like a bubble about to burst. Someone’d painted over it, but it was there. Big cracks fanned out from it like spider legs, and ran down the walls. Lying on a mattress on the floor, I couldn’t miss it.
How could you even walk into the room and not see it? the invisible Mama in my head wanted to know. Nana Jo Reid was right beside her, making a tsk-tsk through her teeth, and saying, That’ll cost a bundle to fix. You’ll have to chip the plaster off way down to the edge, Shasta Marie. There’ll be plaster everyplace.
Cody’s mom was one step behind the other two with her nose in the air, saying, It smells like mold in here. Black mold, most likely. It’ll ruin the boys’ lungs. For heaven’s sake, Shasta, you can’t raise the boys in a house full of mold. What were you thinking?
My heart started racing, and I clamped my hands over my ears to shut them up. It didn’t work. I should’ve known it wouldn’t. Cody’s mom just kept on comparing our house to the one Cody’s sister, Randi, just built on ten acres off the back side of the folks’ place. Randi’s house had a porch all the way across the front and around one side, a bay window in the kitchen, a whirlpool master bath, and ceramic tile all through. I could of described every square inch of it by heart, I’d heard about it so many times. Randi did things just right—college degree up at East Central in Ardmore, big wedding with a huge white tent and the whole deal, good job doing accounting at the headquarters of the Tribe. If you’re from southeastern Oklahoma and you’re Choctaw, that’s what you do: get whatever education you’re gonna get, then take a good job with the Choctaw Nation, the school district, or the highway department, build a nice house, live the good life. Cody’s sister did it. My brother did it. My cousins did it. Everybody with half a brain did it.
If you haven’t got half a brain, you fall for somebody in high school, get pregnant and married, get pregnant again and buy a dumb, overpriced trailer house you’ll be paying on for the next twenty years; then you run up some credit card bills to put new furniture in it. Finally at some point you realize that really was stupid, and you’ve got to do something drastic if you’re ever gonna dig your way out.
“This is our house,” I whispered, staring out the window into the backyard, where roses and crape myrtles grew around the edges, and a gorgeous stand of hollyhocks made a big square in the middle, and pecan trees were so huge you couldn’t reach both arms all the way around them. Randi’s new place didn’t have anything as incredible as those trees. “This is our place. Ours .” My voice echoed off the walls, and Benjamin twitched on the mattress; then Tyler rolled over and pushed his fist up into his mouth. I sat looking at them for a minute, watching Tyler smack his lips in his sleep, and the tips of Benji’s black, burr-cut hair touching the sunlight on the pillow, and I thought, Randi doesn’t have anything like them. She doesn’t have anything as great as my boys.
I got up and left the room, because there was stuff I needed to do while the kids were down for their nap—wash out the kitchen cabinets and unpack all the dishes, for one thing. After the big celebration at Chuck E. Cheese’s yesterday, we needed to start cooking at home. Our first supper in our new place. I’d have to think of something special. Something that wouldn’t cost much. Between buying the new truck, and moving into the house, and paying to get the electricity, the cable, and the water turned on, the checkbook was thin as a banker’s smile. There wasn’t money left for anything else. Luckily, someone nearby had Wi-Fi, and it wasn’t password protected, so we could connect up with Cody’s old laptop and use the Internet for free. Altogether, we had two hundred and forty-eight dollars left to make it for the month, which would be tight, but we could do it. Back home, we’d
How could you even walk into the room and not see it? the invisible Mama in my head wanted to know. Nana Jo Reid was right beside her, making a tsk-tsk through her teeth, and saying, That’ll cost a bundle to fix. You’ll have to chip the plaster off way down to the edge, Shasta Marie. There’ll be plaster everyplace.
Cody’s mom was one step behind the other two with her nose in the air, saying, It smells like mold in here. Black mold, most likely. It’ll ruin the boys’ lungs. For heaven’s sake, Shasta, you can’t raise the boys in a house full of mold. What were you thinking?
My heart started racing, and I clamped my hands over my ears to shut them up. It didn’t work. I should’ve known it wouldn’t. Cody’s mom just kept on comparing our house to the one Cody’s sister, Randi, just built on ten acres off the back side of the folks’ place. Randi’s house had a porch all the way across the front and around one side, a bay window in the kitchen, a whirlpool master bath, and ceramic tile all through. I could of described every square inch of it by heart, I’d heard about it so many times. Randi did things just right—college degree up at East Central in Ardmore, big wedding with a huge white tent and the whole deal, good job doing accounting at the headquarters of the Tribe. If you’re from southeastern Oklahoma and you’re Choctaw, that’s what you do: get whatever education you’re gonna get, then take a good job with the Choctaw Nation, the school district, or the highway department, build a nice house, live the good life. Cody’s sister did it. My brother did it. My cousins did it. Everybody with half a brain did it.
If you haven’t got half a brain, you fall for somebody in high school, get pregnant and married, get pregnant again and buy a dumb, overpriced trailer house you’ll be paying on for the next twenty years; then you run up some credit card bills to put new furniture in it. Finally at some point you realize that really was stupid, and you’ve got to do something drastic if you’re ever gonna dig your way out.
“This is our house,” I whispered, staring out the window into the backyard, where roses and crape myrtles grew around the edges, and a gorgeous stand of hollyhocks made a big square in the middle, and pecan trees were so huge you couldn’t reach both arms all the way around them. Randi’s new place didn’t have anything as incredible as those trees. “This is our place. Ours .” My voice echoed off the walls, and Benjamin twitched on the mattress; then Tyler rolled over and pushed his fist up into his mouth. I sat looking at them for a minute, watching Tyler smack his lips in his sleep, and the tips of Benji’s black, burr-cut hair touching the sunlight on the pillow, and I thought, Randi doesn’t have anything like them. She doesn’t have anything as great as my boys.
I got up and left the room, because there was stuff I needed to do while the kids were down for their nap—wash out the kitchen cabinets and unpack all the dishes, for one thing. After the big celebration at Chuck E. Cheese’s yesterday, we needed to start cooking at home. Our first supper in our new place. I’d have to think of something special. Something that wouldn’t cost much. Between buying the new truck, and moving into the house, and paying to get the electricity, the cable, and the water turned on, the checkbook was thin as a banker’s smile. There wasn’t money left for anything else. Luckily, someone nearby had Wi-Fi, and it wasn’t password protected, so we could connect up with Cody’s old laptop and use the Internet for free. Altogether, we had two hundred and forty-eight dollars left to make it for the month, which would be tight, but we could do it. Back home, we’d
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