At the table, everyone was silent. Dr. Stevens stood up, pushed in his chair and said, “Will you save me whatever it is you’ve fixed for dessert, Shama? I’ll be right back, but I think I should walk Sheila to the house she’s staying at tonight.”
Sheila didn’t move. She was pouting like a toddler. “My mother expects me to spend the night alone? Why can’t I stay here?”
Dr. Stevens cleared his throat and heaved a heavy sigh. “I’d say it was fairly obvious that your mother has sent you to your room for bad behavior, so to speak,”he explained. “And I think that’s an excellent idea. Besides, being in your old bedroom in the house you grew up in should be much more comfortable for you.”
“It isn’t about comfort,” Sheila said. “It’s an outrage. I’m her daughter. And why does she own two houses, anyway? Wasn’t our family home good enough for her?”
No one looked up to respond. In my eyes, if Martha wanted to buy a hundred houses, it was her business, not her snotty daughter’s, but silence was more congenial than putting Sheila in her place. Besides, there were all those things Old Mother had said, about a rude person being an unhappy person. Something was really wrong in Sheila’s life. She was practically bursting at the seams with anguish.
Without looking at any of us or saying anything, Sheila stood up and walked out of the room, heading for the front door with Dr. Stevens. Neither of them were talking either. I suppose his words had chastised her, hopefully enough for her to rethink her attitude.
I had finished eating. I’d barely taken a bite of my salad, but sometimes a person just can’t eat. Old Mother called that an emotional fill-up. My body would have push away all the unpleasantness before I could manage another bite. Meanwhile, the boys were still eating.
“Do we still get some dessert even though the company is gone?” Francis asked, his eyes wide with worry a he continued to chew a mouthful of biscuit.
Sheila had said such cruel things about the boys. Hadn’t her petty beliefs registered on them? In addition, there’d been all that talk about their mother being killed by their father. But Carlo was scooping up potato salad like someone might try to steal it. No loss of appetite for either of them.
I smiled at my sweet little boys, thanking the Fates that they seemed unharmed by what Sheila had said .
“She’s very ugly,” Carlo interjected, as if reading my worries.
Frank jumped in before I could think of how to respond to that. “Gentlemen never say such things about a lady. Carlo. Besides, Sheila isn’t an ugly woman. She’s rather handsome.”
“You’re just saying that because she’s Martha’s daughter,” Francis said. “But her face is ugly because she makes it like that. But I think what Carlo means is that she’s mean. Ugly and mean are different, maybe.”
“She’s just unhappy,” I said, interrupting their man to man talk. “Maybe that’s because Sheila doesn’t have two sweet little boys who love her,” I added, springing up to give them both a big hug before I headed back into the kitchen for the chocolate cake everyone was wanting.