Entangled Thorns by Melinda Clayton

Author:Melinda Clayton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: cedar hollow series, southern fiction, historical fiction, contemporary fiction, literary fiction
Publisher: Thomas-Jacob Publishing, LLC
Published: 2013-11-13T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18: Geraldine Porter Pritchett

I SEE SHADOWS PASS by the strip of light under my door and it makes me think of Naomi. She was a sensitive child, always afraid of the dark, hovering outside my door at night when she was just a tiny little thing, trying to work up the courage to knock and ask to crawl in bed with me and Junior for a little while. You’d think sleeping with Beth would have cured her of the nighttime willies, but it never did. Lord knows, Luke didn’t help none, always telling the girls stories about escaped murderers hiding in the woods, or convincing them Sasquatch was lurking under the porch waiting to grab their ankles.

He did love to get them worked up, that boy did. They’d lay up there on the roof when the floods came, squealing and carrying on until finally Junior’d get fed up and grab the broom, jumping up on the bed in his boxers to pound it against the ceiling, hollering at them to hush up and let a body get some rest. They’d quiet down for a little while, but never for long.

What a rascal my Luke was; I can still see him smiling at me with his crooked smile like it was only yesterday. Even now, it boggles my mind how a family can go from all that noise, all that hollering and carrying on, to nothing but silence, just like that. One day I had a family, and the next day, I did not.

I reckon I’ve had ample time to blame near about everybody for my children leaving me. I blamed Valerie Poindexter for not stopping the girls before they got to the station; I blamed the stationmaster for believing the girls and letting them get on that train, and I blamed the conductor for taking them away from me. I blamed my momma and my daddy for holding onto me so tight when I was a child that I didn’t hold onto my own children tight enough, and they slipped away. I blamed Junior for everything rotten about his family and everyone else’s, and I blamed myself for my weaknesses, too many to count, starting with loving Junior and allowing him to give me children who would cause me nothing but pain. I even blamed Luke himself for dying.

Momma, Daddy, Luke, and then Junior, they’re all gone now, away from any blame I can lay upon them. The only ones left are me and the girls, and I’ll tell you the truth, I’ve laid a heavy burden of blame upon them for many a year, for leaving me like they did. Them coming back after all this time has wrought havoc on my mind; I don’t know what to think.

Some nights after they was all gone and it was just me and Junior laying in bed, him snoring, and me tossing and turning, trying to find some peace, I’d dream about Naomi. The Naomi in my dreams wasn’t the

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