Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -… [582]

Keith gave Bennett and Gregory big, expensive bars of milk chocolate with peanuts. He just smiled at Marcus and me—an obvious “fuck you” smile. Then, before Dad could come home and find him here, he left again. — , Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -…, 582

Note

Gift-giving as inventory of who’s bought and who’s owed: the two youngest get ‘big, expensive’ chocolate, Marcus and the narrator get only the smile, and the narrator’s unsparing reading of it (‘an obvious “fuck you” smile’) does the emotional accounting. The clock pressure in the last sentence—leaving before Dad can ‘find him here’—turns a family visit into a raid.