by Laura Hunter
Lily scratched Sunday’s ears. “If Kee Granny’s Great Spirit is a powerful god who has things on his mind other than me and you, we’re in trouble.” Lily chuckled. “But. If Mama’s God is a god of justice, as she always said, he can be on our side when bad things happen, don’t you guess?” Sunday rolled over for Lily to scratch her belly and purred. “You and me, Sunday, we got two guardians. We’ll be fine.”
The memory of another spring day, the day when she had leapt from the rock overhang to Old Man Farley’s cabin flashed through her mind. That day she had flown through the air as lightly as Owl. Today she was free to go. She had new wings, wings handed her by the voice on Turtleback Mountain.
The mountain settled. Two days passed as Lily folded her clothes and stacked them just so in a muslin pillowcase. The morning of their leaving, she looked around at what had been the only home she remembered. She saw her father’s Bible where she had placed it on the bureau. She dropped it into her pillowcase. “Come, Sunday,” she said. “Time for us to begin.”
Out of respect for Boone Station, Lily tried to close the door as she left. The roof sat so skewed the door drooped heavy out of its frame. She left it cracked open and walked down the Turtleback. She need not bother closing up the house.
With a backward glance, Lily searched the trees for a glimpse of Owl. He was not there. She and Sunday started down the road to Breakline Mining Camp and then crossed over to the trail Kee Granny had made when taking her curses and wadulesi to sell in Covington.
A swinging bridge, no more than slats hung on two ropes, crossed Broken Rock Creek above Covington. Lily stepped on the first board. It wiggled as if alive. Sunday balked. She leapt from Lily’s arms and dashed into a blackberry thicket. Unable to coax her out, Lily fell back against a massive mountain oak. Halfway up, its trunk separated into three parts. She would wait. Her back fit flawlessly into a niche that stretched up from a split in the roots. She settled herself, rubbing her back against bark nubs. The trunk included her in its girth. She braced her weight by stretching her feet out before her.
Looking up at a canopy that spread at least fifty-feet across, she wondered how many men it would take, five full-grown, maybe six, arms outstretched, to reach around the trunk. This could be the father of all trees. Cherokee had once wandered in and out of the valley. Intuitively, she understood they would have slept under this tree when it was young.
She slid down the trunk, allowing the bark against her back to scratch at memories of Flatland and her granny, her mother’s body crooked in its grave, Gabe murdered, and Eli driven away in a long black Buick. Tired from her walk and weary from the emptiness she had lived with throughout the past year, she relaxed. Her roots, the Cherokee roots and the roots of all she loved and had loved, buried themselves in the earth where she sat. She was content with that knowledge. She removed her Ena pin and laid it to rest in the moss under the oak.
Sunday padded up and plopped down in Lily’s lap. Lily dropped Eli’s little wolf pup from her pocket into the pillowcase. She lifted Sunday gently in and gave her time to nuzzle into the clothes before folding over the top and slipping the bundle into her dress bosom. Against Lily’s warmth, Sunday stretched and turned, molding herself to Lily’s body. Lily stood.
Out of the leaves above her, Owl appeared. He looped around Lily, once, twice, three times. He then turned and soared back into the wilderness. Lily watched him until he disappeared in the distance. She whispered, “Farewell, wisdom of Great Spirit. I will carry you always in my heart.”
After repositioning her treasures against her bosom, she walked toward the bridge. Moving like an ancient pregnant woman carrying her unborn too high, Lily Marie Goodman placed one foot before the other. She stepped easy across the swinging bridge and on into Covington, Virginia. Eli should be across the next mountain.
About the Author
Laura Hunter is a retired educator and an insatiable reader. She has always wanted to write stories and began doing so before entering the first grade. Since 1994, she has published sixteen award-winning fiction pieces and nine poems in addition to numerous articles published through several different media outlets. Beloved Mother has won second place in the 2017 Dorothy M. Lobman Novel Award for the first chapter of an unpublished novel. In her spare time, Hunter reads, gardens, and works with a small writing group in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Her writings reflect the perseverance of the downtrodden—those who refuse to give up, even against extreme odds.
Thanks for reading Beloved Mother!
Laura would greatly appreciate feedback for her work to be left on your favorite review platform.