*Featured image courtesy of anncapictures on pixabay.com* Emmalene wanted her daddy to do like everyone else’s—to fix her chain when it fell off her bike, to make enough money so they could move from the boarding house on Main Street, where Mommy and Daddy slept in the big bed and she and Ricky lay on a mattress beside the radiator that hissed in winter. She wanted to feel proud of her daddy like the sisters on The Brady Bunch were proud of theirs. Emmalene’s daddy had potential, her mommy said on the phone to Aunt Lisa. A whiz at electronics, he could talk his way into any job, though keeping it was another matter—a challenge, Mommy said. Sometimes he spent the day in bed smoking Camel cigarettes and nursing a bitch of a hangover. Emmalene wondered what colors in her Crayola box would best…
“Exactly Enough” by Lorie Adair
