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Show Moon - 5 enlisted in the Army. When he left, he stopped beside her at the swing on the veranda, tapped the top of her head, and said, "Bye, kid," as if he saw her as just a normal sister. Alice bobbed her hair, went to proms and sighed about her fingernails and clothes, wore a little cat smile when she talked about boys. Anne ignored her, kept her hair in braids, and when the boys from school came around, she sat silently or went to her room. After a while they stopped trying to talk to her. Right out of high school, Alice married a Naval officer and moved to Maryland. When Anne finished high school, she got a job selling tickets for the Northern Railroad in Chicago and signed up for an evening art class at Northwestern. Ruth was horrified, whether about the job or the class it was hard to tell. She stood at the sink, her wide uneven hip jutted out against her apron, and explained to Anne and to Esther, the youngest: "Your great-grandfather owned a plantation in North Carolina." "A slave owner," said Esther. Actually, Esther didn't say that, not that I know of, but it would have been like her. I'm sure, in truth (which is not the same as fact) that these people said more or less what I set down. Does it matter? It is the tone of things that endures, the textures and colors, the way the oilcloth felt on the kitchen table when it was cold, the way Ruth wielded a dish rag and stood crookedly at the sink, and the way Esther sat at the table, her eyes already cynical, her fingers twisting her wiry red curls. "Your great grandfather's brother was a senator." Ruth would have gone on to this. "Your grandfather on my side was a great attorney." "When he wasn't drunk." Esther again. |