onto the kitchen table. She licked her fingers and rubbed the bills apart, lost her train of thought and stopped to pop a couple of potato chips into her mouth. Patsy licked her fingers again and went to counting.
“Do you know how dirty money is?” Virginia asked.
Will grinned. His mother’s persnickety nature would clash in short time with her sister who left chairs askew and greasy spots at every table she touched. His mother walked to the counter and placed the top back on the chips can without taking her eyes from the money on the table. She wiped down the counter and hung the dishrag up to dry.
“Well, Sis,” his mother said. “It’ll be nice to have you here when the kids get home from school.”
“I’ll try to have a little something cooked for them,” Patsy said. “We’ll have a good time.”
“You know, Roger used to always be out in the shop in the afternoons. I feel better knowing somebody’s around. It’s so hard to get me at the factory.”
“I’ll take good care of them.”
Spy on us is more like it, Will thought. He knew it was a way for Virginia to keep tabs on Shannon, who had taken up with that boy from Mannsville as soon as their daddy moved out. Shannon thought she was being so sly, but Virginia knew what she was up to. Their mother always knew. There was more to his aunt Patsy moving in than his mother let on. Patsy had been from one relative’s house to another every few years since her own husband died. Virginia’s situation, as the family referred to it, was only an excuse for their turn with Patsy. The twenties Virginia rolled into her pocket were from his aunt’s disability check. Money she got for sitting on her ass all day.
“Where you want these?” Will asked. He held up gold-framed prints of Blue Boy and Pinkie.
“How about the front room, Ginnie?” Patsy asked.
“That’d be all right. And don’t call me Ginnie. You know I don’t like that.”
Patsy winked at Will. “When your momma was little we used to call her Ginnie.”
“That’s why I named you kids the way I did. I’m tired of names ending with ie and y. Every person in our family is named like that—Patsy, Lovey, Donnie, Bobby, Eddie, Wendy, Sandy, Jerry, Mary. It’s ridiculous.”
“Wayne’s not.”
“They called him Tommy Wayne until he was twenty-five and got back from Vietnam.”
Will dropped a box on the table. “Uncle Wayne used to be called Tommy?”
“He didn’t seem like a Tommy no more after the war,” Patsy said.
Everybody said Uncle Wayne never was the same after Vietnam; but his mother maintained it wasn’t true, that Wayne had always been mean and lazy. She held a special animosity for her brother that defied explanation, but then his mother found it hard to get along with a number of people.
Their voices faded as Will climbed the stairs. He flopped on his bed and switched on the radio. Paul Harvey’s droll voice was telling the rest of the story. Next, commentators debated the Middle East peace talks and the hostage situation in Iran. As Will approached draft age he took more interest in the news. His mother said not to worry, that the draft would never come back, but Will wasn’t so sure considering how world affairs had been going lately.
He lay across his twin bed with his feet flat on the floor. He tossed a baseball straight up from his body, concentrating on intersecting the ball with its shadow cast by the bedside lamp. He could bring the ball to within an inch of the ceiling before it dropped smoothly into his palm. Over and over he tossed the ball and caught it.
“Anything worth listening to?” Since he turned seventeen, his mother had taken to standing at the threshold until acknowledged.
“Our peanut farmer might get beat by some old movie star in the next election.”
“I don’t doubt it. Carter’s not crooked enough to be president.”
Virginia walked to his window, parted the curtains, and her eyes lingered down the road in the direction Roger now lived. A jay screamed and chattered outside. “That old bird keeps diving at the cat. She sure does hate him.”
The baseball went up and came down.
“Dad’s not going to come up the driveway. You can stop checking all the time.”
Virginia let the lace fall together. “That’s not what I’m doing.”
“Yeah, right.”
“For your information, I came up here to ask you if you would walk down to The Brown Jersey and get us shrimp boxes for dinner.”
“Can we afford it?”
“Don’t you smart-mouth me, Will.”
“Mom, if you don’t file for divorce Dad’s never going to give us child support.”
“We don’t need child support. We’re doing fine.”
“Sure, we’re doing fine. That’s why Aunt Patsy moved in.”
“Look. I’m not happy about this setup either, but we all have to make sacrifices.”
“Are you ever going to divorce him?”
Virginia hugged her arms across her chest. When she got mad, she puffed up like a threatened toad. It grated his nerves. “What goes on between your father and me is none of your business.”
“If you think Dad is coming back while Aunt Patsy’s here, you’re crazy.”
“It’s only temporary.”
“Dad’s gone. That’s not temporary.”
“William Boyd Lemmons. Don’t talk to me like that.”
“Well, somebody’s got to talk some sense into you. It’s called abandonment. It’s called adultery. He’s a lazy bastard—”
She slapped him.
“Shit, Mom.” He put his hand over the burning outline of her fingers.
“You don’t know everything there is to know about your father, and until you do, don’t pass judgment.” Virginia stood rigid for a moment, and then she melted down on the bed and put her face in his hair. “I’m sorry. Don’t be mad.”
He shook her off and moved to the door. “I’m counting the days until I’m out of here.” Outside he coaxed the old truck to start, but the engine ground and ground. Will pumped the gas and was still for a moment. He said aloud, “This piece of shit is the only thing he ever gave me.”
Shannon popped in the passenger side. “More than he ever gave me.”
“What do you want?”
“Take me with you,” she said. The engine turned over and he threw the truck in gear. Will shoved a tape in the eight-track and Lynyrd Skynyrd came on. He belted out “Free Bird” as he cut around curves, tools and paper tumbling in the floorboard. He was finally calm when he stopped on the bridge that spanned Buckhorn Creek. They listened to the faint crackling ping of the engine cooling. Below them, yellow and red leaves clustered on smooth dry creek banks and swirled underneath the bridge in the timid flow of water.
“What happened?” Shannon asked.
“I fucked up. Told her Dad’s not coming back. Got slapped for it.”
“Thought we were going to talk to her after supper,” Shannon said.
“How could we with fat-ass Aunt Patsy there?” Will hit the steering wheel with the palm of his hand. “Shit!” He opened the truck’s ashtray and fished out half a joint. He lit the roach and inhaled in short spurts until the end glowed. Fire fell down and he said “Shit!” again. He batted at the ember lodged against the red tongue of his Rolling Stones shirt. She reached behind