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“Anyway, back to Blaire” Mama swats a fly away from her plate “Maybe you should reach out to her, try to patch things up She’s not going to be hereback”

“That ship has sailed, Ma to offer her She’d be a fool to stick around this place for me”

With her head cocked, she gives irl has never wanted anything froh for her You and only you You alere”

A few minutes later, I finish my sandwich and haulthe basin with soap and ater A quick glance down and I spot the white, seht Daddy placed it on a hot stove burner

He’d worked a long day in the field, sla for supper, and soetables she’d been planning to serve

I’ll never forget the screa pleas that ca—it was one of sheer horror For as long as I could rehts and he would occasionally knock her around when he’d had far too much to drink He was careful never to do it in front of us though, and Ma her marks with various shades of heavy corrective makeup

Still, I knew

I always knew

But that particular day, I caught hiainst a red-hot metal burner

Ma screa him into the wall so hard it left a body-shaped outline in the plaster

“You touch her again, I’ll kill you,” I told hi over his drunken sorry ass He wiped the spittle fro but pure hatred in his eyes

“I’d like to see you try, boy” He hobbled up, laughing at the entire thing asunder a streaot in his truck, and left—presuet some food in town

“I think we should take you into town,” I told Mama “It looks pretty bad”

She sniffed and wiped her tears on the back of her non-injured hand “There’s nothing they can do for it that I can’t do for rab auze pads, will you?”