A Wedding on the Banks by Cathie Pelletier Page B

delinquents pee the bed, then they’re cruel to little animals, then they set fire to something. You know damn well the only thing that child ain’t done is burn us out of house and home. And that’s next. He’s gonna end up in jail, in the same cell as Irving.”
    â€œDon’t talk about my boys like that,” Vera shouted, and lurched forward, but Vinal caught her arms.
    â€œSend Goldie up the hill, Pike, so you and I can talk,” said Vinal. He shoved Vera back into the faces of her children, into a scattering of bony arms and flying ponytails.
    Outside on the front steps, Vinal pushed his hands deep into his pockets and listened as Pike scolded Goldie back up the hill. She went, with the children’s blond heads bobbing around her, all of them looking back at intervals to see what the men were doing. From her kitchen window Vera watched them go.
    â€œThem kids remind me of dandelions,” she said to Molly, who was retrieving lint from her navel.
    Vinal lit a cigarette and tossed the match out into April’s soggy grass. He stared down at the patch Vera had glued to one of his rubber boots to keep the slush out. It could get damp on the way to the mailbox, or kneeling by the hubcaps of some stranger’s car.
    â€œHow about this?” Vinal asked, and squinted at his brother. “You tell Goldie I give you the five dollars. I’ll tell Vera I never give you a cent.”
    â€œLet’s hope they don’t git on good terms someday,” said Pike, and winked. “If they ever start talking, look out.”
    Vinal spit a large plug of snuff from under his lip. The juice of it sprayed the tomato fledglings that Vera had placed on the front steps. They grew out of milk cartons the kids had brought home from school; Grant’s Dairy Milk , they advertised. Vinal kicked one and it flew like a small red and white football into the air until it landed with a loosening thump of dirt and seedling.
    â€œNot them two women,” said Vinal, and reached down to pick up a set of shiny hubcaps he had selected earlier from out of the pile near the back steps. The rightful owners were probably driving around Watertown without them at that very minute, their drab wheels turning sadly.
    â€œThey’re a couple of mean ones,” Pike agreed.
    â€œWell, Vera takes after her old man,” Vinal said. “I’ll admit that. Uncle Frankie was Hitler without that little mustache.” He picked at his back teeth and freed a piece of relief meat that had been bothering him since noon.
    â€œHell, you know Goldie,” said Pike. “She gits uppity and that sets Vera off. It’ll pass. By the way, how is Irving making out?”
    â€œHe oughtta be out in five months,” said Vinal of his eldest son. “I don’t know what he was gonna do with that snowmobile in April. He should’ve waited until December. Not only would it have been easier to sell, but it’s hard to send a man to jail right before the holidays.”
    â€œWell,” said Pike sympathetically, “his timing was just a little off. Looks like a storm coming over from Hayfey Mountain.”
    â€œI got to get me a new mailbox,” Vinal said, and motioned with his head to the road. “Little Vinal tore the door off that new one.”
    â€œYou must be expecting a wedding invitation from Amy Joy Lawler, too,” said Pike. “Special delivery, with Sicily licking the envelope herself.”
    Hearing with satisfaction that his brother found the joke worthy of a belly laugh, Pike started off across the road, scuffing his heavy boots. He lifted one finger high in the air to test for raindrops.
    â€œA good rain won’t hurt us none,” Pike said with authority.
    â€œIt’ll eat up the last of that snow,” Vinal shouted after him. Then he went back inside his house, where Vera was waiting to hear that no way in hell did he give one penny to pay for some