Apron Strings by Mary Morony Page B

had happened that day. While Gordy spoke volumes about the fascinating things we’d encountered on our adventure, I sat glumly silent with my head in my hand, glaring in Helen’s direction.
    “How about you, Sallee? Didn’t you have fun?” my mother asked.
    “Yeah—I mean, yes. I guess it was fun.”
    “What’s the matter, darling? Do you feel all right?”
    “Tired, I guess.”
    “Well, if you’re tired,” Daddy said, walking into the room, “then you slept too much. You had two really good naps today.” He picked me up and sat in the chair where I had been moping and plopped me down in his lap. I smiled despite my foul mood.
    “And what’s this about you
guess
you had fun?” He wiggled my leg like he was testing to see if it worked. “I distinctly remember you swinging from vines, shrieking like Tarzan, or was that some other little girl?”
    I snatched my leg away. “Stop it!” I whimpered.
    He felt my forehead. “She doesn’t have a temperature,” he said.
    My mother shrugged. “Helen, tell everybody what
we
did today,” she said.
    “She already did,” I snarled.
    “We went to the toy department at Tilmen’s and I got a dolly,” Helen said. She held the doll up for Daddy to see.
    “Very nice, a bride,” he said.
    My mother said, “I was so touched by this sweet little girl.”
    My eyes rolled.
Please
, I thought.
Ol’ goody goody Helen
.
    “Helen said to me, ‘Mama, I only want a doll if Sallee can have one, too.’ So I bought you one too, Sallee.”
    “We got you the Barbie with blonde hair cuz I knew you’d like it better,” Helen added. “And we got
you
a big box of Lincoln Logs, Gordy!” She was beaming.
    “Well, how about that little sugar plum sister of yours, Sallee?” Daddy asked. He leaned over and kissed Helen on the head, and then wrapped his other arm around her.
    “Whattya got to say?” he asked as he jiggled my foot with his knee.

Chapter 6
    O n evenings when my parents entertained, we children had to go to each guest and say, “Hello,” and shake the person’s hand. Each time my mother would say, as if I were completely stupid, “Sallee, look at Mrs. So-and-so when you speak to her.” I wouldn’t, mostly because I thought Mrs. So-and-so would be able to see in my eyes how much I hated this little charade. So, I would look just over the person’s shoulder, just beyond their ear at something on the wall so that I looked like I was looking at them. Sometimes I would sneak a peek at some of the peoples’ eyes and I could tell they knew what I was up to, but my mother fell for it every time. She’d say, “That’s better.” As soon as everybody said how much we had grown since the last time they had seen us, we were whisked off to bed. Helen and I would sometimes watch Ethel leave from our bedroom window. She’d climb into that rusted Easter-egg-green pickup that her husband, Big Early, drove, and they’d disappear down the drive.
    I asked her one day, “Why don’t you live with us?”
    “Lord, honey! I gotta milk ol’ Janice an’ Mattie, an’ slop the hogs when I gets home. They can’t dos for theyselves.”
    “Couldn’t Big Early do that? Couldn’t he milk the cows and stuff?”
    “And who’d take care o’ him? Who’d cook ‘n clean and do for him?”
    “Can’t he take care of hisself?” I asked.
    “Chile, that man works hard as ten men! He need me to help ‘im.”
    “But Ethel, I needs you, too. He’s big.” Ethel took me in her arms and leaned her head on the top of mine. She held me like that for the longest time. It would have been all right with me if she never let me go.
    For a good while after I turned eight, Ethel had her grandson, Lil’ Early, living with her. On Saturdays, she would bring him to work with her. Only after I grew up did I realize that she didn’t bring him to play with us, but to work, because she had nowhere else to take him. Nevertheless, for us it was like a holiday when he came along with Ethel. On