Zero at the Bone Read Online Free PDF Page B

dog-training voice, she commanded, “Higgins, sit.” Higgins immediately dropped his rear end the three inches to the ground.
    Both Hester and Judith let out a squeal of surprise.
    “Good boy,” Katherine said. “Higgins.” She waited until she established eye contact with the dog. “Down.” Higgins thought for a second longer than she liked, and pushed out his short front legs so he was lying down.
    “Oooh, good boy,” Hester said. “Kate, it’s wonderful. I don’t know how you do it. I wish we’d asked you to train him sooner. It just never occurred to us that he could be trained. He’s always been so … opinionated about things.”
    When Joe had loaded all Higgins’s toys and his bed into the trunk of the Cadillac and Judith had written a check and tucked it into Katherine’s shirt pocket, Hester hefted herself in under the wheel. Judith climbed in next to her with Higgins in her lap. “Oh, it’s so nice to be home,” Hester said through the open window. She looked at the fields of wildflowers and sighed. “I don’t believe there’s a place in all Europe as beautiful as your place, Kate.”
    Katherine was surprised by a surge of tears welling up like a force of nature, as if from an underground spring.
    “Oh, my dear, what have I said?” Hester wailed.
    Katherine couldn’t speak. She held up her hand—a request for time to gather her composure.
    “Come sit in the car with us for a minute so we can talk,” Judith said, reaching behind her to open the back door of the Cadillac. Katherine got in obediently.
    “I’m going to give us some air.” Hester started the engine, rolled up the electric windows, and turned the air-conditioning on full-blast. The sisters both swiveled their heads toward the back seat, waiting.
    Katherine sat for a long minute with her head down. She was not accustomed to telling her problems to anyone. It was always better, she’d found, to keep them private. But for the first time in her life, a swell of emotion was threatening to overwhelm her. She finally found her voice and began to talk. Once started, she couldn’t stop.
    She began with her morning visit to the bank and the impending foreclosure.
    “That George Bob Rainey should be ashamed of himself,” Hester said. “He could give you some more time. He’s probably got himself a buyer interested.”
    Katherine went on to tell them what the lawyer had said about Ra being part of the collateral. She even told them about the letter from her father and how she felt about it. They were a perfect audience. They listened attentively, nodding and making little cooing noises at the worst parts, asking questions only occasionally for clarification.
    By the time she’d finished, Higgins was asleep in Judith’s lap, making wet snuffling noises with each inhalation.
    “So,” Hester said, “in three weeks, the bank will take your house, your land, and your business, including Ra, if you don’t come up with ninety-one thousand dollars.”
    Katherine nodded.
    “And your father has offered you the cash you need to pay off the loan, but you hate him for his past neglect so you refuse to go collect the money. Do I have it right?”
    Katherine said, “But he never even—”
    Hester interrupted. “No, I know he didn’t. Kate, our father was the son of a bitch to end all sons of bitches, wasn’t he, Judith?”
    Judith nodded so vigorously her tight perm loosened.
    “And you know what? I enjoy the money we inherited from him all the more for it. When we go to Rome and stay at the Ritz, I like to think of that cheap, surly bastard sweating it out in the oilfields for the money we’re spending. He beat us just to keep in practice and he used to complain that his life would be better if girls were all drowned at birth. Should we turn down his money because he mistreated us? Hell, no. All the more reason to take it and enjoy it. Kate, you get in your car and drive to Austin now. Let the bastard pay to ease his guilt. Tell