Four Dollars and Fifty Cents

I hid behind my mother's leg, using the skirt to cover my face.

"Are you unable to do math or just lazy?" she asked him.  "What about our budget Gerald?  How are we going to pay rent?  How are we going to survive? 

“Four fifty, for radishes!"

"Sophie," he said, "Sophie, I needed the radishes for the soup, the soup I wanted to make for you because I love you and  the children. We need to eat. Come. Sit down.”

My mother did not move.

“I will not buy the radishes from the corner store anymore.  I will buy them at the grocery where they are two fifty.

“Come.  Don't be angry.  Sit down."

With an arm on her back he guided her and her appendage to the table.  My mother stood behind her chair with no words and an unhappy face.  Father poured soup into four bowls. "Children! Children come eat! Your mother is home!" he hollered.

Jennie, sixteen now and beautiful, superior to all of us, found her way to the table.  "What have you two done to frighten the rugrat?" Jennie asked.  She plopped down in her chair and took two spoonfuls of her soup.  She wiped her mouth and looked around the room, now silent.  "Really, what is the problem?"

"Jennie, do you have to get into everything?" mother said, pulling her skirt loose from me.  "All this pop psychology!” she said with a laugh. She sat and I remained standing behind her chair.  “Isabelle is old enough to see her parents fight.  Do you want her to grow up thinking the world is sunshine and roses?  Even now, so timid, so timid.  Sit down Isabelle, your father has made you a meal!"

My father smiled at my mother and clasped her hand, “So much worry troubles my Sophie.  A beautiful woman like you should never have to worry.  If I could wipe that worry from your face.. .”  He face  darkened a little and he looked down.  Quieter, slower he said, “What kind of man cannot make his wife smile?  For a smile on your face I would pay five hundred dollars.”

My mother, now finished with her soup, walked over to the sink.  Her heals clicked against the linoleum.  It was a nice sound, even, measured steps.  After resting her bowl in the sink she moved towards her desk. 

The clicking stopped when she reached the carpet.  She picked up her checkbook, and flipped to the register where she kept careful count of the family money.  “The problem Gerald, is that we do not have five hundred dollars.”