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to something. Then, when she went back into the living room, Winky fell silent. It seemed rehearsed. Winky had been pressing some point with Averill, repeatedly drawing him back onto a subject Averill didn’t like. With Audena yakking at her, Leona hadn’t been able to catch Winky’s drift. Now she realized that had been the whole idea. They wanted something from Averill. They were afraid Leona might object. Winky had been elected to open the volatile subject with Averill while Audena distracted Leona.

    Now Audena started slicing into Averill’s high moral banter. Leona had to concentrate on the lethal version of Easter Sunday dinner. She did hear Audena say, “… our mother’s wishes,” which even at her young age, Leona knew to be a certain sign of an attempted larceny. In a few more minutes, they were too loud to understand. It was a long-standing argument between Audena and Averill. Beyond that Leona couldn’t make it out. While they made accusations and denials, Leona managed to get the food reorganized. She took the plates off the dining room table so she could fill them herself in the kitchen.

    She had to get them fed and on the road. Averill’s symptoms were overdue by now. Audena was screaming:they had had streets in hell lined with thieves and hypocrites trying to hide their sins behind a pulpit. Averill didn’t miss the opportunity. He told Audena she was right indeed, they did have streets down in hell and they had bloated hags like Audena scrubbing them! Audena responded with a wail that hung over his rage like a descant. Winky had seen two lawyers. Audena was cut through the heart. Averill was innocent. Leona let them scream and holler for five minutes. Then she clanged a spoon on a pot lid and shouted, “Dinner!” When a silence ensued, she stepped into the dining room and called out as pleasantly as possible, “Take your seats; I’ll serve your plates from the kitchen.” She was going to add that it was because she didn’t have any decent serving dishes, but, surveying her audience, she decided not to waste the amends.

    Within ten seconds the cannon-fire in the living room resumed. They ignored Leona’s second round of banging. Leona stormed through the kitchen and down the back steps. The world was a blue-green blur.

    Wouldn’t it be a delicious irony if Audena pulled out a gun and shot Averill between the eyes? Wouldn’t it be sheer heaven if the three of them somehow choked each other to death? What misery and deprivation had nurtured the two of them? What kind of hideous monster was their mother? It was strange how little she really knew about Averill’s family. The name Sayres was well known around Fredonia, though it was by and large more notorious than acclaimed. From what she had known and forgotten from adult gossip, Averill and Audena had come back to town as teenagers to live with their grandmother. Rumor had it their mother was a prostitute.

    Once, when Leona was still fairly small, Averill had walked past the house while she was on the porchswing between her mother and father. After he was out of earshot, her mother asked which one of the Sayres families he belonged to.

    “Darcy Lou.”

    “Sidney’s wife?”

    “She’s no kind of wife.”

    “Who is that boy’s father?”

    “A line from here to the courthouse.”

    “Where is Darcy Lou living?”

    “She died of a heroin overdose.”

    “Hush before the baby hears you.”

    It was sad. What good could grow out of that? Still, it justified nothing, no matter how much it might explain. There was talk in Fredonia that Darcy Lou had sold Averill to men when he was a boy. If that was true, had it broken his ability to stop himself? Was this all just an eye for an eye? Would it bring Tess back to life? Maybe Leona could still save him. She had to try. She’d feed him raw egg and mustard. He might still vomit the lethal portion. Then she could have his stomach pumped. She could invent some stupid explanation. No