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Authors: Lisa Tuttle
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father the point was not whether she was old enough to look after herself, but whether it was fair to make her. For a day or two, fine, but not for two weeks. It wasn't possible to get around Houston without a car. If Mary was gone, with Mike at work all day, poor Agnes would be confined to the house. With Leslie away at camp it wasn't fair to ask Jane-Ann to ferry her back and forth from the country club, let alone the library. What was the poor kid supposed to do all day?
“I don't know why Agnes couldn't go to camp, too,” said her mother. “I'm sure she'd be happier there, with other girls her own age, with plenty to do, than sitting indoors reading all the time. And then we wouldn't have this problem.”
“We wouldn't have this problem if you just stayed home,” said her father. His tone made Agnes feel chilly, although Mary didn't seem to notice how much less patience he had with her lately.
She overheard her mother on the phone that evening pleading with the twins to leave Austin and come home for just a couple of weeks, but it was a losing battle. Clarissa had already enrolled for both summer semesters and Roz had a job and a boyfriend she had no intention of being separated from. When the twins had been home at Christmas their father had baited them both about their taste in clothes and music and had been particularly merciless in his sarcastic attacks on Rozzy's long-haired “liberal” boyfriend. They didn't have to take it, and they didn't. Agnes envied them their extra years. When she was old enough to get away, she wouldn't come back either.
Her parents didn't ask Agnes what she wanted to do, and she didn't ask her mother where she wanted to go. She didn't want to hear another story about a bit part in a film which would end on the cutting-room floor. More than a year had passed since Mary Grey's last “trip to Hollywood.” The twins had been living at home then, seniors in high school, willing to look after their younger sister and test their cooking skills, especially since their housekeeping duties included unquestioned right of access to their mother's car. She remembered that time, those two weeks, vividly because they had been so happy. Instead of working late and spending his weekends down at the bay, working on his boat as he did now, their father had started coming home earlier in the evenings, to take them out to dinner or, after a meal at home, out to a movie or to play miniature golf. One Sunday they all went sailing, and on the Saturdays, when her sisters were busy with their friends, he had taken Agnes to see the battleship
Texas
and the San Jacinto Monument. He'd talked to her—mostly about Texas history, as she recalled, but the subject mattered less than the fact of his interested presence. She had wished it could always be like that with the four of them.
But Mary Grey came back from wherever she had been, the twins graduated and moved up to Austin, and Mike spent less and less time at home. The house which had once been so full of voices was now too quiet.
Things were getting worse, the way they always did before Mary went away. The long, tense silences between her parents would be punctuated by short, quiet arguments. There were many days when Agnes saw her father only for a few minutes in the morning in the kitchen before he left for work, and her mother only for a few minutes in the evening, in her darkened bedroom where she'd spent the day with one of her bad headaches.
Something had to happen; she couldn't understand why her father was being so difficult. He'd always let his wife go before, and things had always been better, at least for a while, afterward. But now he was using her as an excuse to keep her mother home, and she couldn't even say anything because she wasn't supposed to know they were arguing.
It came as a complete surprise when her mother asked if she'd mind spending a couple of weeks with her Aunt Marjorie.
The name lifted her spirits like a promise of
“I don't know why Agnes couldn't go to camp, too,” said her mother. “I'm sure she'd be happier there, with other girls her own age, with plenty to do, than sitting indoors reading all the time. And then we wouldn't have this problem.”
“We wouldn't have this problem if you just stayed home,” said her father. His tone made Agnes feel chilly, although Mary didn't seem to notice how much less patience he had with her lately.
She overheard her mother on the phone that evening pleading with the twins to leave Austin and come home for just a couple of weeks, but it was a losing battle. Clarissa had already enrolled for both summer semesters and Roz had a job and a boyfriend she had no intention of being separated from. When the twins had been home at Christmas their father had baited them both about their taste in clothes and music and had been particularly merciless in his sarcastic attacks on Rozzy's long-haired “liberal” boyfriend. They didn't have to take it, and they didn't. Agnes envied them their extra years. When she was old enough to get away, she wouldn't come back either.
Her parents didn't ask Agnes what she wanted to do, and she didn't ask her mother where she wanted to go. She didn't want to hear another story about a bit part in a film which would end on the cutting-room floor. More than a year had passed since Mary Grey's last “trip to Hollywood.” The twins had been living at home then, seniors in high school, willing to look after their younger sister and test their cooking skills, especially since their housekeeping duties included unquestioned right of access to their mother's car. She remembered that time, those two weeks, vividly because they had been so happy. Instead of working late and spending his weekends down at the bay, working on his boat as he did now, their father had started coming home earlier in the evenings, to take them out to dinner or, after a meal at home, out to a movie or to play miniature golf. One Sunday they all went sailing, and on the Saturdays, when her sisters were busy with their friends, he had taken Agnes to see the battleship
Texas
and the San Jacinto Monument. He'd talked to her—mostly about Texas history, as she recalled, but the subject mattered less than the fact of his interested presence. She had wished it could always be like that with the four of them.
But Mary Grey came back from wherever she had been, the twins graduated and moved up to Austin, and Mike spent less and less time at home. The house which had once been so full of voices was now too quiet.
Things were getting worse, the way they always did before Mary went away. The long, tense silences between her parents would be punctuated by short, quiet arguments. There were many days when Agnes saw her father only for a few minutes in the morning in the kitchen before he left for work, and her mother only for a few minutes in the evening, in her darkened bedroom where she'd spent the day with one of her bad headaches.
Something had to happen; she couldn't understand why her father was being so difficult. He'd always let his wife go before, and things had always been better, at least for a while, afterward. But now he was using her as an excuse to keep her mother home, and she couldn't even say anything because she wasn't supposed to know they were arguing.
It came as a complete surprise when her mother asked if she'd mind spending a couple of weeks with her Aunt Marjorie.
The name lifted her spirits like a promise of
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