Our first few days staying there felt like a vacation. In the morning, after Dad left for his new job, we swam in the motel pool, doing cannonballs off the diving board as my mother lay out under a blue canvas umbrella with white fringe, watching cars go by on the highway. In 1972, I’d just turned twelve, and my family had moved for the third time in so many years. The August heat was ruthless on the bright cement, relenting only in bluish spots of shade. There was glamour in the way the heat slowed my body down and penetrated every moment with languor. In the late afternoon, when it was time for my little brother, Philip, to nap, we walked in our wet bathing suits across the parking lot, heat rising around us in visible waves. Our mother let us stop at the gumball machine outside the front office. Inside, the motel owner, a bald man who wore a Texas string tie, sat with his little dog, Mr. Buddy, on his lap, watching television. We were moving again and the reason was, as my father frankly told us, that there were not many jobs for defrocked ministers.
What do You think about Sister Golden Hair: A Novel?
