by Ronica Black
“You—gasped. I thought maybe I’d hurt you or something. Or that maybe—”
Her heart pounded.
“Maybe what?”
Another wave of what appeared to be sadness visibly washed over her, and Janice almost panicked.
She knows. Oh, my God, she knows.
“Nothing.”
“No, tell me.” She had to know now. She had to know what was going on and where she stood with her. She’d go crazy not knowing.
“I thought you might be uncomfortable with my hugging you.”
Janice blinked, trying to make sense of what she’d said. She couldn’t.
“I don’t understand.”
Carla released her and squinted into the sunshine. “You never really said anything to me after I came out. So, I’ve wondered off and on if maybe you had a problem with me now. With my being gay.”
What?
“Oh, my God, Carla no. I never—there’s no—how could you think that about me?”
“Because you went silent on me. You didn’t even come to tell me good-bye when I left after that.”
“I—”
Couldn’t.
“Whatever,” she said. “It doesn’t matter. You feel how you feel, and you think how you think.”
“Carla, I don’t feel that way. I don’t think that way. I…”
“What?”
“Adore you.”
This time Carla blinked as if she were surprised. And Janice looked away into the sunshine.
“Hey! You two!” Maurine was shouting at them and waving them over. “There’s dessert and I’m not letting either one of you turn it down.”
Carla waved at her to hold her off.
“I guess I was wrong, then,” she said. “I apologize if I offended you. It’s just—well, let’s just say there are some people who do have a problem with it.”
“Well, fuck them, then.”
Carla appeared shocked and then she laughed. “Okay then. I wasn’t expecting that.”
“Seriously.”
Maurine called out, demanding their presence, and Carla stepped up to her again and leaned in. She stared into her eyes and then lightly, like a touch from the wings of a butterfly, kissed her cheek.
“Thank you,” she said one last time as she backed away. “For everything. For always.”
Janice grew so hot and dizzy she stumbled for balance.
“You coming, or what?’ Maurine said to her, Carla having already reached her.
Janice did her best to right herself and then walked on air toward her best friend.
Chapter Six
“It’s so good to see ya’ll,” Carla said as she stretched out her legs and leaned back on her hands. The brightly covered blanket she was sharing with her younger cousin Erica was soft and warm from their bask in the sun. “Just wish the circumstances were different. And I wish I would’ve come back sooner.” The last sentence had been hard to say, and she hoped Erica, who had always looked up to her, hadn’t heard the quaver in her voice.
“Don’t do that to yourself, Carla. We’re all here and that’s all that matters. You know that’s all that would’ve mattered to Grandma. And if you think about it, she’s once again the one who brought us together, just as she always did. One last little secret ploy on her part, I reckon.”
“When did you get so grown up?” Carla asked, impressed by her insight. “Weren’t you like twelve day before yesterday?”
Erica chuckled and picked a few blades of grass from her leg. “Hardly. I’m twenty-nine. Thirty’s just around the corner.”
“Oh God, why did you say that? That makes me feel absolutely ancient. Where does time go?”
“It’s a tricky son of a bitch, I’ll tell you that. I remember when I was a kid I used to beg and plead for time to pass quicker. And the more I wanted that the slower it seemed to crawl. It was torturous. Now, though, with the boys, it just flies by and I find myself begging and pleading again, wishing it would slow. But it doesn’t. The hands on the clock keep spinning out of control and the boys keep growing and changing on me, sometimes literally overnight. There’s just no stopping it.”
“I suppose all we can do is just buckle up and hang on for the ride.” Carla smiled as Erica’s three sons splashed and played in the creek that ran the length of the Sims property. It was just down the hill from Grandma Betty’s house. “You especially,” she said. “With those three little guys, you’re going to need to cinch that seat belt real tight and probably wear a helmet as well. Because your ride is going to be a bit bumpy.”
“Oh, I’d be happy with bumpy. I’m afraid I’m in for more of a rollercoaster type deal at this point. Deep dips and crazy loops.”
“If anyone can handle it, it’s you. You’re a wonderful mother. And the boys…they are beautiful.”
“Quit,” Erica said, tossing bits of grass at her. “I done enough crying this past week.”
“Ya’ll stop it!” Denny, Erica’s oldest, yelled at his two younger brothers. “You’re scaring away the crawdads!” But his brothers continued to play and screech, and Denny picked up his fishing pole and pulled the line from the water. He threw up his hand in obvious frustration when he saw that his hook was void of bait. Again.
“Carla, will you put more bread on for me?” he asked as he carried his rod to her.
“Sure, Bubba,” she said, calling him by the endearment his mother and brothers used for him. She opened the bag of white bread and tore off a small piece. “You don’t need much, see. Just a little piece. Then you just roll it up into a ball and stick it through your hook.” She demonstrated.
“Are you sure bread’s gonna work?”
She smiled. It was their first time fishing for crawdads, and he’d been confused when she said they didn’t need typical fishing bait.
“Oh, it will, I promise.” she said. “Bread is all I ever used as a kid and I caught all kinds of crawdads. And fish, too.” She’d promised the boys she’d take them fishing for crawdads upon their arrival from Asheville a few days before. Needless to say, that’s all they’d talked about. Somehow, she and Erica had managed to put them off until after the funeral.
“Fish? In this creek?”
She smiled again, amused by his disbelief.
“You bet. Quite a few, actually.”
“You probably mean those little tiny fishes, huh? Those don’t count.”
“No, I’m talking some pretty good sized fish. In fact, I lost three poles in this creek to big fish.”
Denny’s eyes widened and his two younger brothers, Victor and Val, who were twins, came up beside him, having overheard the story.
“Really? How big were they?” Victor asked.
“Huge. They got hooked on my bait when I left my pole on the ground and then they flew down the creek, dragging my pole along with them.”
“What did you do?” Val asked.
“What did I do? I ran after my fishing rod! All three times. But I wasn’t quick enough, and those dang fish took my poles with them, right on down the creek. I never saw those fishing poles again.”
“For really, Carla?” Victor, who was only discernible from Val by the small freckle below his eye, asked in his four-year-old fashion.
“Yes, love, for real. But after that third time, I sat my butt down, sat real still, and I held my pole. Because Grandma Betty made it very clear that I wouldn’t be getting another one.”
The boys looked at one another.
“We better hang on to our poles,” Victor said.
They returned to the creek, grabbed their poles, and sat promptly on the ground. Denny, however, turned and gave her a big, toothless smile.
“Thanks, Carla,” he said.
“For what, Bubba?”
He cupped his mouth and whispered. “For making them sit still. Now maybe I can catch something.”
He sat next to his brothers and they looked like three little towheaded urchins, sitting side by side.
Carla leaned back on her
hands once again.
She and Erica soaked up the sun and the silence.
“I’m worried about Daddy,” Erica eventually said, referring to Cole. “He ain’t said very much since we got here. Not even to the boys.”
“You noticed that, too, eh?” She could tell he was shutting down, but she’d hoped having Erica and the boys here would help.
“You know how he thinks he should be able to save everyone. And when he can’t, he can’t deal.”
I can relate.
“Someone very wise recently told me that there is no one way to grieve. Everyone goes about it in their own way.”
Truth was, none of them were doing great. And they probably weren’t grieving in what was considered a healthier fashion. But they hadn’t faced a loss of this magnitude since Carla’s mother passed some thirty-five years before. Taking that into consideration, along with the fact that they were all very sensitive people who loved big and loved deeply, she thought they were doing pretty good to be functioning at all.
“And don’t think I haven’t noticed your behavior too, Carla.”
“Me?”
“You’ve been despondent, and you’re damn near skeletal.”
“Oh, come on, Erica.” She waved her off.
Erica rolled her eyes. “I ain’t the only one worried, Carla. Maurine—”
“Maurine’s not one to talk.”
“No, she’s not. But she’s noticed. And so has Janice. She talked to me about it at the funeral.”
“Janice?” She wondered if that was before or after their private conversation under the tree.
“She said you looked exhausted.”
“I’m fine,” she said, still thinking about Janice and her concern for her. Was she wrong or did she seem to be more concerned about her now than she ever had before? Was that simply because of her loss, or was there something more? “Would I be out here with you and the boys if I was as despondent as you say?”
“Yes.”
She shot her a look.
“You would, Carla. Because you wouldn’t want me to worry and you wouldn’t want to disappoint the boys.”
Carla sighed, defeated by Erica’s accurate insight.
“Janice is right. You are exhausted,” Erica said. “That’s very obvious.”
“I won’t argue with you on that.”
Val turned around with a big grin, oblivious to their conversation. “I think I got me one!”
“Really?” Carla went to him, glad to be distracted. “Okay, pull your line from the water real slow.” She helped him lift it carefully from the creek. And all three boys guffawed when they saw the dark brown crawdad dangling on the end, one claw gripping the bread.
“Whoo, doggie!” Val said. “I got me a big one!”
“Set him down,” she said gently, leading them away from the water. “Once he feels the ground he might let go.”
They gathered around as Val lowered his line to the ground. The crawdad released the bait and Carla pinched it behind the head and held it up.
“Okay, you want to be gentle when you hold them so they don’t get hurt. Anyone wanna give it a try?”
They backed away. “Nuh-uh.”
She laughed. “Okay, then get some creek water in your bucket and bring it here.”
The boys did as instructed, and she set the crawdad inside.
“Wow,” Victor said as they peered down. “He is a big feller.”
“This is so dang cool,” Denny said. “I wish Daddy woulda showed us this a long time ago. We coulda been catching crawdads our whole lives.”
Carla tousled his hair. “Why don’t you give him that ball of bread he was after?”
Denny perked up and Val and Victor fought over who got to remove the bait from the hook.
“Boys, you can all feed him,” Erica said, already pinching off small pieces of bread from the bag. They rushed to her, forgetting the bread on the pole, and Carla pulled off the wet bait and gave it to Denny.
“Go ahead, Bub. Toss it in there.”
He knelt and dropped it inside. The crawdad went after it, once again attacking it with his claw.
Denny beamed up at her. “He’s hungry, ain’t he?”
“Seems so.”
“What are we gonna do with him when Mama makes us quit?”
“We put him back in the water.”
“You mean let him go?”
“Uh-huh.”
“But I wanna keep him.”
“You can’t, Bubba. He wouldn’t live very long and we wouldn’t want that.”
“My papaw says we’re supposed to eat ’em.”
“Do you want to eat him?”
Denny looked at the crawdad and shook his head. “Nuh-uh. No way.”
“I never did either. So, I always just caught them for fun and then put them back. I thought it was only fair, seeing as how I got to go home at the end of day. They should be able to as well.”
The twins hurried to the bucket and knelt alongside Denny.
“Be careful, now,” Carla said. “Don’t get too close or you’ll get pinched. And let me tell ya, it hurts.”
The boys fed the crawdad and she stretched and looked back up the hill toward the house. A small group of women were headed their way.
“Looks like we’ve been found,” she said, already feeling exhausted at the thought of dealing with more well-meaning people offering their condolences.
She felt like she hadn’t had a single moment’s peace since she’d stepped off the plane. Someone was always interrupting or stopping by or needing her for something.
She should be getting used to it at this point.
But for whatever reason, she wasn’t.
Maybe that’s because there’s no end in sight.
Chapter Seven
Erica turned to see who was approaching.
She shaded her brow. “Who is that? Is that…who is that?”
“Looks like Darlene and her two daughters and…I think that’s Tonya.”
“Tonya? Isn’t that Mitch’s girlfriend?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What’s she like?”
Carla shrugged. “She’s all right.” She watched as Tonya and the other women, her distant cousins, approached.
“I think I’ve only met her once. Mitch don’t come around much anymore since he moved to Gastonia.” Mitch was Cole’s best friend from childhood, and though he wasn’t family, they all considered him as such.
“Ya’ll catch anything good for supper?” Darlene asked as they walked up and embraced Carla and Erica in hugs.
Denny straightened. “No way! You ain’t eating my crawdad.”
Darlene chuckled and held up her hands. “Okay, little man. I won’t even think about it.”
“What are ya’ll up to?” Erica asked.
Darlene started in on how she was aiming to get into Maurine’s to clean, so Maurine wouldn’t have to worry about doing it at the present time, which was her way of offering love and support rather than bringing food. But Carla’s focus went to Tonya who had come to stand next to her.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” Tonya asked.
Carla was surprised by the request, but she sank her hands into the back pockets of her cutoff shorts and said, “Sure.”
They walked farther away than Carla expected, leading her to believe that whatever Tonya was about to say, she didn’t want it to be overheard.
“What’s up?” Carla asked when they finally came to a stop.
But Tonya, who was slightly older than Carla and a whole head shorter, wouldn’t look at her.
Uh-oh. This is not good.
“Is something wrong?”
She blew out a breath.
“Tonya?”
“God, I don’t know how to say this.”
Carla saw the distress on her face, and suddenly she had a feeling she knew exactly what was about to be said. She had experienced something similar with someone else on her last visit home, after she’d come ou
t. Only that person had been an actual family member, someone who was blood related. Tonya, who she didn’t know well at all, was Mitch’s girlfriend. Even so, this felt strangely familiar and hauntingly awkward.
“I’m guessing this is something you haven’t told anyone else?”
She reddened, confirming Carla’s suspicion.
“No, I haven’t told a soul.”
“But you’re going to tell me because you’re hoping I’ll understand.”
She looked at her quickly, as if surprised at her correct assessment.
“I’m hoping, yeah.”
Carla glanced off into the distance, suddenly so very tired, like the wind had just left her sails. Dealing with her own emotion as well as trying to comfort everyone else with theirs, had really taken its toll. And now…this. Did she have enough strength left?
“Okay, so shoot.”
Tonya laughed, incredulous. “It ain’t exactly that easy.”
“It’s not going to get any easier by standing here either. It will only make your suffering and anxiety last longer.”
She still didn’t speak.
“Here, I’ll help,” Carla said, growing impatient. “You’re having these feelings…”
Tonya blinked and then appeared confused, like she didn’t know how she knew that.
“I’m…well, yes.”
“For anyone specific or just in general?”
Her discomfort seemed to intensify.
“Someone specific.”
“And I’m guessing we’re not talking about Mitch here, are we?”
“No.”
“I just wanted to be sure.”
Tonya was quiet again, which got under Carla’s skin, and she realized her irritability was most likely due to fatigue. But her foul mood continued, regardless of her self-awareness.
She went in for the kill.
“So, who is she?”
Tonya’s mouth fell open and she turned away. “How did you—”
“Know it was a woman?” Carla scoffed. “Come on, Tonya. Why else would you seek me out when there are plenty of others, who you’re a whole lot closer to that you can confess to? I mean, come on. You’re just so obvious.”
And I’m being a bitch.
I am.
But I’m just so fed up.
I just want this to be over so I can go find somewhere quiet to collapse. Where? I don’t know. I guess a damn closet would suffice at this point.