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“From the reclamation shed? That doesn't seem to make sense. Where would you get the money? How does that happen?”
She points her fork at me. “I know you think you know everything, but you don't. There's still a lot of things that go on around here you don't know anything about, Angel. A lot of things.”
We sit in silence for a few minutes, while both of us try to figure out what we’re going to say next. This is not an argument that either one of us can win at this point. All we can do is make things worse.
“Well, anyway, I like your dress,” she finally says.
And I can't help it, I start to cry. As softly as I can at first, trying to choke it back by keeping my head down, holding my breath. But when the tears start dropping onto the rim of my plate and flowing into my nose, I have to sniffle. She hears it. She knows.
“Geez, Angel. What's the matter with you?”
I look up at her, trying to see through the bleary puddle of tears in my bottom eyelashes. Her expression teeters between annoyance and actual sympathy.
“Tonight… they’re taking me…”
“What are you talking about?” she asks irritably. “Who's taking you? Where could you possibly be going?”
I start crying in earnest, my shoulders heaving up and down, threatening the new seams of my shift. I try to explain, but I can only talk in phrases between hiccuping coughs.
“I don't know… Father Daddy… we’re gonna… for the Family… sell me…”
She squints at me, calculating. Then her eyes open wider.
“You're going to Dustin’s?”
I nod miserably.
“Well, that does make sense. I was wondering why they didn’t give you Master yet. Makes a lot of sense.”
Her cold, distant tone slashes at me. I feel lonely, like a kitten left out the snow.
“Mama,” I bawl. “But I'll be… I'll never see you again. Will I? I don't even know… Tulip said…”
She leans forward, resting her elbows on the table and clasping her hands under her chin.
“Listen, kid,” she starts, “everybody has a job to do. You should consider yourself lucky. You're probably very important to us. They probably picked you specifically, you know.”
“I was picked to settle your debt,” I hiss, suddenly full of venom. “It doesn't really have anything to do with me, at all. It's you, Mama. Your debt. Why didn't they sell you to settle your debt?”
She shrugs, raising her eyebrows imperiously. “What do you think they would get for an old lady like me anyway? My work is here. My service was raising you, and they must think I did a good turn on that or they wouldn’t have picked you. It all works out, somehow, it always does. It's all part of God’s plan.”
I don't want to say anything. She looks so satisfied, so smug. Then I realize, she's always been well aware of her debt. Apparently, so are a lot of other people. With me gone, nobody will be able to hang that over her head anymore. Her last shred of humility will just vaporize, just like that.
“So you will clear the last of our family obligation, Angel,” she continues reasonably. “Doesn’t that seem balanced? Fair? Everybody carries a debt, anyway. Don’t you think that both of us living here these last sixteen years has cost the Family something? Eating isn’t free, you know. And Silas coming in, being the father you never had? Don’t you think you owe him for that?”
I gasp a little, trying to understand what she's saying. It never occurred to me that I would owe Father Daddy for what he does, not really. Not for me specifically. He does it for everyone.
But that is sort of true, isn't it? I never had another father in my life. He's just about the only man I've ever looked up to with that kind of gravity or respect.
Then I remember our time in his office, murmuring word Daddy against his chest. The vision of his face buried between my legs flashes through my mind and I feel my cheeks getting hot as I blush fiercely.
?
?You all right?” Mama asks me, her eyes narrow. “You getting feverish or something? You think that'll get you out of it? Want to go take a nap or something?”
“I don't need a nap,” I spit right back at her. I stand and gather the plates off the table, even though she's got a couple bites left.
She doesn't even realize, this might be last night we ever see each other. Those might be the last words she ever says to me. And now she is going to have to make her own dinner. Clean her own house. Tend her own garden.
