I settled myself into a wicker chair and waited for Daddy to finish changing shirts. Part of me knew better than to get around him when he had me on his mind but the other part was drawn in like mosquitoes to blood. I heard him pass through the dining room and speak to my mother. I got up and stood in the doorway. “How you doing, Sister?” he began. “What’s been going on?”

“Nothing. I took the boys swimming. Little Malcolm jumped off the board.”

“I got them breathing in the tub this winter,” he said to our cousin Martha Jane. “You got to teach them in the tub and get them ready. You heard any more from your little husband?” he asked, returning his attention to me. “Has he called again?”

“No, I told you he didn’t want anything. He was drinking.”

“Well, you better remember what I told you this morning if you want us to keep these boys. I’m mighty worried about you, Sister. I’ve had you on my mind.” He was talking to me as if his brother and his cousin weren’t even there. He always talked to us that way in front of people, shaming and challenging us, putting us in our place. “What kind of a dress do you call that, Sister? Is that a divorcée dress? What do you think, Will, is this what the divorcées are wearing now? Go put a shirt on, Sister. Cover up your top.”

“It’s a sundress,” I said. I left the porch and went into the kitchen and fixed myself a whiskey sour.

It was almost seven o’clock. Fannin was putting the fried chicken on the buffet. By dark I was drunk. By dark I was upstairs calling Charles William. “Come and get me,” I said. “I can’t stand it here. I have to get away. I have to go somewhere.”

“Sure, Dee,” he said. “Of course I will. I’ll be there in half an hour.” I hung up and called Speed and Karla and yelled at Speed for telling Malcolm about the abortion and then I yelled at Karla for telling Speed, then I tried to call Robert and Hilton but they didn’t answer. I went downstairs and went back out onto the porch. Daddy had a full house by now. Every chair was filled with friends and cousins. He was holding forth about the labor unions and how they had blown up his tipple in London, Kentucky. “We’re going to win the suit,” he was saying. “I got this hotshot lawyer who’s Senator Lampkin’s son-in-law. It’ll be a landmark case when we win it. It’s slow going, though. Those damn lawyers know how to hold things up. Where you been, Sister? Come on out here. Show Miss Hannie your divorcée dress. Look here at this dress, Miss Hannie. Is this what they’re wearing now?”