Shiloh and Other Stories - Bobbie Ann Mason [14]
“She’s real religious,” says Edda.
“Well, golly-Bill, I’m as Christian as the next one!” cries Mary Lou. “Them words don’t mean anything against religion. I bet Mack just got her stirred up about the temperature.”
“Thelma’s real old-timey,” says Clausie. “She don’t have any idea some of the things kids do nowadays.”
“Times has changed, that’s for sure,” says Mary Lou.
Edda says, “Otis spoiled her. He carried her around on a pillow.”
Mary Lou takes Mack some cake on a paper plate. He is still reading the physics book.
“We went set,” Mary Lou says. “I had the Rook last hand, but it didn’t do me any good.”
“Thelma fixed your little red wagon, didn’t she?” Mack says with a satisfied grin.
“It was your fault, getting her all worked up about the cold. Why don’t you play with us—and take Thelma’s place?”
“I’m busy studying. I think I’ve found a mistake in this book.” He takes a large bite of cake. “Your coconut is my favorite,” he says.
“I’ll give you my recipe,” Mary Lou snaps, wheeling away.
To Mary Lou’s surprise, Judy offers to take Thelma’s place and finish the card game. Mary Lou apologizes to her daughter for taking her away from her books, but Judy says she needs a break. Judy wins several hands, trumping with a flourish and grabbing the cards gleefully. Mary Lou is relieved. After Clausie and Edda leave, she feels excited and talkative. She finds herself telling Judy more about Ed, trying to make Judy remember her uncle. Mary Lou finds a box of photographs and shows Judy a picture of him. In the snapshot, he is standing in front of his tractor-trailer truck, holding a can of Hudepohl.
Mary Lou says, “He used to drive these long hauls, and when he’d come back through here, the police would try and pick him up. They heard he had money.”
Mack joins Judy on the love seat. He shuffles silently through the pictures, and Mary Lou talks rapidly. “They’d follow him around, just waiting for him to cross that line, to start something. One time he and his first wife, Pauline, went to the show and when they got out they stuck him with a parking ticket. All because he had a record.”
Judy and Mack are looking at the pictures together. Mack is studying a picture of himself with Judy, a bald-headed baby clutching a rattle.
“How did he get a record?” asks Judy.
“Wrecks.”
“D.W.I.?” asks Judy knowingly. “Driving while intoxicated?”
Mary Lou nods. “Wrecks. A man got killed in one.”
“Did they charge him?” Judy asks with sudden eagerness.
“No. It wasn’t his fault,” Mary Lou says quickly.
“You take after Ed,” Mack tells Judy. “You kind of favor him around the eyes.”
“He said he was a beanpole,” says Mary Lou. “He said he had to bend over to make a shadow. He never had a ounce of fat on his bones.”
Judy looks closely at her uncle’s picture again, as though trying to memorize it for an exam.
“Wow,” she says. “Far out.”
Mack, shuffling some of the snapshots into a ragged stack, says to Judy in a plaintive tone, “Your mother wants to leave us and go out to California.”
“I never said that,” says Mary Lou. “When did I say that?”
Judy is not listening. She is in the kitchen, searching the refrigerator. “Don’t we have any Cokes?” she asks.
“No. We drunk the last one at supper,” says Mary Lou, confused.
Judy puts on her jacket. “I’ll run out and get some.”
“It’s freezing out there,” says Mack anxiously. “They’re high at the Convenient,” Mary Lou calls as Judy goes out the door. “But I guess that’s the only place open this late.”
Mary Lou sees Mack looking at her as though he is blaming her for Judy’s leaving.