In the Sky with Diamonds » s. hyde

eight

THANKSGIVING

Lucy stood shivering in her boots outside the bus station, holding her fur ear muffs tight as waves of her blonde hair whipped around her face.

"Laurie's bus isn't here yet dad," Eric said as he ran out of the bus station, tightening his jacket around him. "Can we get in the car and turn on the heat? I'm freezing," Eric begged.

"I'm not wasting gas just so you can be comfortable," Red snapped.

Lucy's teeth chattered, "Oh please Daddy," she whined.

"You heard what I said," Red softened a little seeing his daughter shivering.

"Damn the gas shortage," she mumbled.

"What was that?" Kitty yelled over the howling of the wind.

"Nothing Mama!" Lucy chirped.

"Can we at least go wait inside?" Eric begged, pulling Lucy into his side to keep them both warm and avoid freezing to death.

"I'm not waiting in that bus station with those people!" Kitty whispered, looking around warily. "Oh Eric I forgot to tell you, your sister's bringing a friend home so you'll be sleeping in the basement."

Lucy winced, already feeling bad for her twin. She'd let him stay in her room—but she really didn't care to find out what—or who, her brother dreamed about.

"The basement! They should sleep in Laurie's room! Or bunk up in Lucy's!" Eric protested.

"Oh and Red I've been thinking, maybe this Thanksgiving we skip the big turkey, little ones are on sale at Piggly Wiggly," Kitty rocked back and forth, trying to keep warm.

"This family doesn't scrimp on holidays! Can you imagine my mother sitting down to a chicken!" Red asked.

"Red your mother doesn't eat my cooking anyways, so that won't be a problem," Kitty rolled her eyes.

"Then she can starve," Lucy seethed. She wasn't overly fond of Grandma Forman, the bitch Bernice had been making her mother's life a living hell for as long as she could remember.

Last Christmas, Lucy had accidentally spilt the gravy on her when she said they wouldn't have money problems if her mother had "kept her legs shut." At Red's birthday that year, Lucy made sure to step on her toes—literally—when she said Kitty was raising her children with bad habits by having alcohol in the house. The earliest revenge Lucy remembered getting on the old hag was when she was six and Bernice said Kitty's Easter dress made her look fat; Lucy took all of Grandma's cigarettes and flushed them and hid the glasses she kept laying around the house so she couldn't drive to buy more. When she got caught, Lucy cried saying she didn't want the cigarettes to hurt her sweet old grandmother. In reality, she knew her grandmother was hopelessly dependent and would even worry herself sick if she didn't get a smoke.