Read Online The Devil's Demeanor by Jerry Hart - Free Book Online Page B

saying it was Ethan’s turn. Don
stormed out and walked into the guest room across the hall. Almost all of the
adults were outside, preparing the fireworks and food, but some were inside,
watching TV and having loud conversations Don didn’t care to hear. He covered
his ears as he sat against the wall by the door. The lights in the room were
off, and he felt grateful to be alone and invisible.
    He hated
Candice so much for letting the little monster play with her toys. After all,
Ethan was just pretending to be normal—something he started doing after meeting
Dad’s new girlfriend—and he had everyone wrapped around his three-year-old
finger. Don was the good one. He was the normal one. How dare Candice
favor Ethan over him.
    There was a
notebook next to him on the floor, along with a pencil. He grabbed them both
and wrote something angrily on the paper. Moments later, he strolled back into
Candice’s room and left the paper at the end of her bed, where the other kids
were playing on the floor.
    Then Don busied
himself with another toy, away from the group. Soon somebody would find the
note.
    Don was
suddenly struck by a pillow to the back of the head. He spun around and saw
Candice standing there with the paper clutched in her right hand.
    “I’m telling!”
she roared at him, then raced out into the living room.
    Panic overcame
him. He’d never thought for one second she would tell on him. How could he be
so stupid?
    A few seconds
later, Dad and Aunt Lydia came into the bedroom. “Did you write this?” Dad
asked loudly, flashing the note, which read: Candice is a hore!
    “I didn’t write
it,” Don wept. The tears had come so fast, it was as if someone had flipped a
switch. “I swear I didn’t!”
    “Candice says
you did,” Aunt Lydia added.
    “I swear I
didn’t!” Don repeated as he cried. He was so embarrassed by his actions, denial
seemed his only outlet. He howled as tears rolled down his chubby cheeks. The
other kids left him there, on the side of Candice’s bed, left the crybaby to
cry his little heart out.
    All except
Ethan.
    Yvonne, who
appeared behind Dad, looked at the note in his hand and said, “He didn’t even
spell it right.”
    Don only barely
heard it over his howling. He hid his face in shame, realizing perhaps he
wasn’t that good of a person. Not that good at all.
    *   *   *
    An hour later,
the fireworks began. Blue ones, purple ones, orange ones; big and loud, tiny
and shrill. Don got some pleasure out of them, though the incident with the
note was still fresh in his mind.
    The way Candice
had looked at him after finding the note, her eyes wide and her mouth round in
shock; the anger and disappointment in his father’s face upon learning his son
had written a hateful note to his cousin; the humiliation of crying like a baby
and denying full-out he, Don, had written the note, knowing no one believed
him, but not being able to help himself. He just could not admit he did it
after seeing the reaction to it.
    His dad had
given him a good talking to after Don finally stopped crying and walked into
the living room.
    “Do you know
why I’m upset with you?” Dad had asked.
    Don nodded.
    “Where did you
learn this word?”
    “I don’t know,”
Don replied, though he thought of the fight between Mom and Agatha in the
parking lot.
    “It’s a very
bad word and I don’t ever want to hear you say it or write it down. Do you
understand me?”
    “Yes.”
    “Yes what?”
    Don knew what
that meant. “Yes, sir .”
    “Good boy.”
Patrick Scott patted his son on the back. “Go play. And don’t ever say anything
bad about your cousins again. We’re guests in someone else’s house; it’s very
rude to insult them in their own home.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Don never
forgot his father’s words.
    *   *   *
    Instead of
taking the kids back to Connecticut, Dad dropped them off in Augusta. Yvonne
stayed in the van while he took the suitcases into the house. Don saw his mom
stare out at