“Eat your dinner,” Ada said, reaching for his hands. He pulled away and stood up. “You spoiled that boy, Ada,” he said. “Always made excuses for Larry, because he was the baby. Twenty-five, and he still hasn’t grown up.” He walked over to the kitchen window and grabbed his Marlboros from the sill. “You want her, you raise her,” he said. “I’m done. I don’t want anything to do with this.”
Ada walked over to him and held him from behind. “You don’t mean that,” she said, pressing her cheek against his back.
He shrugged. “I do right now.” He whistled for Sheba. “C’mon, girl,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.” The dog jumped up and followed him out the door.
Ada watched Wayne march to the shed in a cloud of cigarette smoke, Sheba at his heels. She’d won, but she could already feel the cost of this victory. She walked over to the telephone on the kitchen wall, picked up the receiver, and waited for the operator’s voice.
“Yes, Joanie, get me Andover 457, please,” she said. “That’s right. Larry.”
Ellie leaned into the mirror and waved a finger at the face scowling back at her. “Give him five more minutes,” she said. “Five more minutes, and then Brick McGinty is his-tor-y.”
She tossed back her dark curly hair and tried again.
“Five minutes, Brick McGinty. If you aren’t here by then, Arnie Scribner’s name will be in every slot on my dance card.”
Ellie sighed. She’d never even seen a dance card, not in Clayton Valley, but she loved the thought of it. What sixteen-year-old girl wouldn’t? All those boys lining up to sign a little piece of paper dangling from your wrist, just like in the movies. Acting surprised. Why, Freddie Carpenter, let me see if I can squeeze you in.
How Brick would hate that. He was a jealous boy, which thrilled her. He made her feel worth fighting over for the first time in her life. And he wasn’t just any boy. He was six-feet-two Brick McGinty, point guard on the basketball team, top scorer in the county, and one of the most popular boys at Jefferson High School. Thirty-seven other girls in their senior class, but he picked her. At four feet eleven, her head didn’t even reach his shoulders. She had to stand on her tiptoes to kiss him, and even then she had to tilt her head back and raise her chin.
“My pint-size Ellie,” he called her. She loved that, how he used the word “my.”
She scowled again at the mirror. “Thinking like this is how you lose your resolve,” she said, pointing her finger again. She walked to the bedroom window, pushed apart the curtains, and poked her head out. The frigid air stung her face as she leaned out as far as she could to see the patch of gravel where Brick’s truck always came to a stop.
Ellie heard her grandmother’s voice before she saw her, standing beneath the window. “Eleanor Grace, have you lost your mind? Get out of that window before you fall and break your neck.” Ellie grabbed her books and flew down the stairs just as a gust of air ushered her grandmother through the door. “Look at you,” Ada said, “waitin’ on that boy like a lovesick hound dog.”
“I’m not waiting for anybody, Grandma. I was just checking to see if I needed a coat this morning.”
Ada sat on the bench and pulled off her boots. “I guess you think there’s nothing but corn husks rattling around in this old head of mine,” she said. “It’s snowing, Ellie. And you’re wondering if you need a coat?” She pulled off her knit cap and shoved it into her coat pocket before hanging the coat on the hook by the door. “Brick McGinty’s not picking you up for school today, honey.”
“Brick always picks me up on Wednesdays, Grandma.”
“Not anymore. Grandpa told that boy’s mother that Brick is not to come anywhere near this property again.”
“What?” Ellie said. “Why, Grandma? Why would he do that? I love Brick.” Ellie sank into her chair at the table.
“You’re sixteen,” Ada said, tying her apron around her thick waist. She shoved a basket of potatoes next to her chair, sat down opposite Ellie, and started peeling. “You don’t know love.”
“I love you,” Ellie said. “I love Grandpa.”
“That’s different,” Ada said. Ellie walked over to the counter and yanked open the silverware drawer to grab another paring knife. She slammed the drawer shut and sat down.
“Grandma,” she said, plucking a potato. “You were sixteen when you married Grandpa. Same age as me. How old were you when you fell in love with him?”
“I’ll let you know,” Ada said.
“Grandma.”
“It was different back then. All the girls married early, except for your aunt Nessa, who was born with a mind of her own. We only had five or six boys to pick from, and two got eliminated for inbreeding.”
Ellie dropped a peeled potato into the bowl. “Grandpa says it was love at first sight.”
“Grandpa’s talking about the first time he looked in the mirror, honey.”
Ellie smiled. “Brick and I have been together for three years now. That’s a long time to get to know someone. He’s smart. And he’s funny, too.”
“Never trust funny, Ellie,” Ada said. “Your father was always funny. We see how Larry worked out.” Ada regretted it as soon as she said it. Ellie pretended to pick at a tough patch of skin on the potato.
“I don’t mean your daddy doesn’t love you, Ellie,” Ada said. “He just has a hard time showing it.”
Ellie tossed another peeled potato into the bowl.
“Ellie, look at me.”
“I heard you, Grandma. He loves me. He just didn’t want to raise me. Didn’t want to have to see me much, either.”
“That doesn’t mean he isn’t your father. He’s still family.”
“Sure, Grandma.”
Ada picked up another potato, silently cursing herself for bringing up her son. In the nine years that Ellie had lived with them, she’d seen her father only once a month, at best, and even then he always made it clear that he was just stopping by to say hello. Larry hurt Ellie as only a father could, and it made Ada feel guilty, as if she’d missed something in him when he was little. Something she could have fixed if only she’d paid attention. There was a special kind of guilt for the mother whose child turned out wrong.
Ada’s chest ached at the sight of her heartbroken granddaughter, whose only sin was to want her father to act like one. “It’s like he doesn’t even remember Ellie’s his daughter,” Wayne said one evening as they were getting ready for bed. “Like she never happened.”