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WHEN DESMOND HAD COME HOME AFTER HIS LONG DAY OF WORK (that he still hadn't gotten used to but did anyway for the sake of his family), Betty had prepared dinner but instead of eating with her husband and daughter, went into her bedroom to get gussied up for some unknown occasion.
"Where's your mother?" Desmond asked Adaline after he hung up his hat and suit jacket, taking the seat across from her at the small dining table for four.
She shrugged as she stabbed a piece of the pot roast, her neck red and raw from scrubbing the green stain off it, "In her room."
Desmond tucked the napkin in his shirt collar as he asked, "Doin' what?"
Adaline shrugged again, "Couldn't tell ya."
"You already say your Grace?" Adaline nodded at her father's question and he nodded back in response as he began praying to himself, giving thanks for the food on his table and roof over his head, even if it was under undesirable circumstances.
As he mumbled about said current living situation, Betty Berkeley emerged from the master bedroom wearing a peculiarly-nice outfit for a Thursday night, comprised of a dress, heels, trench coat, her (expensive, freshwater) pearls, and her (expensive, authentic leather) handbag, acting as if this was a normal occurrence—which, in her defense, it had gradually become.
Her heels clicked against the linoleum floor as she shuffled around in her purse and pulled out a tube of red lipstick, going over to the mirror by the door and applying it to her lips.
"Visitin' Sally again?" Desmond asked in a monotone, being more sarcastic than anything.
"What? Can't see my own dear sister?" Betty asked in an accusatory tone as she wiped the corners of her lips where excess red had rubbed on.
Her husband shrugged, "There's nothin' wrong with that...but when you're drivin' a whole lotta hours late at night, all the way to Knockemstiff..." Desmond shrugged again, "I don't know, just doesn't sit right with me. You could at least wait until the weekend, dear. Maybe Sally could meet you halfway or somethin'."
"I always leave on Thursday nights, Desmond," she countered, putting the tube back into her purse. "So we can spend the whole weekend together. You know we barely see each other."
He half-heartedly nodded at the same old excuse as he mumbled under his breath, "Yeah, yeah..."
"Anyway, Adaline, hun, don't forget to take those Orphans' clothes across the way to them, but come right back and take a bath. Can't have all that filth comin' in here." Adaline responded with a "mmhm" as her mother continued talking, "And I should be back by Monday mornin' but if I ain't—"
