House of Blues

written, "and our
cousins had come over . . ."
    * * *
    Maybe it was Easter or something like that—we'd had
some big family gathering and they were all there, Tante Patrice's
kids and Tante Breezy-Ann and Uncle Patrick's. There must have been
nine or ten of us, including a few grown-ups who'd been detailed to
supervise, and we decided to play softball.
    The grown-ups drifted away, all except for Uncle
Michael, who was the black sheep, being gay, and probably didn't care
much for the others his age.
    We were doing fine, having a great time, when Evie
hit a foul ball and it went through the kitchen window. That wouldn't
have been so bad if Mama hadn't been standing at the sink, washing
some crystal things she didn't want to put in the dishwasher. The
ball whizzed by her ear, hit the refrigerator, ricocheted off it, and
hit her smack in the middle of the back. Holy shit, you'd have
thought she'd been shot. From the shriek she let out, you'd have got
the idea she was paralyzed. Well, poor thing, she was probably scared
to death. It's not ev ery day a flying missile doubles around and
hits you in the back, chases you down like one of those vulgarly
named pyrotechnical devices.
    She started screaming, "You kids! You kids!"
and someone said Evie did it—probably me—and she hollered, "Get
in here, Evelyne Hebert. I'm going to knock you into the middle of
next week."
    Evie started crying and cringing—God, I was sorry
for her! I don't think I've ever seen anyone look so scared in my
life. It wouldn't have occurred to me to be so scared of either of
our parents. I don't know if Evie was just a natural victim or what.
Maybe things happened to her that Reed and I don't know about. She's
the oldest—she was there before we were. Maybe her life was
different somehow.
    For whatever reason, she was always different from
us.
    She was bad.
    That wasn't news. We knew she was bad because that's
what everyone said—it was a given in our family. But until then I
didn't know how scared she was.
    She was cringing like some kind of pathetic
dog—actually holding onto a tree and hiding behind it—and she
said she didn't do it.
    Mama said, "Mike. Did she do it?"
    And Uncle Michael said, "She hit the ball,
Sugar, but Elise pitched it, and anyway, I'm the adult here, I was—"
    "She just lied to me—did you hear that? Did
you hear her 1ie?"
    All the other grown-ups were gathered in the kitchen
by this time—all of them come to see if the person howling was
their own dear little child, I guess, but Mama didn't seem to care
how big a spectacle she made of herself. They were just kind of
watching in various states of shock, mouths open, and Dad had his arm
around her waist. He was probably saying, "Now, Sugar, honey,"
or something like that, but she was all alone in the world for all
the attention she paid.
    All alone except for Evie. She said, "You lied
to me! You're just a little liar, aren't you? You come here to me.
I'll show you what happens to liars."
    By this time even I was getting scared, and so were
the other kids, I think. We were just standing around like the
grown-ups, sort of frozen in place. I don't know what we thought Mama
was going to do to her, but there was something terrifying just in
the way she was yelling.
    And of course we knew that it was her fault. Because
somehow or other Evie made things go wrong. We knew in our hearts
that none of us was capable of making that ball hit Mama, that only
Evie did things like that. No one moved; not even Uncle Mike. Mama
kept saying, "You come here to me. Do what I say, Evelyne
Hebert," and slapping the kitchen counter with the flat of her
hand. It made a noise like a gunshot.
    Evie sort of whined, "No, Mama; no, Mama,"
like some pathetic baby animal, and then Mama said, "Don't make
me have to come and get you," in a voice like the blade of a
saber. Evie started dancing. Jumping up and down and turning around
and around, flinging her arms in the air, flailing them about. She
was saying, "No! Noooo! I can't," and her hands looked like
they were going to fly off her wrists.
    Mama said, "You've got five to get over here."
And she started counting. "One. Two. Three."
    Evie was still dancing, still jumping up and down,
but she was scratching the tree now, attacking it with her nails,
which were probably bitten to the quick, but I guess she wished she
could turn into a cat and climb it.
    I don't know why she didn't run, though. She could
have. I saw that scene played out a lot, other