.

I looked down at my lap and got out of the car, because the screen door had already opened.

"There she is!"

Grandma Verna came down the porch steps in her church cardigan with her arms out.

She smelled like flour and rose lotion. She hugged me tight and patted my back twice.

Over her shoulder I saw the young woman next door pick up the laundry basket and go inside.

"You're thin," Grandma said, holding me at arm's length. "That kitchen isn't feeding you. Come in, come in, I've got a pie in."

My father was standing in the kitchen doorway with a beer.

He was forty-seven and looked sixty. He had the same gray eyes as me, gone watery.

"Hey, Laney-bug," he said.

He didn't hug me. He never did.

"Hey, Daddy."

"Sheriff's coming to supper," Grandma said. "And a friend of ours. So go wash up and put on that blue dress I sent you at Easter."

"I didn't bring it."

"I know you didn't. It's on your bed."

It was. Ironed, laid out flat.

Supper was at six. It was always at six.

The sheriff sat at my father's right hand. He was big and pink and called me "Miss College" and asked if they'd turned me into a liberal yet.

The man Grandma Verna had picked sat across from me.

He was forty, maybe more. He owned the hardware store now. He had very clean hands and looked at me.

"She's got good teeth," he said to Grandma, as if I weren't there.

"All the Haskett women do," Grandma said.

I put a forkful of potatoes in my mouth so I wouldn't have to answer.

We said grace. The sheriff said it, actually, with his eyes closed and his big hand over Grandma's.

"Bless this food and this family, and keep us safe from outside trouble."

"Amen," said the table.

Out the dining room window I could see the yard next door. The sheets were still on the line, flapping.

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