The Used World

“Temperature’s dropping. There’ll be a livestock alert by morning, I’ll bet, and tomorrow it’ll be too cold to snow.” Larry reminded Claudia of an actor in a western film. No particular actor—just a character with a squint, and an air of indifference to his clothes, his bunk, his companions.

“Sit down and eat something, Larry, before you take the kids to the school.”

“Take the kids to school? What for?”

“There’s a varsity game tonight.”

“So? If Brandon can’t drive them, they don’t need to go.”

Millie continued moving around the kitchen, opening the dishwasher, putting a dish in. She had a way of moving, Claudia had often noticed, that closed a door on a conversation. “Brandon isn’t driving with the roads the way they are, especially if two of Woodman’s horses are out.”

Larry looked at Claudia, sighed, pulled his cap back on.

“Sit down and eat something, I said. We’re having Mexican Hat Dance.”

“Well, I can’t, can I. I have to start the station wagon. I’ll eat something at the game.” The door closed behind Larry, and he left in his place a pocket of air so cold it surprised Claudia, even though she’d been sitting and studying the weather all evening.

Tracy came in now wearing makeup, and boots that wouldn’t keep the damp out. “Tell Dad it’s time to go,” she said to her mother.

“He’s starting the car, Trace.”

Brandon came in with his letter jacket on—a single varsity letter in golf, which Claudia would never see as a sport—and jingling the change in his pocket as if he were a man much pressed for time.

“That jacket’s not warm enough for this weather,” Millie said.

And right there it happened—a kind of disorientation that left her dizzy—it was December. High school basketball season in Indiana. The snow was falling, and Claudia was sitting at a kitchen table as teenagers got ready to head back to the school they couldn’t wait to leave earlier in the day. She was warm and safe, but there was a kind of voltage in the air, an excitement generated by having something, anything to do on a Saturday night, and it seemed to Claudia that nothing had changed. If she could just get home she’d find Ludie in the living room knitting in front of the television, and Bertram in his study. This was just what it felt like all her growing-up years: December, January, February, March.

“Kids, sit down and eat something before you go,” Millie said again, but Tracy was already putting on lip gloss and reaching for the door.

“We’ll eat at the game.” And then they were gone.

Millie watched the door for a moment, reached into the freezer where she had hidden a pack of cigarettes. She lit one and sat down across the table from her sister.

“You’re smoking again?” Claudia asked. She had grown accustomed to the idea that she might spend the rest of her short life inhaling other people’s fumes.

“Just this one,” Millie said, inhaling hard and blowing a thick cloud out over the table. “And don’t give me any crap about it.”

“I won’t.”

“I know Daddy would be horrified.” Millie dropped the cigarette into the jar of cheese and burst into tears. “Do you see? I do and do for them, look at this food on the table, and they don’t even notice, nobody cares.”

But what difference did it make, Claudia wondered, whether they ate nachos at home or nachos sold by the Band Boosters?

Millie wiped her face with a paper napkin. “You don’t know, Claudia, you can’t imagine what it’s like to watch your perfect babies who loved you so much grow into strangers who won’t even eat the food you offer them.”