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Show 185 Sometimes Helen's neighbor, Dee Delco, from right across the way. came over to play three handed x-xxaBKxxxxSxaxxxxxkxBKgxi HxxxKxkixnxKkxBk pinochle. Dee was brought up in Birmingham, Alabama but moved to Erie with her husband Derk after the Depression because they heard the mills were paying better in the north, which was wrong, but they didn't have money to get back. Derk sas in the Marines too only she didn't know where because his work was so secret, xkx she figured he was probably in Japan under the Sun Emperor's bed waiting for the right moment. "He's real good around beds," said Dee. Her view of the Civil War was that it was imminent. She was a few months more pregnant than Helen. Dee thought herself a pretty good card player but Bush sure beat her butt in three handed pinochle. "How do you win axxxaxaxxik everytime?" asked Dee. "Think about it," said Bx Bush. Which Dee did, but all she could figure was that Bush was a better cheat, which was hard to believe. Helen didn't care who won at pinochle and she didn't cheat. Pinochle kept her mind off her belly and Red. You could only clean the grime off the windows so many times, only spend so much time shopping, having coffee at Dee's, only so much time sleeping, only so much time preparing breakfast, lunch, and supper, eating it, and cleaning up. At night she was studying Latin so she could understand mass and she was thinking about taking up French. So the afternoons were something extra to do. Only she didn't like Bush doing all that walking by herself. Next winter it would be dark in the late afternoons when she had to walk home. "You could fall. If you broke a hip or pelvis at xi your age you might never recover," said Helen. "That's right, honey," said Dee. "Shit," said Bush. "That's what I need, to live longer." "Don't you want to see all your grandchildren?" said Dee. "I look like somebody who needs to see more," said Bush. She trumped and took the hand. "When they put a man on the moon, do you ixi think they're going to give me any credit?" "Honey," said Dee. "We're not talkin about the man in the moon." xxxtttactra^x^raxxx^ |