“It’s already started,” Bella raged. “What do I look like, an idiot or something? You think I’ll let him push me around and make a fool of me? I warned him what would happen if he messed around. I’m gonna show that louse I mean what I say.”
“Not in this house you won’t,” Lola shouted.
“The hell I won’t,” Bella blazed. “And you won’t stop me, neither.”
There was the smacking sound of a hand against a face. He heard Bella screaming. Then another smack. And Bella screamed again.
He heard Lola say, “Talk back again and I’ll slap you so hard you’ll go through the wall.”
Then it was quiet in the kitchen. Kerrigan decided to wait just a little while longer before having supper, and perhaps Bella would be cooled off entirely by the time he was ready to eat.
He walked down the hall and into his room and took off his clothes. Then he went into the bathroom, filled the tub, and climbed in and soaped his body. In his room again, he put on a clean shirt and shorts and socks, opened the closet door and took a gray worsted suit off the hanger. It was his Sunday suit, the only suit he owned, and it needed pressing, some sewing here and there, and one of the buttons was missing. As he stood before the mirror, pulling at the lapels and trying to stretch the fabric to get rid of the wrinkles, he wished he had a better suit to wear. And while the thought ran through his mind, he was slowly lowering the camera into the jacket pocket.
He slipped a tie under his collar, knotted it three times before he was satisfied, then leaned close to the mirror and gave his wet combed hair a few final pats with his palms. Stepping back from the mirror, he studied himself from various angles, frowned appraisingly, then shrugged and decided that it would have to do.
Coming into the kitchen, he saw Lola arranging the dishes on a shelf. Bella was at the sink with a towel in her hands. The moment she saw him, her face darkened and reddened and fire came into her eyes. She took a deep breath and opened her mouth to say something. But from the other side of the room she saw her mother watching her. She took another deep breath and shut her mouth tightly and closed her eyes, grimly trying to control her temper.
Lola was smiling at Kerrigan and saying, “Want something to eat?”