I go to the stove and make a big plate of food for Honey and me to share. That way, Mama won’t notice if I don’t eat any meat. She’s dead set against me becoming a vegetarian. Honey’s already at the table in her booster chair, and I squeeze past her to the seat between the microwave and window, well out of the fray.
“Jim, turn off that noise and come eat with us,” Mama says. “And answer your phone or turn it off.”
“Goddamned Frank hassling me about that missing lumber delivery.” Jim silences the phone, but keeps scowling at it. “Just bring me a plate in here, Shirley.”
“Do I look like your servant?” Mama asks, staring him down.
Writers are always going on about piercing blue eyes, but they must’ve never seen Mama’s brown ones when she’s mad. She’ll burn a hole through sheet metal.
Jim grunts and turns down the volume on the TV. He plunks himself into the chair next to Jesse, forcing his lanky legs under the table. “Why’s your mama in such a bad mood, boy?”
Jesse doesn’t say anything. He stares down at his plate, running his fingers over the condensation on his glass of sweet tea.
“The principal called,” Mama says, answering for Jesse. “He skipped school all week.” She turns to Jesse and levels that metal-burning stare on him. “You trying to get me jailed for truancy?”
“Maybe it’s time we pulled him out of school,” Jim says, rubbing the back of his permanently sunburned neck. “Let him make his own living. Might teach him a thing or two. He was never going to college nohow, so what’s he need to finish high school for?”
“My son is going to finish high school,” Mama says, her voice dangerous.
Mama dropped out of high school as a teenager and only went to get her GED after Jesse was born. You mention dropping out of school—even as a joke—and you’re in for a three-day lecture about how shameful it feels to go out in the world without an education. Jim ought to know better.
Our stepdad usually keeps his thoughts to himself, at least when Mama’s around, but he’s like a dog with a bone tonight. Maybe because his boss, his brother Frank, has been riding him harder than usual at the construction company. But more and more, that’s just how it is between Jim and Jesse. Each one is an itch the other can’t stop scratching, and tonight Jesse’s a full-blown rash.
“You keep letting him run around, wasting his life, it don’t matter if he finishes high school,” Jim says. “He’ll be in prison anyway. That’s about all he’s good for.”
Jesse slams back his chair, knocking it against the wall. Honey jumps, her eyes going wide, but no one pays her any mind. Last time Jim and Jesse fought like this, Mama had to pull them apart before punches were thrown.
But Jesse only crosses his arms over his chest. “And what are you good for, Jim?”
“You got a roof over your head and clothes on your back, don’t you?” Jim picks a piece of chicken from his teeth.
“So I should be like you, and work a shitty job that barely pays me anything, and make my dead best friend’s kids live in a shitty trailer with a shitty stepdad they hate? You think this is what my dad wanted for us?” Jesse laughs, but it’s a hard, ugly sound.
“Don’t bring your daddy into this. This is about you and your attitude.” Jim shakes his head, going back to his dinner. He’s trying to seem calm and in control, but his hand tightens around his fork. His job is a sore spot for him. Back before him and Mama got together, his drinking and carrying on got so bad he made a name for himself in town. Nobody but his older brother would hire him, and it kills Jim to work for Frank—probably because everybody loves Frank and thinks Jim’s a piece of trash. I can’t say I disagree.
When he notices Jim’s grip on the fork, a venomous smile spreads across Jesse’s lips. He never misses a tell. “You know, Jim,” he starts to say, but Mama doesn’t miss anyone’s tells either. She cuts him off before he can get going.
“That’s enough, Jesse Ray. If you can’t be civil at the dinner table, you can go to your room. We didn’t work all day to listen to you be ungrateful.”
Anger flashes into Jesse’s eyes again. “He’s the one who—”
“Don’t talk back to your mama,” Jim says, smirking. He’s got Mama back on his side.
Jesse studies the two of them carefully, trying to push down his anger and get the upper hand. But when he speaks again, his voice is half strangled with hurt. “You can lecture me all you like, Mama, but I know what you two did, and I’m always going to know it.” He pushes off from the table, rattling the dishes, and stomps from the kitchen. “If you wanted me to be a better man, you should’ve married one,” he says before disappearing down the hallway.
Jim makes to follow Jesse to his room, but Mama puts her hand on his arm. “Leave it be, Jim. Leave it be.”
I know Jesse is referring to Mama and Jim’s relationship, but he’s wrong. I asked Mama when Jim moved in if there was something between her and Jim before Daddy died, and she said no, of course not. “Mama, why does Jesse still think—”
“You leave it be, too, Shady,” she snaps. “And cut up some of that chicken breast for your sister.” I curl my lip at the meat, but I know better than to argue.
Jim’s still stewing. “A man breaks his back all day and comes home to this nonsense,” he mutters, rising from the table. He takes his plate into the living room and turns the TV’s volume up again, filling the angry silence with the monotonous roar of race cars flying around and around and around in circles—a fitting soundtrack for our lives.
Mama stares down at her half-eaten meal, looking tired and sad and guilty. Honey’s playing with her food, thankfully oblivious to the rest of us now that the shouting has stopped. I force down a few more bites of watery potatoes, but I can’t stand to sit at this table any longer. “I’m going to go get some air,” I say.
“All right, baby,” Mama murmurs, not meeting my eyes.
I take a huge breath of the pine-scented night air once I get outside and plop down onto the steps, leaning my head back against the trailer’s door. But I can still hear the mechanical snarls from the TV, so I wander out to the dirt road that runs past our house, walking along the tree line, where shadows move like the darkness of dreams. I reach the end of our small road and walk for several minutes down the larger dirt road that bumps its way toward the highway.
With the dark pines at my back, I look out over the cow pasture on the other side, searching for the tree I’ve come to think of as mine. A blasted oak, twisted like a wrung-out rag, the bark smooth and pale, the limbs reaching up like an old woman’s knobby fingers. I guess most people would call it ugly, but I think it’s beautiful, even though it’s dead and barren and all alone. I like to think it’s going to outlast us all; that long after we’re gone it will still be standing there not caring it’s got no leaves and no acorns, that it can’t offer shelter the way other oak trees can. Despite what this tree has lost, it’s still standing, a gleam of white against the dark field. Whenever I see it, something in me reaches toward it, like we’re kin.