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on two of her shifts until she was ready to return. If she could just have the last Friday off to spend a special day with him then shed work Doreens shifts for her the rest of the year if necessary. She could only find excuses to stay in the kitchen for so long and eventually returned to the living room and sat on the sofa. Abner always sat on the hardbacked chair closest to the fire; James always sat on the other chair leaving her alone on the sofa. She stood back up again and walked to the smallest bookcase in the room, the only one of the four bookcases that contained books for herself or her son. The other books were all her husbands and while he let others read them, Shirley and James rarely did so as he complained about the condition of them if they were not pristine. Abner was an academic man who had been forced to cut his studies short when she had fallen pregnant; while he claimed to like his job, as wages clerk at a large factory manufacturing refrigerators, Shirley knew his ambitions had once been grander than that. For a short time Abner had projected his ambitions onto his son, before it became apparent that living his dreams vicariously through him was not going to work. Once he would have supported him through college; as things turned out when James dropped out of school Abner only made a half-hearted protest, going through the motions as he recognised that further education was a waste of time. James was slightly better than average, as demonstrated in his standing in the class tests, intelligent enough for Abner to support him still were it not for other things. Those other issues made an academic or clerical career unlikely and manual work was what he was suited for. Shirley sat at the dining table in the kitchen with James as he ate, filling her in on the minutiae of his day to his transfixed audience; even he found it pretty boring stuff but he knew she liked to hear about his day and he tried to make it lively for her so at least one of them found it interesting. Shirley remembered she had some news to tell him and she called into the next room, “Abner, do you want to tell him about Frank?” Abner came through andstood by the table. “Your uncle and cousin are coming to stay next Friday. Dolores and her family will be joining us for a meal.” “Were going out for a meal. I wouldnt want to cook for that many,” Shirley joked. “Everybody wants to give you a good sendoff.” “Can we make it Joes?” Grey asked. Joes had the widest seafood variety in Keokuk and Grey preferred fish to anything, looking forward to every Friday. “Thats where we booked,” Abner said. “Make no other plans for next Friday.” “Bar Saturday Ive got no plans. Im a man of leisure now, Dad.” “Not for long,” Abner said, leaving them to it. Shirley noted how pleased her son seemed at the news that theyd booked Joes, and she knew why. She liked to give him a varied diet and would only cook fish once or maybe twice a week. For this last fortnight that could change. As he tucked into his beef dinner she said, “Shall I pop to the fish market tomorrow?” Grey nodded keenly, brought up not to speak with his mouth full. After a drink he said, “Bobs given me a bit extra and I got a tip today so splash out.” “My treat.” Grey shook his head. “Its to go in my stomach. You cant even stand the smell. So how long are Frank and Fred stopping?” he said loudly, looking to the living room. “Friday afternoon through to the next morning. Hed like to stop longer if it wasnt for work,” Abner replied. “Thats good enough. I would have gone to see them if they werent coming,” Grey said – in a way he would have preferred to visit his uncle at his pub. “Now you dont need to. If youre at a loose end tomorrow I can think of a few things around here that need doing.” “Cant talk, Dad, Im eating,” Grey said, signalling to his mother what he thought of that idea by shaking his head. He returned to talking to his mother, saying, “Ill be going out myself tomorrow so I could always hit the market.” “Its as easy for me to go after work.” “Yeah, you dont want to go before and have them through the back all day.” “To be honest the smell wouldnt be worse than Helens perfume. I know shes trying to attract admirers but really.” “Which