The Cape Ann by Faith Sullivan

in a couple of places where Baby had gotten his teeth into the holes. I’d had these shoes a month or so, and they were supposed to last through the summer until I got my new school shoes.
    I started to cry. That blue living room suite of Mrs. Grubb’s was the ugliest living room suite I’d ever seen, and I hoped I never had to look at it again.
    “What’s wrong?” Mama asked when I got home. “You’ve been crying.”
    “Nothing. I slammed my finger in Mrs. Grubb’s screen door.”
    As Mama cleared the supper dishes, Papa took my hands and laid them, palms down, on the kitchen table. “These nails are freshly chewed,” he said.
    “But, Papa—”
    “No ‘but Papas.’ You don’t seem to understand that when you promise not to do something, and then you do it anyway, it’s a sin. Biting your nails is a sin.”
    “But, Papa …”
    “Get the brush,” he told me.
    “Please, Papa.”
    “Get the brush.” His face was starting to flush. “How can you go to confession next year?” Papa asked, leaning close.
    “What?”
    “Doesn’t it bother you, having so many sins? What is Father Delias going to think of
me
when he hears your confession?”
    I was trying not to cry. “Father Delias won’t know it’s me, Papa. There’s a little screen between us. He won’t know it’s me!”
    “Are you stupid? He’s known you all your life, and he won’t know your voice?” he asked scornfully.
    “No!” I screamed. That was my worst fear—that Father Delias would know it was me, would know that all those sins on the tablet were mine. I loved Father Delias, but how could he love
me
after he knew?
    “Don’t scream at me, young lady,” Papa warned, rising and heading purposefully into the bedroom.
    “Willie,” Mama said, “that’s enough.”
    “You stay out of this. This kid is going to hell from being spoiled,” he shouted at her, accusing her of ruining me.
    “Willie, she only bit her nails!”
    But Papa was resolved. I ran into the living room and wedged myself into the corner of the davenport. A moment later he stood in the doorway, the brush with the wide, flat wooden back in his hand.
    As he crossed the room and grabbed my arm, I screamed, “No! No! No!”
    “For God’s sake, Willie,” Mama yelled, “everyone will think she’s being murdered. Stop it!”
    “They will, will they?” he grunted, trying to hold me. I was kicking and thrashing and screaming. It was as though another child fought while I watched, unable to quiet her.
    Shouting over my screams, Papa said, “If she thinks I’ll stop because someone’s going to hear, she’s wrong.” He shoved the brush at Mama, snatched me up with both hands, and threw me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Off he marched, through the kitchen, out the screen door, and around to the parking lot. “Open the back door,” he told Mama when we reached the Oldsmobile.
    Into the backseat he tossed me, still screaming, unable to stop. “If she wants to scream,” he said to Mama as he climbed into the driver’s seat, “we’ll take her someplace where she can scream and no one can hear. Get in.” Mama got into the front seat.
    Papa drove out of town with the windows rolled up. He didn’t drive far into the country, only to the gates of the Catholic cemetery. He pulled the car up to the gates, cut the engine, grabbed the brush from Mama, and got out. Opening the door, he pulled me from the backseat and began to spank me with the brush across my bottom and the backs of my thighs.
    My screams continued, though they had nothing to do with the spanking. By now I felt nothing.
    Papa paused, breathing hard, and asked, “Have you had enough?” I couldn’t stop, so he began again.
    Again he halted. “You like it out here? Maybe you’d like to stay.” The only response was screams, and he took up his duty again.
    The third time he held off, Mama shrieked, “That’s enough! She’s never going to stop. You’ll make her sick.”
    “I can