Love Me Tender Read Free Page A

argument.
    Partly it was about Mel wanting Daddy to stay home. And then it was about how Daddy didn't want us to go along. The upshot was, having another baby didn't fit in with Daddy's plans to make a big comeback out there in Las Vegas.
    Kerrie was lying awake in the dark when I went to bed later on that evening. She didn't sound babyish, she didn't even sound like an eight-year-old, when she asked me, “Do you think they're going to get a divorce?”
    Kerrie could deal with anything when she was using this voice. When she was four, she told me I didn't have to pretend about Santa Claus unless Mel and Daddy were in the room. When I asked why didn't she tell Mel and Daddy she knew, she said they gave better presents when they were pretending.
    But now we were talking about divorce. Kerrie could probably handle it, but I wasn't ready to admit how worried I was. I said, “Mel isn't going to let Daddy off that easily.”
    “It could have a good side to it,” Kerrie said. “We'd be just like all the other kids.”
    Kerrie and I were practically the only kids we knew who had a full set of parents that had never been married to anybody else. I said, “Divorce won't make us happy.”
    “Marietta's mother said it made her happy.”
    “That's because Marietta's mother was unhappy before the divorce. Mel and Daddy were happy. Are happy. They've just forgotten it for a little while.”
    “It's been a long time.”
    “The important thing to remember is, it's not about them, not really.” I had talked it out with Debs. Her mom, too. “This is all about gardens. And customers. It's about business.”
    “I'm not going to have any of those things when I grow up.”
    “Probably a good idea.”
    “Good night, Elvira.”
    I turned out the reading light, thinking it was about Daddy feeling appreciated by his customers. Or by an audience. Or by us. I hoped
Mel
got that.
    Then the baby started to kick.
    Babies should kick, Mel told us when at first only she could feel it. Then, once we
could
feel the baby kick, Mel kept making us hold a hand to her basketball of a belly and go, “Oh, wow.”
    It creeped me out.
    Last year, in science class, we watched this film on the daily life of insect larvae. The way those worms looked, that's how it felt to have that baby rub up against me from the other side of my mother's skin.
    Late in July, Mel threw herself a “seventh-month party.” She printed invitations and let us find them on the table one morning. After blank looks all around, Daddy gave Kerrie and me five dollars. “Walk down to the drugstore and get her a present,” he said. “Get her bath gel or something.”
    We bought a tin wind chime and a scented candle.
    Mel opened her presents, saying, “Oh, you shouldn't have” and “This is lovely.” Daddy gave her a vintage T-shirt that read IF YOU CHOKE A SMURF, WHAT COLOR WILL IT TURN? Mel said, “Isn't this fun?”
    She looked like a snake that swallowed an egg when she tried it on, and they had to explain to Kerrie that a Smurf was a cartoon character, a little blue man. So if he was al-ready blue, blah-blah-blah. Personally, I thought Daddy should have stuck to the bath gel idea.
    We all enjoyed the chocolate ice cream cake. While Kerrie and I did the dishes, Mel ate another slice. She took a third slice into the living room to watch TV. She was finishing it off as Kerrie and I went to bed.
    “That was strange,” Kerrie whispered.
    I shrugged.
    I didn't think it was strange for Mel to give herself a little party. I was only surprised she invited us.
    A week after that, the Belly just inflated, like a beach ball. Mel got so awkward, I kept making these stupid gallant gestures, like changing the lightbulb in the kitchen and cleaning the bathtub. Walking down to the Shop and Gas to buy her another box of Popsicles to satisfy her cravings for blue food coloring.
    I was disgusting, but I couldn't help myself. I felt sorry for her.
    Watching my sister stir her buttered corn