Me and the Missouri Moon by Nancy Stewart

Author:Nancy Stewart [Stewart, Nancy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Monarch Educational Services

Chapter 23

With Billie over at Daisy Butler’s, I walked home alone. Each step closer, I got more and more nervous and wished I had someplace to go after school like Billie did. Anything to keep from talking to Mama.

When I slogged up the steps and let myself in, the house was quiet without Billie slamming the screen door, hollering for something to eat. Now, I wished so bad that she was with me.

I went to the front window, looked outside, then headed to the kitchen. Mama would be here soon since this was her early day.

Sure enough, in a few minutes, our rattletrap car huffed and puffed into the driveway. I counted slow to fourteen, and right on time, Mama walked in the door. Three more counts, and she’d be in the kitchen, where I was sitting with my stomach all tied up in knots.

“Hey, Scarlet,” she said. “Nice day at school?”

“It was okay,” I answered, in a stupid baby voice.

Mama plopped her big purse on a kitchen chair. “Well, that’s good.”

But when she sighed and headed for her room, I said, low as low could be, “I’m sorry for how I acted last night. About Daddy and not talking to you about it. I just got so scared. But it wasn’t a grown-up way to act, and I’m so sorry. And then I started to cry. I just sat there and bawled and couldn’t make myself stop for nothing.”

Mama turned around. “Scarlet…sugar, you don’t have to act grown up. You’re still partly a child. This will be hard for you. And will be for Billie.” She came over to the table and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. And all I felt were her arms holding tight onto me while rivers of tears ran down my cheeks.

When I finally got done crying, Mama walked to the chair across from me and sat down. “Even though your daddy loves you and Billie, he has some issues that can be…troublesome.”

She stared out the window over to the mountains. “I talked to his doctor again today. Your daddy has an anger problem, a serious one. So, I have to make the right choices for you and Billie. And for me, too, sugar.”

I put my arm on the table and reached for Mama’s hand. It was rough from helping scrub pizza tins over at the Palace. “I know, Mama.” And the strangest thing was, down deep in my heart, I did. But another part of me was mad and scared, too. Mad that Mama and Daddy couldn’t work out their troubles; scared our whole lives would turn upside down more than they were now and be broken apart.

And there was something else. My daddy did have problems, big ones. Problems that Mama, or Billie, or I couldn’t fix, ‘cause they came from inside him. Grandpa Charlie always said our daddy chases ghosts. And right then, I had a thought so true, my knees got weak. I never wanted to know what he meant. But all along I did know and pushed it way down inside me.

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