“Here’s what you get—here’s what you get—here’s what you get! Something cheap—cheap—cheap!”
When I came home from the fireworks with Delia’s family and Mary Elizabeth, my father and mother were sitting on the veranda.
“It’s we who are to blame,” I heard my father saying, “though we’re fine at glossing it over.”
I wondered what had happened, and I sat down on the top step and began to untie my last torpedo from the corner of my handkerchief. Mary Elizabeth had one left, too, and we had agreed to throw them on the stone window-sills of our rooms as a final salute.
“Let’s ask her now,” said father.
Mother leaned toward me.
“Dear,” she said, “father has been having a talk with Mary Elizabeth’s father and mother. And—when her father isn’t here any more—which may not be long now, we think ... would you like us to have Mary Elizabeth come and live here?”
“With us?” I cried. “With us?”
Yes, they meant with us.