Bittersweet Creek Read Online Free

the others, I reached down to scratch between her ears before stepping into my parents’ house. Mama was already fussing around the oven and bending over to get the tea cakes. As she turned around, I saw the hump at the top of her back. Mama was getting old. Too old to hobble around in the orthopedic boot she still wore from where Curtis had broken her foot a month before.
    â€œMama, I think you ought to get your foot looked at. Shouldn’t it be getting better by now?” I asked as I stepped over to the sink to wash the dog off my hands.
    She waved away my concerns and fished through the kitchen drawer for a spatula. “No, no, it’s done this before. I know it looks a little purple now, but it’s going to be fine. I guess it’s lucky the insurance paid for this boot last time.”
    Mama and I didn’t share the same definition of lucky.
    Curtis was too smart for me to catch him in the act, but I knew he was responsible. Mama might blame ripped spots in the carpet or molehills in the yard or even her own clumsiness, but I knew better. What I didn’t know was how to stop him.
    Mama’d left him many times before, but he always played nice to win her back. Once when I was in kindergarten, I made the mistake of telling my teacher a little too much about our family dynamics. She called a social worker, who called the police. That didn’t end well for any of us once Curtis got back from the police station. Later in high school, I asked Mama point-blank if she wanted me to make him leave, but she told me no.
    Many’s the time I wished I’d kicked his sorry ass out first and asked her permission later, but Curtis was a sneaky sonuvabitch. He’d rigged everything so all of the expenses and income from the farm came through his bank account. If I got rid of him, I wouldn’t be able to run the farm. And he knew it.
    Mama slid me a chipped plate with three steaming tea cakes, then bustled about the fridge looking for sweet tea. I let her carry on. Sometimes if I let her fuss over me enough, she’d hum the way she used to when I was a little boy.
    The back door slammed shut. She started, and I tensed up. Today was turning out to be one helluva day.
    â€œWell, well, look what the cat dragged in.”
    I knew he was drunk before I turned around. I could smell him, and I could tell by the way he slurred his words he was dangerous drunk. He could head to the recliner and fall asleep, or he could snap and start yelling at the first person he saw.
    He wouldn’t hit me, but he might decide to see if Mama needed another boot to match the first one. I had an assload of things I needed to do before meeting Ben, but I wasn’t moving from my chair. Not until I saw what Curtis was up to.
    It took him two tries to slap a meaty hand on my shoulder. He wasn’t completely blind yet, but he was closer. I turned my head enough to see the ragged, grease-stained fingernails that needed to be cut. “Why don’t you have a seat, Curtis?”
    He scowled. He didn’t like it when I called him by his first name, but he wasn’t going to make anything of it. He’d ceased being anything more to me than a sperm donor on a certain night in May ten years ago, and I didn’t give a rat’s ass how he felt about it. My birth certificate might claim him as father, but that didn’t mean I had to.
    â€œThose hot, Debbie?” He pinched her behind harder than necessary, and her eyes widened. She scuttled off to get cookies and tea for him, too. She knew we were in the danger zone.
    â€œHeard you got ran over in town today.”
    â€œAlmost did.”
    He crammed an entire tea cake in his mouth, either not noticing or not caring it had to be hot enough to scald all the skin from the roof of his mouth. “I was thinking we could sue the Satterfield girl. You could even make enough to buy some of those damned rescue horses you’re always fooling around