Honeysuckle Longings (eBook)

We never saw it coming.

There were footsteps on the back porch. The screen door creaked open. Pappy stopped chewing, turned his head sideways and watched as Daddy dragged himself into the kitchen. The telltale layer of fine, white rice dust clinging to his curly, black hair and khaki work clothes told me he’d driven straight from work at the rice mill in Houston. His shoulders slumped forward, making his five and a half foot frame look even shorter.

Grandma, Pappy, and I stared at him as if we’d seen a ghost. He reached out with his left hand in an obvious attempt to support himself on the corner of the old wooden work table, which stood against the kitchen wall just inside the door. Missing the first time, and almost falling over, he made the connection on the second grab. Steadying himself, he closed his eyes while he drew in a slow, deep breath that seemed to require all his strength. Then, he looked at me from under half closed eyelids.

“You need to pack your sack,” he said.

The skin on my face burned like I’d been blasted with air belched from the hot oven. It was 1958. I hadn’t heard those words in nearly four years – or missed them.

Pappy whipped his head back around to face me. We stared at one another from opposite ends of the supper table. His cheek bulged with the large bite of cornbread he’d stuffed into his mouth just before Daddy walked in. Even with the windows open, the air in that room suddenly became too thick to breathe. Pappy’s brown, lined face strained and tightened. His cloudy, blue-gray eyes tugged at my heart. My mouth hung open, a forkful of mustard greens poised in mid-air. Grandma stood frozen to her spot in front of the kitchen stove, staring at Daddy, while her left hand gently slid into the pocket of the pink and white apron she’d made from a feed sack – for her friend, the worry hanky.

Pappy squinted and stretched his neck to swallow the wad of cornbread without chewing. “What’s the matter?” he asked Daddy, his eyes still locked with my own.

Daddy drew in another long, struggling breath and exhaled in a huff. “I just need Brenda Kay to help out for a while.” I squeezed my fork tighter and gritted my teeth. No one moved; the whole room seemed frozen in time, which apparently made Daddy feel the need to add, “I’ll bring her back in a couple months, when everything gets straight.” My eyes were still fixed on Pappy’s face, but my mind wondered what could have gotten so messed up they needed my help straightening it out.

“You need to be quick about it,” he added. “I’ve gotta work tomorrow and I need to get some rest.”

I looked down at my plate and gently rested the wooden handle of my fork on the edge. The mustard greens and cornbread didn’t seem nearly as inviting as they had only minutes earlier. The scraping sound of the chair’s legs scooting across the worn, green linoleum when I pushed my chair back sent a haunting vibration through the silent room. I ducked my head as I passed Pappy on my way to the bedroom. I didn’t dare look into those eyes, knowing, if I did, I’d grab him around the neck and Daddy would have to pry me loose.

One sideways swipe plucked my white Bible from the table beside Grandma’s rocker as I passed by. It was the first thing to go into my sack. My original brown paper sack from the grocery store had worn out long ago, and been replaced many times. I’d graduated to two sacks, only because my clothes were bigger. There wasn’t much to pack, since the sacks served as my full-time dresser drawers, but I scanned the room carefully, anyway, partly to make sure I didn’t forget anything – partly to gather a memory of as much of that sight as possible to take with me.

The purple dress I’d helped Miss Rose make for my school graduation the month before hung from the wire above Pappy’s swinging whiskey jug. I smiled, remembering how I’d felt like a princess the evening I’d worn it. And, since it was long, how no one had guessed I’d worn my every day, brown shoes underneath. In spite of Corine being much smarter than me – and living with the teacher – we’d both finished our studies and graduated at the same time. Aunt Mary and Miss Anna Lou had given us a beautiful send off into the future, as they called it. Pappy had attended, which was not only a wonder, but pretty much a first in all Turneydom. He’d seemed so out of place, but my chest swelled as I recalled how proud I was to have him there. He even broke out his one white shirt to replace the khaki one that was part of his everyday uniform.

I closed my eyes and smiled, again, as I floated back to that evening. Billy Neal had been my escort. His mama had made a corsage of blue, purple, and white flowers from his grandma’s yard to match my dress. Grandma had pressed the corsage for me so I’d have it to remember that day. It never occurred to me that I’d have any trouble remembering it, but she said, “Little keepsakes make special days more real in our memory after many years have passed.” Even though Billy Neal and I were the same age, he still had two years to go in public school, which made no sense to me. If everything we needed to know could be learned in a shorter time, it seemed silly to string it out for two extra years.

I decided to leave the dress. I wouldn’t have any need for it in Houston, and it would be waiting for me when I came back, safe underneath the sheet Grandma had wrapped around it to keep the dust off. I figured, if I didn’t grow very much, I could wear it for Billy Neal’s graduation. I took my three everyday dresses down from the wire one by one, carefully folded them and added them to my sacks.

Turning slowly, I finished looking around the room, taking special notice of each thing that had become so familiar to me…a part of me – Grandma’s big trunk, with its humpback top and the brown leather straps that were never buckled. The swinging whisky jug, close to needing a refill by whoever the sneaky man was who’d taken over bootlegging after Mr. Campbell gave it up. The metal double bed with the old 9-patch quilt made of feed sacks smoothed up over the pillows. Pappy’s shotgun standing guard over the door, his old brown jacket hanging on its hook, with the half-pint bottle, the tin of snuff and, probably, a piece of Double Bubble in the pockets.

A vision of my mama in the room where she died appeared, then disappeared just as unexpectedly. I realized my mind had taken a picture of that room as well. But, this was different, I reminded myself, it would all still look the same when I came back in a couple months.

I took a deep breath, slowly exhaled, then pulled my nightgown from underneath the pillow on my cot – it used to be Daddy’s cot, I thought, but it’s my cot now. After carefully folding my gown, I added it to one of the sacks, then turned to smooth the Dutch Doll quilt back up over the pillow. My hand lingered over the purple one, my favorite, as my finger gently traced the blanket stitches around her bonnet while my thoughts drifted to all the people who would have no idea where I’d suddenly disappeared to…like Miss Rose. I’d been working with her since I graduated. She’d finally saved up enough money working in town to open her own dress shop in her little brown house across the tracks. She was such a good seamstress there was more work than she could handle alone and, since I loved needlework, it was the perfect job for me, and close to home. What would she think, I wondered, when I didn’t show up in the morning? So far I hadn’t missed a single day. I gave the quilt a final pat and glanced out the window and across the road for one last look at her house. Her mother’s roses were in full bloom, the only red to be seen since the red light had long since been removed from her front porch.

I jumped when Daddy poked his head through the doorway. “You ‘bout ready?” His drooping eyelids were obviously winning the battle to close his eyes; only slivers of blue-gray were visible through the narrow slits between thick, black eyelashes.

“Yes, sir, be there in a minute.” I switched my gown and underwear from one sack to the other, then back again, trying to even out the weight and make sure my Bible was well padded on all sides. I hated the thought of missing the entire summer sipping honeysuckle with Billy Neal. Though he probably wouldn’t have that much sipping time on his hands, with the after school and weekends job he’d just started at Harrison’s Hardware store in Jacksonville. What would I do, I wondered, without him to talk to, helping me solve the world’s problems – and my own? I’d miss his mama’s sunshine smile, for sure, though, not for long; I doubted they’d want me in Houston after whatever problem they had got straightened out. With me turning seventeen month after next, it would be like having two women in the same house, and Pappy had always said that was bad business. Somehow it was different with me and Grandma.

Daydreaming was a habit I’d never been able to break completely, and I realized I’d been lost in another one when Daddy’s voice shot though the doorway. “Come on; we need to go!” With each arm wrapped around a sack, I stopped at the doorway and turned for one last look – and felt a slight shiver. When I stepped into the other room, my feet froze as though they’d been nailed to the floor. There sat Pappy’s rocker. I couldn’t look away. That rocker had been the first thing I’d seen every morning for the past four years – but I realized I wouldn’t see it tomorrow morning.

Daddy cleared his throat, breaking into my thoughts, and I forced my feet to move...