We were sitting around the dining room table. I was wearing my nightie with Hank’s plaid, flannel bathrobe wrapped tight around me. It’d been washed, like, a mil ion times and it was huge, soft and snugly. It smel ed like him and, the minute I put it on, I decided I never wanted to take it off. Dad was pointedly eating a donut, glaring at Mom and shunning her buttermilk pancakes.
H e had found buttermilk and I suspected this was not only because he usual y gave in to Mom (because he loved her), but also because he knew it was my favorite breakfast (and he loved me too).
Stil , the donut was his way of not giving in completely.
In front of me, Mom set down a stack of two of her light and fluffy pancakes, smothered in butter and syrup, with two slices of bacon on the side.
She rounded the table carrying a plate and set it in front of Hank.
“There you go, Hank. Eat hearty,” she said, patting him on the shoulder and returning Dad’s glare.
I looked at Hank’s plate. On it was an enormous stack of five pancakes and half a dozen rashers of bacon.
Hank stared at it for a second, not quite able to hide his surprise, before his eyes lifted to mine.
I gritted my teeth.
“Mom!” I snapped. “The entire offensive line of the Chicago Bears could not eat that much food.” Dad looked at Hank’s plate, then his eyes went to Mom.
“Jesus, Trish. You’re gonna put the boy in a food coma.
He’s a cop, he needs to stay alert.”
I looked to Dad.
“Would you two quit cal ing Hank a boy? He’s a grown man, for goodness sakes.”
“He’s your brother’s age, Roxanne Gisel e, therefore, he’s a boy to me,” Dad returned in his Dad Voice.
I gave up and looked to Hank.
“You don’t have to eat al that,” I told him.
Mom sat down with her own plate and got al mother on Hank.
“Yes you do. You need to keep your strength up.” I frowned at Mom. “He’s not recovering from pneumonia.
Trust me, he does not need any help keeping his strength up.”
Dad burst out laughing.
Hank sat back in his chair and grinned at me.
“Don’t be lippy,” Mom said to me then turned to Hank.
“She’s always been lippy. Came out bawling and never shut up. I’ve spent thirty-one years of my life tearing my hair out because of her lip.”
“Like mother, like daughter,” Dad mumbled into his donut.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mom snapped at Dad.
“Nothin’,” Dad was stil mumbling but his eyes slid to Hank and he rol ed them.
“Do not rol your eyes at Hank, Herb. What’s he going to think of us?” Mom clipped.
That’s a good question. I thought.
“Figure the boy needs to know early what he’s gettin’
himself into,” Dad told Mom then looked at Hank. “Take my advice, son, run. Run for the hil s.”
Mom’s eyes bugged out and her fork clattered to her plate. “Do not tel him to run for the hil s! Sweet Jesus!” she cal ed to the ceiling and then looked at Hank. “We’ve been waiting a long time for Roxie to get herself a good man, a decent man. Thank the Good Sweet Lord you’re sitting right here. She’s a good girl, Roxie. She’s a little wild but not anything you can’t tame, I’m sure of it,” Mom declared with authority.
Hank pressed his lips together, likely so he wouldn’t laugh out loud.
I noticed Hank’s lip press, but only in a vague way because it was my turn to have my eyes bug out of my head.
“I don’t need Hank to tame me! I don’t need anyone to tame me. I’m not wild!” I snapped at Mom.
Dad let out a bel y laugh.
“Not wild? Girl, you’re too much,” he said to me then turned to Hank. “You’d think there wasn’t much trouble to find in a smal town. Probably wasn’t, but what trouble there was to find, Roxie found it and if she couldn’t find it, she made her own.”
“Dad!”
My father ignored me.
“Got good grades, which was a plain miracle considering she spent most her time beer-drinkin’, joy-ridin’, drag-racin’ and toilet-paperin’,” Dad looked back at me. “I don’t even want to know what you were doin’ on that golf course at midnight when the cops found you.” I put my elbow on the table and my head in my hand.
“This is not happening,” I said to my pancakes.
“I told you to try out for the cheerleading squad, but did you listen to me? No,” Mom put in and I knew she was warming into her famous Cheerleading Squad Lecture that had been a constant in my life, even though I’d graduated from high school over a decade before.
When I looked up again, Mom was forking into her pancakes heatedly.
“The cheerleaders were good girls, never broke curfew, not once. I know because I was friends with their mothers.
Had steady boyfriends. Wore cute, preppy clothes. Not Roxie. No. Curfew? What’s that? Going to the mal , like, every weekend. Her closet had more clothes in it than mine! Always flouncing around in mini-skirts. Nearly gave her father a heart attack every time she walked out of the house,” She looked between Dad and me, fork lifted half-mast and glaring at us both. “The fights you two would have about those mini-skirts and, Lord! Those tops! Al cut up and fal ing off your shoulders so you could see your bra straps. Sweet Jesus. What the neighbors must have thought.”