Page 9 of Slander
I look across the room for my father. He's in conversation with another deacon and doesn't see me.
My mother is talking to Beverly's husband, who's asking her about her tomato plants.
I find a wall to stand against and drink sweet tea I don't want.
Something is going on, and for once, I don’t think it’s about my sister.
Whatever it is, I’ll figure it out eventually.
After church, we eat at my parents' house at one.
My mother has made roast, corn pudding, and biscuits. My sister, Hannah, is here.
She drove down from Tallahassee for the weekend, and she's thinner than the last time I saw her.
Her hands have a small tremor that's sometimes the meds and sometimes the disease beneath them. I don’t know when I started doing it, but it’s always something I watch for.
My father says grace.
We talk about church, weather, and the new flag at the post office.
Hannah tells me about a book she's reading.
My mother is quieter than usual, my father louder than usual. He's filling a silence he can feel but can't name.
I almost ask him.
I sit at his table, and look at his face, and feel the question right there on the back of my tongue.
I don't ask it because I don't know what the question is, and I don't want my father to be the one who tells me what the deacons have been saying about me.
After lunch, Hannah and I do the dishes side by side. She bumps my shoulder with hers. "You're quiet today."
"Long week."
"Anything I should know about?"
I think about everything this week.
Caleb being removed from my classroom, Lizzie Sue's hand on my forearm, Patricia in the dairy aisle, and Reverend Hardin behind the pulpit. Even Beverly with her hand on the small of my back.
"Nothing yet," I say and squeeze the dish soap onto a plate.
By the time I get back to my house, it’s completely dark outside.
I let Hoagie out into the yard, pour a glass of wine, and pull on the soft jeans and the Fleetwood Mac shirt that lives at the bottom of my dresser.
I take the wine, a sweater, and a lighter out to the firepit at the back of the yard.
The kindling catches on the second try.
I sit in the Adirondack chair my father built me when I moved in, and I drink my wine.
I watch the small fire come up. The katydids are loud, and the pines are doing their evening shift in the breeze.
Hoagie collapses across my feet, and I try to pray.
I sit with my eyes closed, open them, and I look at the flames.
