Read Online A Place at the Table by Susan Rebecca White - Free Book Online

I made him a batch of brownies with two squares of chocolate Ex-Lax melted into the batter. Hunter pretty much ate the whole tray, which I left out on the counter, knowing Mama wouldn’t touch the brownies for fear of the calories and Daddy wouldn’t be home to eat them. All night Hunter kept getting up to run to the bathroom while I just smiled in the dark.
    We have nearly an acre of land in our backyard, starting with grass that eventually leads to woods, which a creek runs through. Between the grass and the woods is a border of high monkey grass. This is where I find Sofie, in her special patch, where the blades lie flat, pushed down by her weight day after day. I walk to her, kneel beside her. Man, does she stink. Like mud mixed with dead animal. But her eyes, her almond-shaped eyes—they are human. Daddy swears she’s a person trapped inside a dog suit.
    “Hey, girl, have you been a little thief?” I ask, using the stubs of my nails to scratch beneath her collar. I push up on her where her chest hits the grass, making her stand. There’s nothing underneath her, no bra cup or chewed-up elastic strap. I put my hands on her mouth, forcing it open so I can look inside. It’s possible that she atethe bra, but there’s no sign of it in her mouth. All I see are the brown stubs of what once were sharp, white teeth.
    I guess she could have buried it. She follows me as I walk to the old swing set to look around, peering into the little holes she has dug in the ground, when I hear my full name being called. I look and there is Mama, standing in the frame of the back door, still in her heels and housedress, her hair covered in the silk scarf.
    “Now! Get in here now!” she barks.
    It is official. The stress of throwing the luncheon for Mrs. Lovehart has driven Mama plumb crazy.
    “I’m coming, I’m coming,” I mutter. I walk but do not run to the house.
    At the door Mama grabs my arm, not even loosening her grip once she yanks me inside. She’s hurting me and I start to tell her so, but I can’t speak in the face of the awful look she is giving me. In her left hand is the bra.
    “You found it,” I say, as if the fact that she found the bra has not yet caught up with her mind. As if the moment she realizes the bra is no longer missing she will loosen her grip on my arm and stop looking at me funny.
    Only then do I notice Hunter, standing behind Mama, still in his swim trunks and T-shirt. His hip is cocked against the side of the avocado-colored refrigerator. His arms are folded across his chest.
    “It was Hunter who found it. But I believe you can tell me exactly where it was.”
    “I have no earthly idea,” I say, wincing as soon as the words come out of my mouth. Even I can hear how prissy I sound.
    Mama starts crying, her tears messing up her eye makeup.
    “Oh, Bobby,” she says. “Why would you hide my underwear in the back of your dresser drawer? And not just my bra. Hunter said there was also a pair of panties in there, a pair I lost months ago and had just assumed Sofie had gotten. And Hunter said he found this—”
    Mama lets go of my arm and pulls a wrinkled, glossy page from a magazine out of the pocket of her housedress. She holds it out for me to see. Even wrinkled, I recognize the picture of the skinny, naked man, grinning as he holds his erect penis in his hands. I found the picture blown up against a curb in the parking lot behind the 7-Eleven. Ripped out of some porn magazine, I guess. I stuffed it into my pant pocket, bicycled home, and hid it in the space between the dresser and the drawer, taking it out only when I am sure no one else is home.
    Hunter must have found it when he was planting Mama’s underwear. Or maybe he found it beforehand and planned this whole thing in response.
    Seeing it in Mama’s brightly lit kitchen makes me turn all wobbly, like I need to grab onto something or my knees might buckle. No one was supposed to see that picture but me.
    “It’s not mine,” I say,