Read Online Lessons of a Lowcountry Summer by Rochelle Alers - Free Book Online

bathroom.”
    â€œStay!” The single word was enough to make him sit down again.
    Christian’s T-shirt ripped as Theo held him in a punishing, viselike grip. “If you ever use that language in this house again, someone will have to call nine-eleven to keep me from taking you out.” He shook him several times before releasing him. “Go clean yourself up, then get into bed. Don’t you dare ask me to go anywhere for the rest of the summer.”
    Christian wiped his arm across his nose. “You can’t hit me.”
    â€œI didn’t hit you,” Theo countered. “I slapped you, little brother. Perhaps you would like me to hit you?”
    Christian sniffled, holding the hem of his shirt to his nose. “You’re not my father.”
    â€œYou’ve got that right, because if I’d been your father you’d have more respect for yourself. Now, get out of my sight!”
    Christian turned and walked out of the room.
    Towering over Brandon, Theo stared down at his bowed head. “What happened to your common sense?”
    Brandon tried blinking back tears but was unsuccessful. “I’m sorry, Theo.”
    â€œSorry doesn’t cut it, Brandon. Binge drinking and drugs will put you in an early grave. What if someone had laced that joint with crack or angel dust?”
    â€œI’m sorry,” he said over and over as mucous streamed from his nose.
    Theo threw up a hand. “Clean yourself up. And the same goes for you as Christian. Don’t ask me to go anywhere. Not even to the corner. You’ll come home from school and stay in. Are you sober enough to understand what I’m saying?”
    â€œYes. May I go now?”
    â€œYeah, go.”
    Brandon ran, holding his hand over his mouth as he headed for the nearest bathroom.
    â€œWhat happened to Chris?”
    Theo turned to look at Helen. “What do you mean what happened to him?”
    â€œHe’s bleeding.”
    â€œI slapped him. Is there anything else you’d like to know?”
    Helen stared at her employer, measuring her words carefully. Since she had come to work for Theodore Howell, he had never exchanged a cross word with her. But all of that had changed once his siblings had come to live with him. He did not seem to understand that the children were grieving the loss of their mother and father.
    â€œMay I tend to his injuries?”
    â€œThere are no injuries, Helen. He has a bloody nose.”
    â€œIt looks like more than a bloody nose.”
    â€œIf he had been locked up tonight he’d have more than a bloody nose. And he’s lucky the officer who brought him home is a friend. Either I bloody his nose for mouthing off at me, or some rogue cop will beat him senseless because he’s a young black male.”
    Helen’s faced turned a deep pink with the mention of “young black male.” “But—”
    â€œBut nothing, Miss Bryant ,” Theo said, cutting her off. “I pay you to cook and to keep my house clean, not to give me advice on how to deal with my brothers and sister.”
    â€œAnd I can quit, too.”
    He stared at the petite woman, whom he had hired as a live-in housekeeper a week after he had moved from northern to southern California. Never married and childless, sixty-year-old Helen had gathered Brandon, Christian and Noelle to her bosom like a mother hen protecting her brood. She spoiled and pampered them shamelessly, thereby undermining his role as their guardian and authority figure.
    â€œThen quit!”
    She shook her head. “No, Theo. I’m not going to quit and leave those motherless children alone with a monster like you.”
    â€œOh, I’m a monster? I rearrange my life to take in three angry, defiant, and rebellious teenagers, and you call me a monster. I think not.”
    The sparkle went out of her blue eyes. “I know you’re doing the best you can, but they’re still