Dirty Faces- Book 1

Chapter 8: Soup Beans

Ginny was already asleep in Mama's bed when Kody returned home. The smoke had cleared but the stench still lingered. He kicked off his boots and picked up the copy of Crime and Punishment he'd been reading, which was still laying on the couch where he'd left it the night before. As he sat down, he thumbed through the pages in search of the folded piece of notebook paper he'd been using to mark his place, but it wasn't there. He remembered well enough where he'd left off but the disappearance of his book mark bugged him too much to start reading just yet. He checked between the couch cushions and underneath the couch itself, as well as the chair cushions and underneath. He looked all around the front room but came up empty.

He walked to the kitchen and there it lay, unfolded, on the kitchen table. A pencil-sketched portrait of what could only be his mother now filled the formerly blank space. It was pretty good, he had to admit, especially considering it it was all from memory, as there weren't any pictures of Mama around the house. He folded it back up and returned to the front room to read.

*****

The next afternoon, Kody parked Lilly in front of the school house after work, walked to the edge of the ball field, and whistled through his fingers. Tommy, Danny, J.D., Becky, and Freddy all froze and jerked their heads in that direction. He waved to the others as Ginny trudged toward the truck. She slammed the door when she got in.

"Hey, now! Easy on Lilly," he scolded.

"You just whistled for me. Like a damn dog."

"AND watch your mouth!"

She rolled her eyes and looked out the window. "Psht."

"Just don't take it out on the truck. Geez."

He drove to the store and Ginny slammed the door again when she got out. Kody shot her a pointed look. "Just go. Go find yourself some cold cereal or something, " he sputtered. She pushed the glass door open and let it shut on him, releasing a series of muttered obscenities behind her as she headed for the aisle that contained Oreos.

She wandered around idly after picking up a box of Oreos, trying to both avoid Kody and not look like she was attempting to steal something from her mother's employer. She meandered to the aisle where the boxes of cold cereal were kept and considered her options; the little elf on the Rice Krispies box seemed to be calling her name. Then someone actually did call her name. It was a low, rough voice she knew well but abhored. She spun around to find her step-father, Ralph, standing behind her, wearing that same smug face he always did.

"Get some Corn Flakes," he ordered.

She hung her head and reluctantly removed a box of the cereal she least liked from the shelf. Just then Kody rounded the corner with a basket full of soups, soda crackers, canned meats, and peanut butter. One look at Ralph and he looked like all the air had been let out of him, but he quickly recovered.

"Ralph...hey," he said, friendly enough.

"Hey."

"How was the run?"

"Okay."

There were two good things to note about Ralph, the first being that he drove a freight truck and was usually gone for weeks at a time. The second was that he wouldn't pry into what they had or had not been up to in Mama's absence since he really didn't care. But those were the only good things about him. The possibility of him trying to take the place of their father simply didn't exist, as he made it perfectly clear that they were not his progeny and he would not treat them as such, rather, he treated them with unconcealed contempt. They were an annoying little side note to his marriage with their mother and he made sure they knew that.