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“Let me take you to a great place,” he said, and whipped the truck down a street on the right. A few minutes later, we bounced over a gravel driveway to park at a restaurant with a pig lit up in pink lights. The place was called Porky’s Hideaway. “Best ribs in town,” he said.

The restaurant was one big room, with a band playing what I called hillbilly music, but which Keefer said was really more Cajun style. The food was out in a buffet, and for ten dollars you could eat all you wanted. Besides the ribs, there were Buffalo wings, chicken legs, fish sticks, potatoes, vegetables, all sorts of breads, and a variety of desserts. My stomach churned in anticipation.

We piled our plates high and found a table. The restaurant was nearly full and the good food, music, and party atmosphere drove away my doldrums.

“Before my mother got sick with depression, she used to tell me the only real cure to sadness is a good-tastin‘ dinner. That’s why people serve so much food after a funeral,” Keefer told me. The music was so loud we had to shout to hear each other even at the same table.

There must be some truth to that, I thought, because I ate way more than I usually did. Afterward, I sat back and watched some of the people dancing.

“Funny,” Keefer said, “Nashville is a place full of music and good times, but I don’t often see it. I guess you got to be happy with yourself first before you can go out and have a good time.”

I felt sorry for him and wished there was something I could do. At least I had Mother darling. He had no one but himself, and that had to be pretty scary most of the time.

After we left and we were in the truck heading to Cory’s apartment, Keefer asked me if I was really serious when I told him I wouldn’t mind running off with him.

“Yes,” I said.

“What about now? I mean, considerin‘ what you saw and all, are you still feelin’ the same way about it?”

I thought a moment. I knew he was asking me to forgive him completely for being with Charlotte Lily. Neither of us is a saint, I concluded. If we can’t forgive each other, no one will forgive us for anything we do.

“Yes,” I told him, and he smiled.

“Great. I have a plan. My father threw me out of our house before I could get to all my things. He never knew it, but I saved all the money I received as birthday gifts from relatives and friends. I was a little miser, in fact. I stuffed it all in this piggy bank my mother gave me when I was about three, I think. It was a giveaway from some hog farm she had been at one time or another. Anyway, I think I’ve got over four hundred dollars in it, and I want it. It’s mine. Only, I don’t think I can just walk up to the door and ring the bell.”

“Why not? Your mother isn’t mad at you, is she?”

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sp; “She’s not going to go against him,” he said. “Never did. Never took my side, ever, or my sister’s.” He was quiet a moment. “My sister was… I guess they call it abused nowadays. Softens it, I suppose, but it ain’t softened for her. I know she told Mama, but Mama thought she made it up to get back at him. She just wouldn’t believe it.”

“Maybe she did, and that was what made her like she is, Keefer.”

“Maybe. It’s more reason for me to hate him. I just don’t want to see him.”

He looked at his watch.

“There’s a good chance he ain’t home. I know how to get into my house without going through the front door. I just want to get my piggy bank and get out. Want to help?”

“What can I do?”

“You just stay in the truck and be the lookout,” he said. “If a car drives into the driveway, you sound the horn. Do it at least five, six times, and I’ll know to get out of there fast. No tellin‘ what would happen otherwise. He’d kill me or I’d somehow kill him. Okay?” he asked.

“Okay,” I said, but my heart was thumping like an old-fashioned steam-engine train pounding the tracks.

“Good,” he said. “It won’t take long. Don’t worry.”

He turned the truck around and headed back toward the downtown area, but before getting there, turned again and wove his way through residential streets until we came to a house that looked hidden from the road behind sprawling old oak trees and untrimmed bushes. With the moonlight peeking through clouds, I could see the lawn was spotted with dry and bare patches. The house was completely dark.

“Usually there’s a light on somewhere,” he said after we pulled to the curb. He sat there, looking worried.

“Can’t you tell any other way if there’s someone home or not?”

“He’s not home. He doesn’t park his truck in the garage. It’s full of tools, his work bench, and a table saw. Okay,” he said. “The window in my room has a broken lock. I’m going in that way. Get behind the wheel here and hit the horn if a truck pulls in.”

“Be careful, Keefer.”

How strange, I thought, to have to break into your own house.