Chapter Twelve
Penny didn’t show her protective personality for the rest of summer, but together we found other ways to enhance her emotional needs and to educate mine. To prepare for this education, after insisting she sift through unpacked boxes from the yet to sell Green Hills house, I left Penny, trekked over to Kroger, collected the Turtle, and stopped by my mother’s house. No car. Did Mom now work Sundays? I wondered. I entered, opened the basement door and yelled down the stairs. “Hey, Sis, where’s Mother?”
“Mexico,” she yelled from below, “with John Peckerwood.”
“What?”
“Didn’t you know?”
“s**t! No.”
“Well, they’ve been seeing each other months.”
“B. B. but, what about father…?”
“What about him? Father has the bar fly from Willets.”
“Fat Lena…?”
“Yeah…!”
“s**t!”
“Will w
