Designated Daughters Read Online Free PDF Page B

that Uncle Rufus was one of the men who saw her.”
    Daddy grinned. “Me neither. Rufus ever talk about it, Sister?”
    Aunt Sister rolled her eyes, but her daughter Beverly laughed. “He did to me. Told me to always wet a new bathing suit before I wore it in public.”
    Aunt Sister chose to ignore that and gave a disapproving frown as she reached out to adjust Sally’s purple jersey top, which was in danger of slipping off her shoulder entirely.
    We’re all used to Aunt Sister’s prudery and Sally just smiled.
    “What was that about cowbirds and goldfinches?” I asked.
    Aunt Sister frowned and shook her head and Sally didn’t seem to know either.
    Daddy gave a half smile. “Cowbirds don’t build a nest or raise their own chicks. They just lay their eggs in somebody else’s nest. Sounds like she knew somebody that was raising a cowbird.”
    “What I want to know is who was Letha?” asked Sally. “I don’t ever remember hearing that name.”
    “And who was Ransom?” asked Jay-Jay, equally curious.
    Although both had worked alongside their parents on the truck farm and at the vegetable stand, both had left for easier office jobs in Raleigh as soon as they finished high school.
    “Ransom?” Aunt Sister’s wrinkled face softened with a smile. “Your mama had such a crush on him. What was his last name, Kezzie?”
    Daddy cast his mind back over the years. “Barber? Barton? I can’t rightly remember. His people came from Georgia and they moved back after a few years. Barkley?”
    “Barley!” Aunt Sister exclaimed, delighted to have retrieved the name. “And he had a brother named Donald. Nice-looking boys, both of them. I believe their daddy worked as a lineman for the power company so he got moved around right much.”
    Sally spread some chicken salad on a cracker and handed it to her brother. “He was Mama’s boyfriend?”
    “Not really. Rachel was only fourteen that summer and Mammy wouldn’t let us go off in cars till we was sixteen. And then it had to be at least two couples.”
    “Really?” Sally was amused. “Bet if I know Mama, she bent that rule a time or two.”
    “And Mammy bent a peach switch across her legs, but that didn’t stop her from sneaking down to the creek to meet him once in a while.”
    Daddy smiled at Jay-Jay. “If he hadn’t moved back to Georgia, I’m thinking your last name might be Barley now.”
    Aunt Sister shook her head. “Naw, now, don’t you remember? After Jacob drowned, she wouldn’t have nothing to do with any of them boys.”
    “That’s right.” Daddy’s smile faded. “She blamed them ’cause they didn’t save him. Blamed Jed, too, didn’t she?”
    “Blamed who for what, Mr. Kezzie?”
    I turned and saw that Dwight had come in unnoticed.
    “Where’s Cal?” I asked, half expecting to see our son with him.
    “He and Mama went to pick strawberries over at Smith’s Nursery.” Then to the others, “She sent y’all her regards.”
    “You eat yet, Dwight?” asked one of the church women who’s known him since childhood and doesn’t stand on ceremony even though Dwight is now Sheriff Bo Poole’s second-in-command.
    “No, ma’am.”
    “Then you need to let me get you some of my turkey casserole.”
    She bustled off to the buffet and Sally said, “What happened with Dotty Morefield and her brother, Deborah? Did he win?”
    I shook my head and she gave a triumphant fist pump.
    “Why were you and Marillyn Mulholland there? Are y’all friends with Mrs. Morefield?”
    She nodded. “I don’t know her as well as Marillyn and the others do. Her mother died last year before I joined the Daughters, but she still comes by once in a while.”
    “Daughters?” I asked.
    “Designated Daughters,” she said, licking a fleck of chicken salad from fingers that sported bright turquoise nails that matched her leggings.
    She smiled at my look of puzzlement. “They got the name when the first members began meeting at the senior center at least twenty