Right as Rain by Bev Marshall

Author:Bev Marshall
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780307416544
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2007-12-18T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 32

TEE WEE WOKE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT; SHE HAD BEEN crying in her sleep. She pushed up onto her elbows and looked over at Luther, who was curled onto his side. It was just a bad bad dream. But this dream, she knew, was one of them that hangs around in your mind like a nagging job you got to do, like clean out the chicken coop, and every time you look at it, your heart sinks, cause you know the mess is still there and it won’t go away. And this dream was a foretelling one. Miz Parsons was gonna die, and, just like in the dream, Tee Wee would be standing over the coffin looking down at her lying there in a blue nightgown. She shivered, squinted at the windup clock beside her bed. Four-thirty, nearly time to get up. She eased her feet to the floor and headed for the kitchen.

She did her best thinking while cooking. As she put the coffeepot on the stove and poured buttermilk into the bowl to mix biscuits, she began to take an inventory of her children. Ernestine and the older boys doing fine. Well, Rufus was a worry, couldn’t hold no job long. And Lester, what was gonna become of that boy with no more book learning than he had. Masie, too early to tell, Tee Wee decided. She was a hard worker anyway. Then there was J. P.—Tee Wee frowned. J. P. was a worry; he still was missing Memphis something fierce, and seem like he was over with Deke more and more. Luther was always too busy to pay much attention to him. Then, stirring vigorously, Tee Wee turned her mind to Crow, the one she worried about the most. She stopped stirring and looked up at the ceiling. What was it Icey had called Crow that started their fight? “The Devil with dark eyes.” Tee Wee had pushed it out of her mind, but now she saw Icey’s face as she said the words again. There had been a knowing in that face. She sprinkled more flour in the pan and began kneading and patting the dough. And where had Crow been that day she went off without a word to anyone? When she’d come prancing in that night, she said she had been visiting some school friends who moved to Liberty. But Tee Wee didn’t believe that for a minute. She slapped the biscuits against her palm, rolling them into balls and throwing them down onto the baking pan. She was gonna find out what that girl was up to. She knew something else Crow didn’t know she knew. She had found the money in her hiding place a long time ago. A brief smile flickered on her face. Well, there was one way Crow did take after her: Tee Wee herself had a new hidey-hole stuffed with bills right here in the kitchen. She looked up at the farm picture on the wall; behind it was where she’d carved out a square hole just large enough to stick her hand in.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.