from Chapter 1
They said she went with tears to the altar—my mother. The good ladies of our town who had gathered to give us condolences said it in hushed whispers on the day of her funeral when they thought I wasn’t listening. I heard them though. I had wandered into the big bedroom and had lain down, tired of the comings and goings of well-meaning neighbors and relatives and the constant grizzling of my brothers and sisters and the clucking of my aunts as they dealt with them. Daddy had gone off somewhere to deal with his sorrow, and I needed to be alone to deal with mine. Dazed with grief, I had wandered into my parents’ bedroom and stretched out on their bed, covered with the patchwork quilt her hands had made, seeking peace, but I didn’t find any. The running conversation in the front room made sure of that.
“Poor thing!” the disembodied voices whispered. The whispers hissed through the cracks in the door and seemed to echo from the tired pink roses of the floral wallpaper, becoming an accompaniment to the soft whisper of the rain outside. I listened without wanting to. The gossiping and condoling words floated round me and through me and into the black emptiness that threatened to swallow me alive. I buried my face in the patchwork quilt that still carried traces of her familiar scent, and wept.
from Chapter 1
Micah
Sister won’t talk to me. She sits in a pool of injured silence and looks out the window of our shared apartment at the people passing in the street and pretends I am not there. She’s acted that way ever since I came clean about something I did long ago when we were teens. I figured that because what happened was so long ago, it wouldn’t make a difference now. I was wrong. She acts as though it happened just yesterday and is madder than an old wet hen. What I did didn’t keep her from having a happy life. She married a man who treated her like a queen and gave her everything she wanted. Her children adore her and take her on trips with them and are constantly calling to see if she is okay. It’s more than I ever had by far.
Coral Lee has always been one to hang on to things long after they needed to be let go. It seems she never let go or got over it either. How was I to know she hadn’t? I guess I never got over it myself, because what I did has bothered me all these years. I finally told her about it, so I could get it off my chest and clear my conscience. She met my confession with total silence. Now she sits there and broods. Sometimes the tears slip out the corners of her eyes and she dabs at them with the lacy handkerchief we were taught to carry when young, while her free hand clutches the small pile of letters I gave her when I confessed.
“Come on Coral Lee,” I plead. “Please forgive me. I was young. Young people do stupid stuff.”
She stares at me blankly and turns away. I don’t know what to do. My Joe was killed in the war fighting at Iwo Jima. We spent such a short time together, and we never had kids. I never cared to remarry. So here I am, childless, with only my sister left. She’s all I have, and she isn’t well. I am the younger, but I care for her as though she were my child. I look at her frail figure sitting in the chair and wonder if I will lose her too. I wonder if clearing my conscience was worth losing her trust. We’ve never enjoyed an easy relationship. We have always been too different. I may have wrecked all the careful work I have done to build what rapport we’ve had.
Why did I do it? Why does anyone do anything? The young do things without thinking. I was no different. I go about the business of seeing to her needs in the new, painful silence between us. In the silence she preserves so carefully, regret rises up like a tide to swallow me.
Copyright © 2021 Ruth Ramschaey, Route 66 Author - All Rights Reserved.
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