Thinking fast, I suggested, “Why don’t we take this stuff to the packhouse? That way the house don’t get all stinky.”

“That’s a good idea. We got some shelling to do. Come on.” Scooping the supplies into his brawny arms, he made his way to the front door, his work boots hitting the floor loudly.

With no other choice, I followed, tiptoeing as if that could cancel out all his noise.

By the time the sun started rising, I’d shelled shrimp until my fingers ached with tiny nicks making them sting. The only break was when Pa had a batch fried up and insisted I help him eat it. We feasted past being full and I was on the cusp of being sick and barely able to keep my eyes open. Not Pa. He cycled from cooking to eating to belting out songs to carrying on about different ways we could prepare the shrimp.

Once the sky shed its dusky-gray coat and warmed into yellows, I mentioned it was time to get everyone up and ready for school.

Pa’s eyes widened. “Go put on a pot of grits so we can surprise the crowd with fried shrimp and grits.”

Oh, my siblings were surprised all right when they were greeted by a smelly crazed man, showing off a ridiculous amount of shrimp that he expected them to eat for breakfast no less.

I managed to grab a shower to wash the stink off while they finished eating, and then we all fled out of the house and away from the crazy to go to school.

Eyes gritty and stomach sour from too much grease and my father’s alarming behavior, I drifted through the day and could hardly recall picking the twins up from day care and getting us home safely, just thankful I had. I was even too foggy to recall much about my brief visit to Miss Wise.

After handing the little ones off to Charlotte and Raleigh, I beat a path to the packhouse to assess the damage, expecting most of the shrimp to probably be spoiled since Pa hadn’t iced the coolers and the day had been unseasonably warm. The ripe smell of seafood was strong, but after inspecting the coolers and finding them empty and washed out, I realized the smell was coming from a barrel with an army of flies buzzing around it. I swatted the air and peered inside, marveling at the amount of shrimp hulls and trying to figure if it was humanly possible for Pa to have shelled all that shrimp by himself.