She came home with a cold watermelon and sat it down on the back porch, her sisters were home. Being the prettiest of three, but divorced, Babs had quite a bit going for her. That's why when it came time to do something special she would dig down deep into her beaded coin purse to pay for family fun. It didn't make much sense, it was never appreciated, but Babs was a martyr of sorts, a whiner. She smoothed her rumpled, short, brown hair with one hand, and scratched under her arm with the other. The day was hot in Waller, Texas.
Petty theft was a problem with the Smith family. Almost all of them had been caught up in some kind of bookkeeping fraud involving the modification of a financial document. Since the latest mess had been featured in the local rag, Babs was now keeping a pretty low profile even though she wasn't the recently accused. She watched a roach run across the cabinets and thought about the problems she had caused for a neighbor down the street.
For the first time in her life Babs was beginning to regret some of her lies and gossip. Her sister Joe was about to spend some time in jail, and Babs was thinking more and more about karma, God, and the limitations of mundane verbality. She swatted a fly off of her sweaty arm and grabbed a knife from the drawer.
"Come on Joe, come on Carol, let's eat some of this watermelon out there at the table!"
Two very unattractive and not very intelligent women strolled into Babs cheaply furnished kitchen. The moment was sad, and a clock clanged noisily from the living room, while the three middle aged matrons stood apart looking at one another with worn eyes.
"Joe, why did you take the money?"
"I don't know Babs, I just had to have it to give to you. I don't even feel sorry about it, they owed me."
"Nobody owes you nothin' Joe."
The three Blab sisters sat down at the table together with their watermelon and nervously chewed its flesh and spitted seeds onto cheap ceramic plates.
The silence was heavy.
