meunierjj
"He's your ticket out of here, Maria." I could see the agony in my mother's pale blue eyes. The wrinkles shook, holding back tears. Wrinkles and lines from years of worrying. Worrying about food, worrying about replacing our shoes, and every other little care that had ever bent her back. "It's almost winter, Maria. Your sister is going to die with the cold. He is no charmer, but his wife will live."
How she wished she could be back in the steamy castle scullery, shrinking under Madam Pfini glare. Anywhere but here, about to die alone. With this cloaked monster of a man across the cavern's black lake, coming as close to a smile as she suspected he had ever in his entire life.
Smile, darlin. Smile that you're livin.
Smile for the love you know.
Smile for the pinks and blues and greens.
Smile to the smooth stones.
Smile for the camera that keep us young and
Smiling forever.
The train station was her favorite place in the world. And the least. Everyone else with their tales of big cities, bigger jungles, and love stories that fit in neither, came to visit from the train station. But it was also from where they left and where she never did. All her friends had lived like lusty storybook adventurers. She had been stuck in Hominy Ridge, living in the attic of the Parsonage with her father.
Has the doctor ever told you, "I'm sorry, but the test was positive?" Imagine the fear that would strike a 30-year-old man if he heard those words. I was nine when my doctor said that I had to wear a back brace for the rest of my life. He didn't say it that way; he said scientists would discover a cure before I was in high school. But the magical scientists from France of Montana failed me. Ten years later, I still lean back and metal breaks my skin.
Beloved. Bluest Eye. Songs of Solomon. I am a lover of books and Toni Morrison spoke to me as no on else could. She isn't supposed to. I was born to a rich, Jewish family in northern California. Not exactly disenfranchised. But the way her words tasted like candy on my tongue made my heart dance. The curves they strung across the page formed a map to my soul.
Depending on who you asked in the family, Melon-Belly had either been the country's best rabbit or the world's worst nuisance. So many carrots eaten, so many carrots dug up. But the whole Turner family had to agree she had been memorable. A funeral was the only fitting thing.
It wasn't a big request: just get up, Jacob, please. One moment, he had been laughing in the middle of the road with that smile. That Jacob smile that made me blush and look away giggling. But he wasn't laughing or smiling or even standing now. He was strewn across the pavement with blood on his face and his shoes.