Deliver Us from Evie by M. E. Kerr Page B

take with me and read to them.
    “The way Doug loves red meat? This will test him!” she said.
    “That girl’s making mincemeat out of him,” said Dad.
    “Not mince meat ,” I said. “She’s turning him into a vegetable.”
    “What’s got into Doug?” Dad said. “Hell, in high school he’d love ’em and leave ’em. He never got led around by the nose by any gal.”
    “He’s a goner, I guess,” I said.
    “If Angel told you tomorrow you couldn’t eat anything with a face, would you listen?”
    “She wouldn’t tell me that.”
    “But what if ?” he persisted.
    “It depends. If it was for health reasons I might. You gave up real coffee for Mom.”
    “That’s right !” Evie said. “And she doesn’t have to know you take a thermos into The Paradise and fill it up coupla times a week.”
    “Coffee’s different,” said Dad. “Your mother’s the only person thinks coffee’s a killer.”
    “But the point is,” I said, “you gave it up for her, same as Doug gave up fish and fowl and meat!”
    “Your mother is my wife. I been married to her all these years. I wouldn’t have made such a promise when we were just dating.”
    “Parr’s got you.” Evie laughed.
    “What about you, Evie?” I asked.
    “I already gave something up, but nobody’s noticed.”
    “What’d you give up?”
    “You tell me,” said Evie. “I gave something up just yesterday.”
    “What?” I asked.
    “What’d you give up, Evie?” Dad said.
    “You don’t know?”
    “ I don’t know,” I said.
    “You been with me all day, and you still don’t know?”
    I thought about it for a second and then I hit my forehead with my palm. “Cigarettes!” I said. “You haven’t had a cigarette all day!”
    Evie laughed.
    “She’s got one behind her ear,” said Dad.
    “That’s where it’ll stay, too,” said Evie.
    “You haven’t been smoking!” said Dad. “I’ll be darned!”
    “I gave it up at midnight last night.”
    “How come?” I said.
    “I just did.”
    “Yeah, but on your own steam,” Dad said.
    Evie didn’t say anything.
    “That’s different,” Dad said.
    I was thinking: Patsy Duff must have been back at private school about two weeks now.
    “Nobody could get you to give up anything ,” Dad said.
    “Don’t be too sure,” Evie said.
    I jumped in with “Congratulations, Evie.”
    “Thanks, Parr.”
    Dad didn’t let go of it. I think it was sheer stupidity that made him pursue it, just dumb stubbornness.
    He said, “I’d like to know who on this earth could get you to stop smoking. Cord doesn’t have any guts that way.”
    “No, he doesn’t,” Evie said.
    “Whoever did it did you a favor,” I said.
    “I know it,” said Evie.
    “You read an article?” Dad again.
    “No, I didn’t, Dad. It doesn’t matter who. I’m just taking Parr’s side of the argument. You give things up sometimes if there’s good reason.”
    “There was good reason for three or four years and it didn’t stop you smoking,” said Dad.
    “I guess now I found a better reason,” said Evie, but she didn’t say what it was.
    Dad finally got silent.
    I said, “Dad, I’ll flip you for who cleans the mower.”
    “I’ll do it,” he said.
    “Since when?”
    “Since when what?” He sounded glum.
    “Since when do you make it so easy for me?”
    “Easy’s better than hard,” Dad said. “Why not make it easy if you can do it?”
    “Oh!” I said. “A little philosophy on the way home.”
    “Snap up the offer while you can, Parr,” said Evie.
    We both chuckled but Dad was silent.
    Evie said, “Have Angel over for some venison steak this weekend, Parr. We’ll do a big dinner. I’ll invite Cord, too.”
    “Angel’d bring one of her mother’s pies, I bet,” I said.
    Evie’d been going a lot of places with Cord since Christmas. Movies. Bowling. She was in a better mood than I could remember in a long time.
    I kept thinking about that Jane Doe mailbox over in King’s Corners. I’d think about