Not Paid For

FICTION Not Paid For Elaine Fowler Palencia One morning, as Mom was sitting blankly by Dreama's picture window and Talbot was reading the newspaper on the davenette, Mom suddenly said, "Here, kitty, kitty. Look, Sister, kitty." Talbot peered over the top of the newspaper. Out on the sidewalk, a big calico cat sat licking one paw. Then it dawned on him and he threw the paper aside. "Dreama! Get in here!" Dreama appeared in the doorway, drying a highball glass with a dish towel. "What is it>" "Mom spoke. She saw that cat out there—always had eyes like a barn owl—and said kitty." "Mom!" shouted Dreama. Mom's hands started moving in her lap like she was shelling peas. "Dad, are you sure?" said Dreama. "Swear to God," said Talbot, feeling hope drain away. It was no fun sleeping next to a dead person every night. For three weeks, ever since Dreama moved him and Mom off the farm, Mom had said nary a word. Now that he had time to think back, her loss ofspeech had probably been a gradual thing, but he had been too overwhelmed by farm work to notice. After his dizzy spell out in the garden, it seemed like even milking was hard for him, though he would never have admitted it to anyone. In fact, when Dreama and Floyd showed up from Ohio—Charlie Carruthers had slipped and phoned them from Lambert's store—he went out and chopped firewood for an entire morning just to show them he was still the man he'd always been. One look at Mom, though, and Dreama was bound and determined to move them. But if she thought that made them charity cases, she was sadly mistaken. Elaine Fowler Palencia, a freelance writer living in Champaign, Illinois, grew up in Kentucky and Tennessee. Writing as Laurel Blake, she is the author ofseveral romance novels and was afinalistfor the Golden Medallion Award of the Romance Writers ofAmerica. Her short stories have appeared in Iowa Woman, Crescent Review, The Spirit That Moves Us, and other literary magazines. 48 As Dreama turned back to the kitchen, he took a deep breath and said, "Look here. I was thinking about bringing my push mower back from the farm. There's no need for you to pay somebody to mow your postage stamp of a yard when I could do it. Besides, those renters you put in the house down there are too sorry to use it." Dreama's eyes went hooded like a snake's. "I don't think so." "Why not? I pay my way, you know that. Forresters always do." "Well, you can pay it by setting right there and watching Mom." Talbot felt little pops going off in his head, like blood vessels bursting . "I'm no damn babysitter." "She's your wife, old man, not mine." "What did you say? I can still tan your jacket, don't matter how old you are!" he shouted, coming out of his chair. At the same time she surged toward him and for a long moment they stood toe to toe, like two grizzlies on their hind legs. Then, for the first time in his life, Talbot took a step backwards. If Dreama threw them out, what then? In a hard voice she said, "This isn't the last brier patch over the hill we're living in here. This is the city. You don't need to be parading around out there in your overalls, spitting tobacco juice on your sleeve." And you married a man who couldn'tpour piss out ofa boot. "I'll get Floyd to take me to Kentucky to get my mower. He'll take me." "You're not Floyd's boss, I am. And don't you never forget it," said Dreama, and stalked out of the room. He had to give her that. If he had been holding a loaded pistol, she would still have turned her back on him. Of his three children, she was the most like him. But if anybody had told him that he would let himself be talked to the way she just had, he...