"Goddammit, Rose Mary," Dad snapped. "Do you think I'm a fucking
idiot?"
"What?" Mom asked, throwing her arms up in the air. "Am I not allowed
to give my daughter a sock?" She winked at me again, just in case I
didn't get it.
Back in Battle Mountain, Dad insisted we go to the Owl Club to
celebrate payday, and ordered steaks for all of us. They tasted so good
we forgot we were eating a week's worth of groceries. "Hey, Mountain
Goat," Dad said at the end of the dinner, while Mom was putting our
table scraps in her purse. "Why don't you let me borrow that sock for a
second?"
I looked around the table. No one met my eye except Dad, who was
grinning like an alligator. I handed over the sock. Mom gave a dramatic
sigh of defeat and let her head drop down on the table. To show who was
in charge, Dad left the waitress a ten-dollar tip, but on the way out, Mom
slipped it into her purse. Soon we were out of money again. When Dad
dropped Brian and me off at school, he noticed that we weren't carrying
lunch bags.
"Where are your lunches?" Dad asked us.
We looked at each other and shrugged.
"There's no food in the house," Brian said.
When Dad heard that, he acted outraged, as though he'd learned for the
first time that his children were going hungry.
"Dammit, that Rose Mary keeps spending money on art supplies!" he
muttered, pretending to be talking to himself. Then he declared more
loudly. "No child of mine has to go hungry!" After he dropped us off, he