Ada knew why. With each passing year, Ellie looked more like Alice, her mother. Same thick, curly hair and pale Irish skin. Same big blue eyes, so large that Ellie spent the first two years of her life looking like a child shocked with the state of things. She was built like her mother, too, short and busty, with the tiny hands of a porcelain doll. As a result, Ellie was growing up as an only child, kept from her younger sisters because Larry’s second wife couldn’t bear to look at her. “You know Ellie looks like Alice,” Larry once explained to his incredulous mother. “Makes Florence think about Alice and me together when we were young. We can’t deal with all that.”
Ada had sometimes worried that, as Ellie grew older, she would become bitter after she understood what her parents had done to her. Instead, she became God’s great apologist. Making excuses for other people’s bad behavior, always granting second and third chances. “We don’t know what happened to them before they got to us,” Ellie always said. “We don’t know what made them that way.”
“Not a mean bone in her body,” Ada often said to Wayne. “Closest to God and carrying the cross for the rest of us.” It broke Ada’s heart how hard Ellie tried to please everyone, and how skittish she could be, particularly around her grandfather. It was as if Ellie always thought she was just one mistake away from being traded again.
Ada smiled at her granddaughter as she reached for the half-peeled potato in her hands. “You haven’t touched your toast, and the bus will be here any minute. Go get your books and get your coat on. I’ll wait outside in case Clarence is early. It’ll give me a chance to make sure he’s not drinkin’ and drivin’ that bus again.”
Ellie stood up. “He’s not.”
“Oh, really. And how would you know that?”
“Becca Gilley and I threw out his bottle of Jameson’s last week. He didn’t even see us reach under his seat and grab it.”
“You what? Oh, Lord, that man.” Ada pulled on her coat and opened the door. “C’mon, Sheba.”
Ellie pulled on her coat. Barely 7:30, and the day was already ruined. No Brick. She stared at her face in the mirror by the door, playing her usual game of imagining how Brick might see her.
“Well, that won’t do.” She stood straighter and smiled. “Someday,” she whispered. “Someday, Brick McGinty, you and I are going to marry and live in our own house, with our own front porch, and lots of kids.” Sons for him, she decided, and a daughter all her own. “And I promise you this, little girl,” Ellie said, weaving the scarf around her neck, “we will never, ever give you away.”
Brick McGinty had finished feeding the pigs and was washing up at the kitchen sink when he felt his father’s fingers curl around his collar.
“You stay away from the Fetters house,” Bull hissed into his ear. “That girl’s grandpa came by here yesterday. Says he doesn’t want you or your fancy truck anywhere near their granddaughter again.” He tightened his grip on Brick’s collar, pulling it taut enough to pop the top button. “To hell with ’em. A McGinty doesn’t go where he isn’t wanted.”
Brick jerked his father’s hand away, unaware of the other fist coming at his head. His forehead grazed the hot-water faucet as his head plowed into the bottom of the cast-iron sink. Brick winced and gripped both faucets, managing to stand despite the next punch to his head. His nostrils flared as he panted. Damned if he’d give the old man the pleasure of his pain. He made a show of lifting his face and sniffing the air. “You stink,” Brick said over his shoulder. “Least you could do is wash her off before you come home to Ma.”
“You little—” Bull twisted Brick’s right arm behind his back, spun him sideways, and shoved his son’s face against the kitchen doorjamb. He leaned in and growled in Brick’s ear.
“Just because you can drive Harry’s truck now doesn’t mean you’re anything like Harry. Your brother-in-law had no business holding on to that truck for you. It should’ve been mine after Harry died.”
Brick’s shoulder was on fire. He tried to wriggle out of the hold, but Bull grabbed harder and pushed Brick’s wrist up toward the back of his neck. “You think your shit don’t stink. Cuz you’re bigger’n me, cuz you’re a big basketball star in this nothing town. I’m your daddy and nothin’ you can do will ever change that. You show some respect, or I’ll beat the shit out of you until you scream for your mommy. Make you pee like a little boy again.”
Brick’s eyes began to sting.
“You hear me?”
Brick gritted his teeth and said nothing.
“Answer me,” Bull said, twisting his arm harder.
“Bull!”
Brick heard the clothes basket drop to the floor and the clack of his mother’s shoes against the linoleum as she ran to wedge herself between her son and her husband. She was two inches taller than Bull, and at least twenty pounds heavier. She flattened her palms against Bull’s chest. “Bull. Stop.”
“This don’t concern you, Angie,” Bull growled, but Brick could tell by the lightening weight against his back that his father had taken a step back. “Go back to your laundry.”
Angie McGinty did not move. “He’s getting ready for school,” she said, her arms extended behind her now to embrace Brick’s waist. “He can’t miss any more days if he’s going to stay on the team. Let him be.”
“The team,” Bull said, laughing. “Do you hear yourself? It ain’t a job, Angie. It’s a bunch of pansy-ass boys chasing a little ball.” Brick slid out from behind his mother and turned to face them, as his father pointed at him and said, “That boy of yours gave me back talk. He pays for that. No son of mine is gonna mouth off to me.”
Angie’s eyes were riveted on Bull as she spoke. “Brick, apologize to your father.”
“I’m not the one who did anything wrong,” Brick yelled.
“You sonnuvabitch.”
“Please, Son,” Angie said. “Just say you’re sorry. Say it for me.”
Brick squeezed his eyes shut and flexed his hands. Open, closed. Open, closed.
“Say you’re sorry, honey. He’ll leave us alone if you just say you’re sorry.”
Brick hated that she was right.
“All right, Ma,” he said. “For you.” He glared at Bull as he slid his mother’s hands off his shoulders. “I’m sorry.”
“Dad,” Bull said. “I’m sorry, Dad.”