just in case the girl was still sleeping. When I entered the kitchen, Shelly was sitting at the kitchen table, her schoolbooks spread out in front of her, and Marguerite was standing at the stove. My spine went stiff as a rod.
“Daddy!” Shelly cried when I stepped into the kitchen.
I took off my hat. “Hi, baby girl,” I said, squeezing her, trying not to let on that anything was out of the ordinary. Normally, I would have thrown her over my shoulder like a potato sack and marched around the house until she pleaded to be released, but lately she’d gotten too heavy, too tall, and tonight there was a stranger standing at my stove.
“Let go,” she giggled, and wriggled free.
The whole kitchen smelled like something I’d never smelled before.
“I thought you would be at Mrs. Marigold’s,” I said to Shelly, part question, part reprimand.
“I was ,” Shelly said. “But she said we had company. That our cousin was taking a nap on the couch.”
“I see,” I said.
“Did a train really wreck in the river?” she asked excitedly. “Jason Pittman in my class said a hundred people drowned.”
“It derailed into the river. A lot of people got hurt. Not a hundred, but a lot.”
“Were you there?” she asked.
I nodded.
“Did you see it?” Shelly was jumping from one foot to the other. She was always such a ball of nervous energy.
“I didn’t see the accident happen. I got there afterward.”
“Did you see anybody, you know, drowned?”
I looked at Marguerite, but she was busy peering into my cupboard.
“This isn’t great dinner conversation,” I said softly.
“We’re not even eating yet,” Shelly argued. “Did you?”
I turned to Marguerite, forcing myself to sound bright, cheerful. “So, what’s for supper?”
“Maggie’s making jumbo liar,” Shelly said, climbing back up into her chair and reaching for her pencil box. “It’s got sausage in it. And rice. It’s spicy.”
“That sounds great,” I said, “Maggie.”
“That’s my nickname,” she said, winking at Shelly. Then she looked at me, as if daring me to challenge her again. “With my girlfriends. ”
“We’re going bowling tonight!” Shelly said.
“No,” I started. “Not tonight.”
“Daddy,” Shelly said dramatically. “It’s Friday. It’s Ladies Night .”
On most Friday nights since we moved into the apartment, Shelly and I would eat dinner (corn dogs for her, chili for me) at the bowling alley and then, before the ladies’ leagues showed up, we’d bowl a few strings. Because it was Ladies Night, she could order whatever she wanted from the laminated menu, and she could also pick whatever songs she wanted on the jukebox.
“Ladies Night means ladies’ choice,” Shelly explained to the girl, Maggie , who was tasting something from one of my wooden spoons. She scrunched her nose and shook in a few drops of hot pepper sauce she had excavated from the depths of my cupboards. She tested the concoction again and smiled.
I knew a lot of the women in the ladies’ leagues: a lot of the girls we went to high school with, some of the wives of my coworkers down at the station. Hanna’s sister, Lisa, bowled. Word would get back to Hanna one way or another about the girl. She knew I didn’t have any family from anywhere but here; even my own mother’s family tree’s branches did not extend out of New England. We couldn’t go. Anywhere. Two Rivers was too small for a stranger, especially a stranger of Marguerite’s caliber, to get lost in the crowd. She could spend the night, but then she’d have to be on her way. And no Ladies Night.
“Y’all sit down,” Marguerite said. “Dinner’s ready.”
Shelly sat obediently in her chair, moving aside her schoolbooks. I sat down too, exhausted and starving. The smells coming from that one pot were more intense than anything I’d managed to put together since we’d moved into this apartment. Sweet tomatoes, spices. I’d never really learned to cook; I hadn’t felt comfortable trying to do more than make myself a cup of coffee in Hanna’s kitchen.
Marguerite grabbed three plates and set them down on the table. She scooped a heaping pile of the stuff onto my plate and an only slightly less generous pile onto Shelly’s. On the plate she’d set for herself, she plopped down some plain rice from another pot.
“ What is it called again?” I asked, shoveling a heaping spoonful into my mouth.
“It’s called jambalaya, Mr. Manners. Didn’t nobody ever teach you it ain’t polite to start eating without saying grace?” Marguerite asked.
Shelly set her utensils down, pressed her palms together, and closed her eyes. “Father, bless the food we take, and bless us all for Jesus’ sake. Amen.”
“Who taught you that?” I asked.
“Mrs. Marigold.”
“Oh, did she?” I asked. I would have to remember to say something to Mrs. Marigold on Monday.
Shelly scowled at me. Marguerite leaned over to her and said, “At my house we say, ‘For bacon, eggs and buttered toast, praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.’”
Shelly giggled.
Marguerite pushed the rice around her plate as I finished first one, and then two more helpings. Shelly ate a whole plateful as well and asked Marguerite for more when she was done.
“Ladies Night,” Shelly said, tugging at my sleeve.
I shook my head, and she looked at me sadly. “Please? It’s my birthday .”
Her birthday. With all of the confusion and excitement of the train wreck and Marguerite, I’d forgotten to pick up another birthday present. Feeling awful, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the pair of barrettes and handed them to her.
“Thanks, Daddy,” she said, but her eyes were welling up with tears.
“It’s your birthday ?” Marguerite said, putting her hands on her hips. “Well, it’s a good thing I made a cake. Not quite a birthday cake, but if your daddy’s got a candle, you could still make a wish on it.” She opened up the fridge and pulled out a pineapple upside-down cake.
Shelly beamed.
I agreed to Ladies Night against my better judgment, because of Shelly. It was the poor kid’s birthday, and once again I’d failed miserably. So Ladies Night it was, and the three of us descended the stairs leading to Sunset Lanes. And luckily, when we got to the door, there was a sign posted that all league games were canceled due to the train wreck. Inside, the bowling alley was deserted save for a few regulars drinking coffee and a couple of kids shooting pool in the arcade.
“Where is everybody?” Shelly asked, clearly disappointed. Shelly was a mascot of sorts on Ladies Night. The women of Sunset Lanes fawned over her as if she were a small animal instead of a girl. Part of the reason I kept bringing her back on Friday nights was because all of those women made everything seem okay. Since we’d left Hanna’s, the absence of a mother in Shelly’s life seemed even more pronounced.
If I had been like most of Two Rivers’s other widowers I would have simply found myself someone new, someone to fill the empty spaces Betsy left behind. But most of the widowers in this town were well into their seventies when their wives passed away. Remarrying was what kept them alive for another ten, fifteen years. I was twenty-two years old when Betsy died. I wasn’t even sure then that I wanted to survive.
I suppose I could have found someone if I’d really wanted