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hadn’t complained that much, but my father
knew me well enough to know how unhappy I was with my work now, a
mishmash of odd jobs: gift-wrapping at Rich’s Department Store,
sitting for neighbors’ kids, waitressing at the Steak and Ale. I
was working toward a graduate degree in psychology but at the rate
I was going-with work and Jessie and soon the babies-I would be a
grandmother before I got my M.A. and, with it, any chance for a
challenging job.
    “You remember Liz Reese, LuAnn,” Jane
continued ominously. “She started her own business when her son was
young and then her husband killed himself”
    “She had a daughter, Jane,” my father said
harshly. “And that’s not why her husband killed himself Stick to
the Junior League and don’t go yapping about things you know
nothing about.”
    “You’d just think that if you are blessed
enough to have children you’d want to be home with them,” Jane
said. Her last few words were barely audible. She crossed her legs
and, resting her elbows on her knees, dropped her face into her
hands and started to cry.
    Jane had lost a little more perspective on
the subject of children with each of her four miscarriages, and I
didn’t blame her. It was a horrible fate for any woman, especially
one like Jane, who believed her sole purpose in life was to have
children. I worried sometimes that the ease with which Eddie and I
reproduced had increased her suffering and contributed to her
growing bitterness.
    “Liz Reese was just about the best mother
I’ve ever known,” Newell said. “If you and Buck ever have children,
Jane, you’d better pray you’re half as wonderful a mother, half as
devoted, as Liz Reese was to her daughter. And your sister is doing
a damn fine job too. She just needs more help so she can do
something with her own life.”
    “Who is this Liz Reese anyway?” I asked.
“She doesn’t live in Tallagumsa, does she?” I was relieved to move
to a subject other than the Steak House deed.
    “She did,” my father said. “After her
husband, Dean, blew his brains out, she and her daughter moved
away. She’s the founder and owner of Miss Reese’s Pies.”
    “You’re kidding,” I said. “She’s the Miss Reese! Wow! I read all about her in Newsweek last year.
But I don’t recall her mentioning anything about Tallagumsa.”
    “She was only here a year. She left town as
fast as she could and never looked back,” Mother said from across
the room, where she stood next to Eddie at the bar.
    “Just the way you should, LuAnn,” Eddie
said. “Follow her example and run.”
    “How can you even consider this, LuAnn?”
Eddie asked as soon as we got into the car to drive home.
    “Can we talk about it when you’re not
drunk?” I wedged myself behind the wheel of our old Buick Skylark
and pulled out of the parking space. Eddie was in the front seat
and Jessie in the back. I drove west to the end of the street,
circled the block, then picked up First Avenue going east out of
town.
    “I’m not drunk,” he said. “Maybe I was, but
I’m sober as a judge right now. We are not moving here.”
    We spoke in angry, loud whispers, hoping
that Jessie, who had waked up when Eddie carried her from the Steak
House to the car, wouldn’t hear what we were saying.
    “Did I say we were?” I asked.
    “No, but I know how your mind works.”
    After a brief silence, he spoke again. “We
could sell the Steak House and keep the money.”
    “No, we couldn’t.”
    “Why not?”
    “We either run the Steak House or we thank
Daddy and give the restaurant back to him. I guess he’d sell it to
someone else.”
    “ You sell it. Your name is on that
goddamned piece of paper. You own the place!”
    “I’m well aware of that.”
    “I can’t believe you’d even for one second
think about raising our children in Klan country, redneck
heaven.”
    “What happened to the gallant defender of
the South ready to die for her honor in front of that reporter?” I
asked. “Or