"No," she says.
"Better let me give you some more," I says.
"I dont want any more," she says.
"Not at all," I says. "You're welcome."
"Is your headache gone?" Mother says.
"Headache?" I says.
"I was afraid you were developing one," she says. "When you came in this afternoon."
"Oh," I says. "No, it didn't show up.
We stayed so busy this afternoon I forgot about it."
"Was that why you were late?" Mother says.
I could see Quentin listening.
I looked at her.
Her knife and fork were still going, but I caught her looking at me, then she looked at her plate again.
I says, "No. I loaned my car to a fellow about three oclock and I had to wait until he got back with it." I ate for a while.
"Who was it?" Mother says.
"It was one of those show men," I says. "It seems his sister's husband was out riding with some town woman, and he was chasing them."
Quentin sat perfectly still, chewing.
"You ought not to lend your car to people like that," Mother says. "You are too generous with it.
That's why I never call on you for it if I can help it."
"I was beginning to think that myself, for a while," I says. "But he got back, all right.
He says he found what he was looking for."
"Who was the woman?" Mother says.
"I'll tell you later," I says. "I dont like to talk about such things before Quentin."
Quentin had quit eating.
Every once in a while she'd take a drink of water, then she'd sit there crumbling a biscuit up, her face bent over her plate.
"Yes," Mother says. "I suppose women who stay shut up like I do have no idea what goes on in this town."
"Yes," I says. "They dont."
"My life has been so different from that," Mother says. "Thank God I dont know about such wickedness.
I dont even want to know about it.
I'm not like most people."
I didn't say any more.
Quentin sat there, crumbling the biscuit until I quit eating. Then she says,
"Can I go now?" without looking at anybody.
"What?" I says. "Sure, you can go.
Were you waiting on us?"
She looked at me.
She had crumpled all the bread, but her hands still went on like they were crumpling it yet and her eyes looked like they were cornered or something and then she started biting her mouth like it ought to have poisoned her, with all that red lead.
"Grandmother," she says. "Grandmother--"
"Did you want something else to eat?" I says.
"Why does he treat me like this, Grandmother?" she says. "I never hurt him."
"I want you all to get along with one another," Mother says. "You are all that's left now, and I do want you all to get along better."
"It's his fault," she says. "He wont let me alone, and I have to.
If he doesn't want me here, why wont he let me go back to--"
"That's enough," I says. "Not another word."
"Then why wont he let me alone?" she says. "He--he just--"
"He is the nearest thing to a father you've ever had," Mother says. "It's his bread you and I eat.
It's only right that he should expect obedience from you."
"It's his fault," she says.
She jumped up. "He makes me do it.
If he would just--" she looked at us, her eyes cornered, kind of jerking her arms against her sides.