really sorry,” I blurt out. “I won’t ever do it again, I promise, and I’ll make Troo swear, too.”
Dave leans in and he smells good. He slaps on Old Spice when he’s done shaving. He points down at my SOS that now looks exactly like the fake vomit they sell at the toy store. His lips, which aren’t poofy like Mother’s and Troo’s but on the thin side like mine, are curled into a smile. “Between you and me, I can barely get it down myself. Got my fill of it in the Army,” he says, putting my plate down in front of Lizzy, whose tummy is just bulging. “Now that we got that settled, I’d like to further answer the question you asked me earlier about the Molinari boy.” He leans back in his chair and stretches his long legs out in front of him. “Yes, he escaped from the reform school last week.”
“But how . . . he could . . . what if they don’t catch him and he comes back here and does something bad to . . .” There are so many ways that Greasy Al could hurt Troo. I try my best to keep my eyes on her at all times, but she is so good at outfoxing me.
“I know this might be hard for you to understand, Sally, but it’s not like Alfred’s a hardened criminal. Sure, he’s gotten himself into a few fixes, but he’s just a boy not much older than you.” Dave runs his hand over his mouth. He does that when he is trying to come up with a good explanation about why I shouldn’t be afraid of something. “When Alfred got polio . . . his family didn’t . . . the Molinaris are a tough bunch.”
No kidding.
“He’s not a lost cause,” Dave adds on. “All the boy needs is someone to care about him.”
Poor man. If that’s what he thinks, that all Molinari needs is some TLC to set him straight, he’s wrong. I heard that his father used to hit him with fists. And I’ve seen with my own two eyes that even his own mother doesn’t love Greasy Al. She’s the hostess at Ristorante Molinari where Dave takes us to eat sometimes because Mother adores their butter-drenched bread. Before Greasy Al got sent to reform school, on the nights he used to work at the family restaurant being a busboy, Mrs. Molinari would yell at him from her podium up front, “Hey, Chester, clean up . . . table six,” because her boy walks like that guy in Gunsmoke . Everybody in the dining room would crack up, no one louder than her. And Troo.
“Sally?” Dave says from a distant land where I bet things look clearer to him than they do to me. “Please, don’t.”
I’m so glad Mother’s not here to see me blubber. She’d run a pretend bow over a pretend violin and sing Cry Me a River .
Dave stacks his big hands on top of mine. “There’s nothing to worry about. You’re safe now.”
That’s the same thing Mother and him always say when I wake up screaming after one of my nightmares. Bobby is still alive when I bolt up in bed. I can smell his leather belt and hear him whispering how much he loves me and that he’s going to make me his bride. Or sometimes it’s Daddy who comes to me bloody in my dreams holding Sampson by the hand, telling me with a rotted mouth to fly like the wind. By the time Mother rounds the corner to our room and Dave comes pounding down from upstairs, my sister is already up on her knees, yelling, “Sally, wake up!” doing her darndest to hold my still running legs down on the sheet soaked with my sweat.
I know that Dave and Mother mean well, but they can never, will never, understand what I’m feeling twenty thousand leagues deep. Only my sister does.
Chapter Seven
T roo snuck off and stuck me with the supper dishes again. By the time I get over to the playground, she’s already made her way through the line of kids waiting to take their turn at the pole, which has become the biggest challenge. Last year it was dodgeball and before that it was box hockey, but this summer, everybody has gone cuckoo for tetherball. Anyone who can runs over here straight after supper because if you’re
Dave leans in and he smells good. He slaps on Old Spice when he’s done shaving. He points down at my SOS that now looks exactly like the fake vomit they sell at the toy store. His lips, which aren’t poofy like Mother’s and Troo’s but on the thin side like mine, are curled into a smile. “Between you and me, I can barely get it down myself. Got my fill of it in the Army,” he says, putting my plate down in front of Lizzy, whose tummy is just bulging. “Now that we got that settled, I’d like to further answer the question you asked me earlier about the Molinari boy.” He leans back in his chair and stretches his long legs out in front of him. “Yes, he escaped from the reform school last week.”
“But how . . . he could . . . what if they don’t catch him and he comes back here and does something bad to . . .” There are so many ways that Greasy Al could hurt Troo. I try my best to keep my eyes on her at all times, but she is so good at outfoxing me.
“I know this might be hard for you to understand, Sally, but it’s not like Alfred’s a hardened criminal. Sure, he’s gotten himself into a few fixes, but he’s just a boy not much older than you.” Dave runs his hand over his mouth. He does that when he is trying to come up with a good explanation about why I shouldn’t be afraid of something. “When Alfred got polio . . . his family didn’t . . . the Molinaris are a tough bunch.”
No kidding.
“He’s not a lost cause,” Dave adds on. “All the boy needs is someone to care about him.”
Poor man. If that’s what he thinks, that all Molinari needs is some TLC to set him straight, he’s wrong. I heard that his father used to hit him with fists. And I’ve seen with my own two eyes that even his own mother doesn’t love Greasy Al. She’s the hostess at Ristorante Molinari where Dave takes us to eat sometimes because Mother adores their butter-drenched bread. Before Greasy Al got sent to reform school, on the nights he used to work at the family restaurant being a busboy, Mrs. Molinari would yell at him from her podium up front, “Hey, Chester, clean up . . . table six,” because her boy walks like that guy in Gunsmoke . Everybody in the dining room would crack up, no one louder than her. And Troo.
“Sally?” Dave says from a distant land where I bet things look clearer to him than they do to me. “Please, don’t.”
I’m so glad Mother’s not here to see me blubber. She’d run a pretend bow over a pretend violin and sing Cry Me a River .
Dave stacks his big hands on top of mine. “There’s nothing to worry about. You’re safe now.”
That’s the same thing Mother and him always say when I wake up screaming after one of my nightmares. Bobby is still alive when I bolt up in bed. I can smell his leather belt and hear him whispering how much he loves me and that he’s going to make me his bride. Or sometimes it’s Daddy who comes to me bloody in my dreams holding Sampson by the hand, telling me with a rotted mouth to fly like the wind. By the time Mother rounds the corner to our room and Dave comes pounding down from upstairs, my sister is already up on her knees, yelling, “Sally, wake up!” doing her darndest to hold my still running legs down on the sheet soaked with my sweat.
I know that Dave and Mother mean well, but they can never, will never, understand what I’m feeling twenty thousand leagues deep. Only my sister does.
Chapter Seven
T roo snuck off and stuck me with the supper dishes again. By the time I get over to the playground, she’s already made her way through the line of kids waiting to take their turn at the pole, which has become the biggest challenge. Last year it was dodgeball and before that it was box hockey, but this summer, everybody has gone cuckoo for tetherball. Anyone who can runs over here straight after supper because if you’re
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