When She Was Good Read Online Free PDF Page A

I am is your grandfather whose house this is.”
    “I didn’t ask to live here.”
    “But you do, you see! So quiet! You are never to call the jail again. They are not needed here! Is that clear?”
    “The police,” she whispered.
    “Or the police! Is that clear or not?”
    She did not answer.
    “We are civilized people in this house and there are some things we do not do, and that is number one. We are not riffraff, and you remember that. We are able to settle our own arguments, and conduct our own affairs, and we don’t require the police to do it for us. I happen to be the assistant postmaster of this town, young lady, in case you’ve forgotten. I happen to be a member in good standing of this community—and so are you.”
    “And what about my father? Is he in good standing too, whatever that even
means?
”
    “I am not talking about him right this minute! I will get to him, all right, and without your help too. Right now I am talking about you and a few things you may not know at fifteen years of age. The way we do it in this house, Lucy, is we talk to a person. We show him the right.”
    “And if he doesn’t know it?”
    “Lucy, we do not send him to jail! That’s the only point. Is it clear?”
    “No!”
    “Lucy, I ain’t the one who is married to him, Lucy. I don’t live in the same room with him, Lucy.”
    “So
what?
”
    “So what I am saying to you is that a lot of things, a great many things, you do not know the slightest thing about.”
    “I know it’s your house. I know you give him a home, no matter what he does to her, or says to her—”
    “I give my daughter a home, that’s what I do. I give you a home. I am in a situation, Lucy, and I do what I can for the people I happen to love around here.”
    “Well,” she said, beginning to cry, “you’re not the only one who does, maybe, you know.”
    “Oh, I know that, I know that, sweetheart. But, honey, don’t you see, they’re your parents.”
    “Then why don’t they act like parents!” she cried, rushing out of the room.
    Then Berta started in.
    “I heard what she said to you, Willard. I heard that tone. It’s what I get all the time.”
    “Well, I get it too, Berta. We all get it.”
    “Then what are you going to do about it? Where will it stop with her? I thought becoming a Catholic at the age of fifteen was going to be the last thing up her sleeve. Running off to a Catholic church, going up to visit nuns for a whole weekend. And now this.”
    “Berta, I can only say what I can say. I only got so many words, and so many different ways to say them, and after that—”
    “After that,” said Berta, “a good swat! Whoever in their life heard of such a thing? Making a whole household into a public scandal—”
    “Berta, she lost her head. She got scared.
He
made the scandal, the damn idiot, doing what he did.”
    “Well, any fool could have seen it coming a mile away. Any fool can see the next thing coming too—probably involving the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
    “Berta, I’ll take care of it. Exaggerating don’t help things at all.”
    “How are you going to start taking care of it, Willard? By going down to the jail and letting him out?”
    “I am deciding about that right now, what I’m going to do.”
    “I want to remind you, Willard, while you are deciding, that Higgles were among the founders of this town. Higgleswere amongst the first settlers who built this town from the ground. My grandfather Higgle built the jail, Willard—I am glad he is not alive to see who it was he built it for.”
    “Oh, I know all that, Berta. I appreciate all that.”
    “Don’t you make light of my pride, Mr. Carroll. I am a person too!”
    “Berta, she won’t do it again.”
    “Won’t she? Beads and saints and every kind of Catholic gimcrack she has got up in that room of hers. And now this! She’s taking over here, as far as I can see.”
    “Berta, I have explained to you:
she got frightened
.”
    “And who