| OCR Text |
Show 77 no further interest in her family. Rod finds it hard to understand why this child would not stay there, where a new family had been formed around her, or why she would want to watch one old woman's strange obsession cause a perfect family to fall apart. Rod glares at the girl: "You know what for." Luel's kid does not answer; she gives her shoulders an almost imperceptible shrug, and moves off down the hall. When the two sons return, however, they find Annis is qone: the air! has allowed her to go for a walk, even though it is evening and very nearly dark, and even though she is supposed to be watched at every moment. "She wanted to go for a walk, that's all," the girl says, and her natural insolence is apparent in her voice. "You were supposed to be watching her," Rod fumes. If she were his own child, instead of the child of his dead sister, Rod would turn her instantly over his knee, as if she were half her age, and spank her. "I did watch her, that was the trouble. She wanted to be alone." The girl flips her black hair out of her eyes, looks directly at Rod. "How would you like it if you were watched all the time?" "We don't need help, the way she does." "She doesn't need help. She needs to be left alone." Rod ignores the girl. "Try the road in town," he growls to his brother. "You stay here in case she comes back," he says to the girl, "and for god's sake, if she comes back don't let her out again. If you do you'll be out too. |
