All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred two)

 

 

 

 

 

All Bedlam Courses Past

 

Chapter Four

Counterfeits

(part one hundred two)

 

 

 

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The light was through the kitchen window. Richard had given a peek and seen no one inside.

“How come Gippy didn’t bark, cause he knows you.” Samuel spoke shuffling up, dog tight at his pants leg. “What is it? Is it money?”

“I got this silver dollar I don’t want…you can have ten cents of it. Not so fast. You know where your mama keeps her purse?”

“She’s home.”

“Well, I didn’t ask. Why wouldn’t she be?”

“Cause Daddy gone off.”

“Well, now, halfwit, what’s she do when he goes off? Follow him?”

“Not all the time. Mama!”

Mary’s white apron showed at the door.

“Uncle Richard came back. Where’s your purse?”

“God Almighty Jesus!”

“No, ma’am, you keep yourself easy.” Richard was not really dismayed. Samuel’s progressing from clue to deduction, without a long, careful tutelage, could happen only by miracle. Mary’s face even was welcoming…in that it was avid in the looks it gave, and the mouth twitched at speech.

“I know I don’t have to lie to you. Long as Lawrence ain’t here.”

The sound of her laugh was very like, ha! “Richard, where you think Lawrence went? Since noontime and still not back?”

She was taking the lid off a skillet. Pouring coffee. He spread on her tablecloth three of the dollar coins. “Can you change em for me? I promised a dime to Samuel.”

“Samuel don’t need a dime. Richard, where?”

“Lawrence? No idea.”

“You hungry?”

For the coffee, he sat. “I had something in town.”

“You been up to something in town.”

“Whatever you hear, won’t do you any good.”

“Oh, I got nothing to say to anybody.” She dug the purse from her apron pocket. Gippy barked, making two adults jump. “Samuel, put that dog out the door! Then get your shoes off and get to bed.”

She waited, eyes on these orders, as carried out. “Now, listen to that, he’s opening the window so that dog can come in his room.”

Richard heard a muted, Gippy, Gippy.

Mary whispered: “You stole them.”

He doubted Samuel’s ears made any difference. Samuel was a boy no one believed. But he asked, changing topic: “You love Lawrence?”

She took a chair opposite. “I can’t figure that out.”

Maybe she thought her brother-in-law was making a proposition. “I been thinking of all the people I ought to love, and I don’t love any of them.”

Mary drew back her lips, dimpling her cheeks, not charmingly. “Let me tell you about Lawrence. He has gone off where he got invited. I sat and watched him get dressed up in his suit. If you ever saw a man thinking how he’d look when a woman laid eyes on him! I didn’t ask if he wanted me along. No, he sure wouldn’t. I don’t believe that girl never said it, either, you both come. She said Lawrence you come. You know who I mean.”

 

 

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Bedlam

All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred three)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(2024, Stephanie Foster)