Suburban Renewal by Pamela Morsi Page A

with Daddy takes an hour of laughing and splashing. Ten minutes to get into pajamas and then two hours’ worth of song, stories and threats to counter overstimulation before finally succumbing to sleep.
    Corrie never complained of my intrusion or the fact that my help cost her more time. Not that she was a saint. She could be as cranky or whiney as anyone, but maybe she was too tired to complain. She’d just snuggle up against my chest and listen to me voice my dreams.
    â€œWhat I really need is a frac truck,” I told her one night.
    â€œWhat’s a frac truck?” she asked.
    â€œIt’s a truck you use for fracing.”
    She giggled like a little girl. “Tell me what fratching is and maybe the truck will make more sense.”
    â€œFracing, it rhymes with cracking. It’s making fractures in the rock with high-pressure pumps. You inject those fractures with sand that holds the cracks open so that the trapped oil can work its way through to the main zone. It increases recovery to thirty, sometimes thirty-five percent.”
    She nodded thoughtfully.
    â€œHow much does a frac truck cost?”
    I shook my head. “A half million bucks.”
    A sigh of exclamation escaped from her lips in one little puff.
    â€œI know,” I agreed. “That’s a lot of mac and cheese. This is not a poor boy’s business.”
    â€œWill the bank loan you that much?”
    I nodded. “They are handing out checks down there like you wouldn’t believe,” I told her. “It’s almost crazy.”
    â€œSo would the oil companies pay you more for fracing their wells?”
    â€œFracing is very expensive,” I said. “But if you’re going to make these secondary recovery fields pay off, it’s what you’re going to have to do.”
    â€œThen go talk to the banker,” she said. “If he thinks we can eventually pay all this off, then we should surely believe it.”
    â€œWhat about your house?” I asked.
    â€œMy house?”
    â€œOur house,” I corrected. “I know we’ve got to buy a house. We can’t raise these kids cramped in this little place forever.”
    She shrugged. “We can last a little bit longer,” she told me. Then glancing around at the toy-strewn main room, with Lauren’s little screened-off bedroom/corner on one end, she added, “It will be less for the kids to mess up.”

Corrie
    1982
    I f it hadn’t been for my brother, Mike, I’m not sure that Sam and I would ever have gotten around to buying our own house. Dear old Mrs. Neider passed away on an exceptionally warm afternoon in February. She’d been sitting on the porch playing with Lauren and Nate. Nate was still shy and reserved with everyone except me, but she and Lauren were good friends. There were always having tea parties or playing mail delivery or grocery store.
    I was washing up the lunch dishes. I had Mrs. Neider’s harvest-gold kitchen wall phone pulled as far as its coiled cord would allow so that I could talk to Mom on the phone. It was an emergency meeting of the Maynard women. Mike had invited Cherry Dale Larson, the former Cherry Dale Pepper, ex-cheerleader and notorious local divorcée with two small children, to the Chamber of Commerce Citizens Banquet.
    Mom was certain that they must be having a secret affair, which would explain why Mike did not seem to be particularly interested in dating any of the younger, more eligible women of Lumkee.
    I was trying to both ease her fears and raise her level of tolerance.
    â€œMom, just because he’s escorting her around town doesn’t mean he’s sleeping with her,” I pointed out.
    â€œI can’t imagine any other reason he’d be willing to be seen with her, the little tramp,” Mom responded.
    â€œThey have known each other since high school,” I said. “And from what I’ve heard she’s trying to get her new gym