Fireflies in December

by Jennifer Erin Valent

  “Don’t do that,” she told me sharply.

  I did as she said and stuck my hands in my pockets. I may have been a tough nut to crack most times, but the stares were starting to get to me, making me squirm. It was a first time for me, being watched like that, and it didn’t help having Gemma act so harshly.

  When we reached the store, Mr. Hanley, the owner, raised an eyebrow at me. “Ain’t seen much of you of late, Miss Jessie.” Then, being one of the nicest men I knew, he smiled a little at Gemma and said, “Ain’t seen much of you lately either, Miss Gemma. I was sure sorry to hear about your momma and daddy.”

  Gemma nodded, and I chipped in by telling him quietly, “Gemma ain’t been much for talkin’ lately. But I’m sure she appreciates you thinkin’ of her.”

  Mr. Hanley put a hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “I understand that, no doubt. Now, do you girls have a list?”

  While Mr. Hanley put together our order, Gemma stood off in a corner, and I wandered around looking at some dresses. Mr. Hanley gave me a funny look when I stood in front of the mirror, holding a blue dress up in front of me, but he didn’t say anything. I felt pretty dumb doing it, but I did like the way I looked behind it.

  I heard the brass bell on the door jingle and put the dress back quickly so as not to be caught looking so vain. Peering over the stack of cans in front of me, my throat tightened. Walt Blevins had come in that door, and if there was anything I knew about Walt, it was that he hated colored people. Some five years before, Walt’s daddy had been found dead behind the place Daddy said wasn’t fit for good people, and Walt had always said he’d been killed by Sam Dickerson, a colored man who had worked for my daddy for two years. Even though Daddy insisted that Sam wasn’t capable of hurting a fly, Walt wouldn’t hear of anything else.

  The law hadn’t seen it Walt’s way, thanks to Sheriff Slater, who was a decent soul, and Walt had made it plain he meant to get whatever vengeance the law wouldn’t. In the end, Daddy had helped Sam hightail it out of town before Walt could get hold of him, and that made Walt mad enough to kill.

  I well knew he’d use any opportunity to harm our family, and our having Gemma would be a perfect chance for him to stir things up. I glanced at Gemma, where she stood in the corner by the hammers and nails. She couldn’t have picked a worse place to stand, I figured, seeing as how Walt was likely to want something like that. I watched from my place behind the cans, hoping Walt wouldn’t see either of us.

  “What can I do for you, Walt?” Mr. Hanley asked as he finished packing my order. “Need anythin’ particular?”

  “I’m comin’ in for them traps I ordered. Can’t keep them critters out of my crops for nothin’.”

  “Just got them in,” Mr. Hanley said as he rechecked my list. I prayed hard that Mr. Hanley would help Walt before he’d finish with me, but it wasn’t to be. “Here you go, Miss Jessie,” he called, holding the list up in the air. “I’ve got your order good and filled.”

  I took a deep breath, and determined not to be intimidated by a big oaf like Walt, I walked around the stack of cans with my head high. “Thank you, Mr. Hanley,” I said stoutly as I dug in my pocket for the money Daddy had given me.

  Walt watched me for a minute like he was trying to recollect who I was. As I took my change from Mr. Hanley, Walt pointed at me and said, “You’re that Lassiter girl, ain’t you?”

  “Depends on who’s askin’,” I charged.

  “You sure talk like a Lassiter.”

  “Can’t say as I noticed.”

  Mr. Hanley hurriedly brought my sacks around the counter, realizing that trouble could be brewing. “Jessilyn, you need any help carrying these things? I can get Dale to help you out if you need it.”

  “I’m okay,” I told him, taking the bags from him. In truth, they were too heavy for me, and it took all my strength to carry them, but I just smiled as best I could and began walking from the store. On my way out, I caught Gemma’s eye and nodded for her to get out the door fast.

  But Walt was too interested in me to not see Gemma as we started out the door. “You’re the Lassiter girl, all right. You’re the one who took the colored girl in.” He snorted and said wickedly, “Just like your daddy to go helpin’ worthless niggers.”

  I whirled around to glare at him, my fear gone on the heels of my anger. Gemma tugged at my arm to get me out, but I was stubborn. “If my daddy were like to help someone worthless, no doubt you’d be first on his list.”

  “You got a smart tongue on you, girl.”

  He took a few steps toward me, and as much as I wanted to run, I stood still, almost challenging him. “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that.”

  “There is if it gets you hurt.”

  “Are you threatenin’ me?”

  Mr. Hanley walked between us very cautiously. He was a nice man but a weak one, and I knew the last thing he wanted was trouble in his store. “Jessilyn,” he said, “why don’t you head on out before those sacks get too heavy for you?”

  “You should give them sacks to that one,” Walt said, referring to Gemma like she wasn’t even human. “That’s all she’s good for anyway.”

  Now, Daddy had told me time and time again that talking back to people who don’t have any sense doesn’t make any sense, but I had never learned that lesson. I did try to follow Daddy’s advice at first. I pushed Gemma out the door and was about to leave and make my momma proud when Walt had to go and say that one more thing that plucked my last nerve.

  “Just look at you go, girl,” he said. “You run faster’n your daddy, and he’s the biggest coward I ever done seen. He ran from me like a scared chicken.”

  He could make fun of me all he wanted, but picking at my daddy was taking things too far. I spun around and narrowed my eyes into slits, saying, “Any man would run from a face as ugly as yours.”

  Walt took that as something of an insult, I guess, even though I saw it more as truth than anything. He grabbed his package and started toward me, mumbling something about me being a rotten brat.

  I dropped the bags and ran out the door like a shot, nearly crashing into Gemma on the other side. “Get out of here,” I told her breathlessly. “Quick!” I caught her hand and pulled her along, looking back to see if Walt was really following.

  He was.

  Everyone in the street stopped and stared as we went by, but no one interfered. I guess we must have looked a sight—the white girl dragging the colored girl, both of us being chased by the ornery white thug. But I couldn’t figure why somebody didn’t call him off. Since when was it okay for a grown man to chase after young girls, hoping to hurt them?

  He was gaining on us fast when I ran square into my daddy, letting out a gasp of air when I hit him hard.

  “Stand aside, Jessilyn,” was all Daddy said. He didn’t ask me what was going on or anything. He just put me and Gemma behind him and waited for Walt, who stopped about ten feet away.

  “You keep that rotten girl of yours and her smart tongue away from me, Lassiter,” Walt said, more winded than a man of his young age should have been. “She ain’t nothin’ but a troublemaker . . . just like her daddy.”

  “Ain’t nothin’ that gives you the right to threaten harm to my daughter,” Daddy said. “I want you stayin’ far away from her.”

  “Since she’s spendin’ her time with that colored girl, I don’t guess it’ll be hard for me to stay away from her.”

  Daddy drew a long, deep breath, took off his hat, and ran his hand through his hair before saying, “I ain’t gonna argue with you, boy. It ain’t worth the breath. You just stay away from my family.” He started to walk away but stopped and turned back for one last thing. “And that includes Gemma.”

  Gemma looked up at my daddy with eyes like a scared deer’s.

  “Get on back to the truck, girls,” Daddy said simply. “Jessilyn, did you get your momma’s things?”

  “Yes’r. But I left them at the store.”

  “You get on back to the truck, then,
and I’ll get the things.”

  I pulled Gemma by the arm, turning once to see my daddy walk past an angry Walt, the sea of onlookers parting for him as he walked to Mr. Hanley’s store. They all backed up, but not one of them would look at my daddy. In fact, most of them turned away on purpose, like seeing my daddy would hurt their eyes.

  For the last time that day I took a long look at Walt Blevins.

  He grinned at me with hate in his eyes, pulled the traps out of his sack, and said, “See these, smart girl? Know what them is?”

  I stood there without saying a word.

  “Them’s nigger traps,” he said. “Best keep that girl locked up else she lose a leg or somethin’.” Then he spat his tobacco on the road and walked away.

  Much as I wanted to do something awful to that man, I did what I knew was best and followed my daddy’s orders. I turned around and nearly shoved Gemma into the truck. When we were settled inside, the fear crept back into my bones, and I started to shake.

  Gemma sat there for a minute sort of hugging herself like she was cold, and then she looked at me with amazement in her eyes. “Did you hear your daddy?”

  “I heard him.”

  “He talked like I was kin.”

  “Why shouldn’t he?”

  Gemma shook her head. “It’ll get him in trouble, talkin’ like that.”

  “Daddy ain’t worried about those people.”

  We sat quietly for a few minutes before Gemma said, “You think he means it?”

  “My daddy never says nothin’ he don’t mean.”

  Gemma curled up in the seat with her feet beside her, like Duke did when he sat in front of the fire. She didn’t say anything more, but I could see a touch of a smile on her face. It had been so long since I’d seen her look anything but sad, I noticed it right off, and it made me smile too.

  I’d never been so proud of my daddy.

  Chapter 6

  Gemma started talking a lot more after the day we went to town, but she wouldn’t speak a word about her parents, wouldn’t even say their names. Momma, Daddy, and I had agreed to follow suit so we didn’t upset her, but it was really for our sake, too. We were all still pretty sore inside from the tragedy.

  It was as if Daddy’s words to Walt Blevins had reassured Gemma that we really did want her. Now, I couldn’t speak for Momma any more than Daddy could, but for Gemma, knowing that Daddy accepted her meant something. Anyway, she already knew that I wanted her.

  As for Momma, she wasn’t around to hear what Daddy had said, and neither of us thought to tell her. She wasn’t having the easiest time with the whole thing, and I figured why bother bringing it up to her. Momma was just having a hard time adjusting, Daddy told me one evening after I’d asked him about it.

  “You got to understand, Jessilyn. Momma needs company, and not too many people in this town will keep company with someone who sees colored people the same as white people. Your momma, she don’t think nothin’ bad about Gemma. It’s other people that make it seem that way.”

  “Those other people are wrong.”

  “Sure enough, but sayin’ so don’t change them none, and Momma knows she’ll lose friends over this.”

  “Momma always told me if people don’t want to be my friend, then they probably ain’t worth havin’ as friends.”

  Daddy gave me a puzzled look, like he was having one of those rare moments when he didn’t know what to say. Then he answered, “When you live in a small town, pickin’s are slim. You find friends where you can. Your momma already lost a friend in Gemma’s momma. She don’t want to lose no more.”

  For a minute I chewed on my fingernails, even though I knew Momma would scold me for it later, and then I said, “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why do people hate us now?”

  Daddy shook his head slowly. “People don’t hate us, Jessilyn. Not all of them. There are different kinds of people in this world. It’s true some of them are full of hate, but others are just scared, is all. Some of ’em don’t understand us, and people can be afraid of things they don’t understand. And others . . . they don’t like being looked down on, so they go along with other people’s thinkin’ so to keep themselves from trouble.”

  “Trouble like we’re havin’?” I asked.

  “Sure enough. Trouble like that.”

  “Seems cowardly to me,” I said, “not standin’ up for some-thin’ or somebody.”

  “You can’t go tryin’ to figure other people, baby. People have all sorts of reasons why they are what they are. Some people are scared because life’s been so hard on ’em.”

  “But they’re still wrong.”

  “Don’t give us the right to be hateful to ’em. They’re wrong—that I can say, but I can’t say I know all that goes on in their hearts, can I? So best I can do is pray for ’em. Leave ’em to God.”

  I was tired, and I laid my head back, looked out at the star-dotted sky, and sighed. “Sometimes I don’t know what God expects us to do.”

  Daddy didn’t say anything for a minute or so, and then he reached up and caught a firefly as it glowed beside him. “See this light?” he asked me when the firefly lit up his hand.

  “Yes’r.”

  “That light is bright enough to light up a little speck of the night sky so a man can see it a ways away. That’s what God expects us to do. We’re to be lights in the dark, cold days that are this world. Like fireflies in December.”

  Then Daddy opened his hand, and we both sat and watched the insect crawl around for a moment before taking off into the dimness.

  “Ain’t much lightin’ one of them can do, Daddy,” I said.

  “Not by himself. But give him some company, and you’d get a good piece of light.”

  “Don’t look to me like we got much company in this town.”

  He leaned over and patted my knee softly. “It’s got to start somewhere, Jessilyn. It’s got to start somewhere.”

  Down the road a piece from our farm lived an old lady most people just called Miss Cleta. She was known countywide for her baked goods, most particularly her cinnamon buns that dripped with white icing. She’d been a widow ever since I’d known her, but there were pictures of her husband, Sully, all over the house. There wasn’t a room that didn’t have Sully looking over it. He was the handsomest and kindest of men, Miss Cleta always said. She would show me the furniture he’d made—even though I’d seen it dozens of times—and insist I sit in his handmade rocker in the front room because it was the most comfortable chair anyone could ever rest their backside in.

  Miss Cleta lived in a big two-story house with a long porch and window boxes. It was her house that inspired me to vow that someday I would have a house with window boxes. Most days that I would pass by, she’d be sitting on one of Sully’s porch rockers knitting or stitching. Through her old eyes, she’d watch her hands form perfect knits and purls, her face pressed up close to her work. But she never failed to put it down and invite me up for a treat.

  Miss Cleta would always invite Gemma in too, when we were together. Color didn’t matter any to her. In fact, she’d told Gemma that her momma’s great-grandmother had been colored, and that just showed that we’re all connected somewhere, somehow. “There weren’t but two people at the start of life, anyhow,” she’d said. “That’s about as close a relation as we can get.”

  Gemma and I were walking by her house one morning when Miss Cleta called, “Yoo-hoo.”

  “Hey there, Miss Cleta,” I called back with a wave. “Nice mornin’.”

  “Nice as they come. Not much to make it better but a little sweet and some lemonade.”

  Gemma and I glanced at each other and smiled. We’d been hoping for this.

  “Come on up here and set awhile,” she said. “I could use the company, and I’ll never finish that rhubarb pie on my own.”

  Gemma and I looked toward the windowsill where a golden pie rested, and Gemma put an elbow into my side.

  “I know,” I whis
pered. “Rhubarb’s your favorite.”

  Gemma, Miss Cleta, and I sat on the porch together, warm as toast but enjoying every bit of that pie. Even Miss Cleta’s lemonade was better than most with its slices of strawberries floating inside. And to make it better than anything else, she’d wet the top of the glass and dip it in sugar. Miss Cleta and Sully had never had any children, which I’d always thought a real shame. A child could have had quite a life in a house like that, I figured.

  “You been entertainin’ yourselves this summer?” Miss Cleta asked. “Ain’t but so much to do in the heat.”

  “We get on all right,” I said after a sip of lemonade. “Ain’t much to do, you’re right.”

  “When I was your age, I used to like pickin’ berries.”

  “We got a good crop of blackberries up on the south hill,” I told her. “Gemma and me picked some last Friday and had them with cream.”

  Between bites of pie, Miss Cleta and I talked on about this and that, but Gemma sat quiet the whole time. I didn’t think much of it. I figured it was because she was enjoying her rhubarb pie. It was only while Miss Cleta and I were talking about fishing bait that Gemma’s reason for being silent came out.

  “You can find good worms in my garden,” Miss Cleta said. “Come on over and dig them out if you want.”

  “Momma would wallop me for diggin’ around your flowers.”

  “Not if I say you can. It won’t hurt my flowers none.” Miss Cleta stopped rocking her chair. “What about you, Miss Gemma? You like fishin’?”

  Gemma stared at her lap for a few seconds before she finally said, “My momma and daddy died.”

  I swallowed my gulp of lemonade hard and looked up in disbelief.

  Miss Cleta nodded several times. Then she said, “I know that, darlin’.” She leaned over and put one worn hand on Gemma’s knee. “I cried for you, sure enough.”

  Gemma hopped up with a sob and buried her face in Miss Cleta’s yellow apron. That was the first time I saw Gemma cry about her momma and daddy.

  “It’s okay, baby,” Miss Cleta said, smoothing Gemma’s hair and rocking her from side to side. “You go on and cry. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that.”