Familiar Ground by Elizabeth Cox

Author:Elizabeth Cox
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
Published: 2016-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Mama, I Cut My Hand

Ty ran off the day after the circus. No one knew until later. Jacob saw him at the schoolhouse, but Ty didn’t come home at four o’clock, and by suppertime he still wasn’t home.

He went to Callie’s house. He had been there before with his friends, had peeked through Callie’s windows, but Callie hadn’t seen them. So when Ty ran off, he went there, not knowing he would go there, just deciding late in the day. He walked to the edge of town and wondered how far it was to Murfreesboro. He had been there once with his mother, but couldn’t remember how long it took to get there. It occurred to him that it had taken a long time, so he turned instead toward the caves and toward Callie’s house in the woods. As he walked, his mind settled into the idea that he might live with Callie for several years before anyone found him.

Upon approaching her gray, unsettled porch, he wished for his friends to be with him and suddenly hated the thought of running away by himself. He knocked on Callie’s door and waited so long for her to answer that he finally sat down on the porch steps, getting up once to knock again, hearing Callie inside moving around but not coming to the door. He finally called to her, saying her name, Callie, because he didn’t know anything else to call her. And when she opened the door, it was as though she didn’t recognize him, but was glad to see him anyway. And she said, as she talked to him, “Jacob. Come over here, honey,” and Ty came but didn’t correct her, though once he said, “My name’s Ty,” and Callie looked at him, smiled. She said, “Ty,” as though she wasn’t sure if that was a name or what. Then the next time she said something she would again call him Jacob. She touched his shoulders and back in a way that he liked.

Jacob felt sure the reason Ty ran off lay in their excursion to the circus. The newspaper wrote up the incident, but didn’t make it sound as horrifying as it really was, saying how the elephant posed a danger to hundreds of people and in order to prevent an accident or someone else being killed, they had to destroy the animal. It was that simple. Jacob mentioned to Verna that he was sorry about the circus.

“That’s not it,” Verna told Jacob. She held the baby. “Not that.” Verna called the police. They searched for Ty, though no one thought of Callie’s house.

When Ty was found (and he was found when he himself decided to go home, being finally bored at Callie’s), he was found heading toward his house. The policeman swooped him up and carried him to Verna as though he had performed a rescue. Ty was gone long enough that Verna did not show anger, but felt grateful to see him; though after a few minutes, she began to reprimand and threaten punishment, not this time, but if he ever did it again.

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