PA LIKED TOOTIE​ the best. We were three girls, and then Hubert died at six weeks of whooping cough. Pa always wanted a boy, and when Tootie came along, number four, she was as close as you could get. Tomboy. Followed Pa everywhere. Out in the garage all the time with the mechanics was Tootie. Tootie could fix cars. She knew how they worked, and when something went wrong with one she could diagnose its troubles. All I knew of cars was to get in and go. When I was fifteen, I said to Pa, “Pa, when you going to give me a car?” There was an old Ford in the lot and he said, “You can have that Ford, Junk,” and he tossed me the keys. He always called me Junk, which is not to say he didn’t love his kids, but he didn’t like women, and this is one way it slipped through, by calling me that name. Pa was good to me and although he was what you would call a ladies’ man, he really hated women. He treated Ma awful. He would go with floozies and buy them diamond pendants and then tell Ma about it and make her nuts to the point where she would almost faint. He would get her so riled me and my sisters would have to put a cold rag on Ma’s head at the back of the store in the kitchen where no customers could see. She would go back in the kitchen and nearly faint because of the way he would throw it in her face.