The Name on the Broadcast novel · Chapter 9 of 24
Chapter 9: Locked In
Nobody moved.
Then Grandma Verna walked into the kitchen, and took the whiskey bottle off the table.
She screwed the cap on. She put it back behind the cereal.
"Go to bed, son."
My father looked at me.
For one second I thought he might say no.
He got up. He pushed his chair in, neat, the way she'd taught him when he was five.
He walked past her without a word, and down the hall, and his door shut.
That was the whole fight.
Grandma sat down in his chair.
She folded her hands on the table, where his had been. She looked at my phone.
"Give me that, please."
"No."
"Laney Jean."
"It's already gone," I said. "It went out five minutes ago."
She tilted her head.
"Gone where? To that tall boy in the motel down the hill? The one with the green car and the glasses?"
The floor seemed to tip under my chair.
"The motel girl is a cousin of the deacon's wife," Grandma said pleasantly. "She called me Thursday night. Said a college boy checked in alone and asked how far it was up to our church. I thought, well, now. Isn't that sweet. Our Laney's got a friend."
I said nothing.
"Your daddy's a drunk, Laney. You know that. The whole county knows that. The sheriff's driven him home from the ditch more times than I can count."
She smiled.
"A drunk crying in his kitchen at two in the morning, telling his daughter ghost stories. That's what you've got. That's all you've got. Any lawyer in this state would laugh."
"Then why are you sitting here?"
Her smile stayed exactly where it was.
"Because I love you," she said. "And I don't want you to embarrass yourself."
She stood up.
"Now. You'll go up to bed. And tomorrow you'll put on the blue dress and sit on that porch and be sweet to a good man."
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