The Secret Sense of Wildflower by Susan Gabriel

Author:Susan Gabriel [Gabriel, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: historical fiction
Publisher: Speedy Publishing LLC
Published: 2012-08-28T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

The morning of the funeral I smell breakfast before I open my eyes. I smile at the thought of Daddy and Mama in the kitchen with their first cup of coffee, then I remember that he won’t be there. When I walk by the door to their bedroom it is closed, like he is still sleeping. But the nightmare of the day before is true. The accident really happened. He is really gone.

When I come into the kitchen Aunt Sadie gives me one of her big, strong hugs. She has made a breakfast of eggs, bacon and biscuits.

“I want you to drink this,” she says. “It’ll keep your strength up.”

A glass of something dark green sits on the kitchen counter. All of Aunt Sadie’s concoctions taste like tree bark and grass mixed together, but I don’t argue with her, I just drink it and hold my nose while I swallow.

We all sit around the kitchen table as if we are in a daze. Jo looks like she’s been crying again and Amy is quiet, as usual, and Meg stares into her coffee cup. Even Mama has stopped her busyness and is nursing a cup of coffee. Despite all the sadness weighing down the room, the smell of the bacon reminds me of how hungry I am. Before I know it, I’ve eaten two eggs, three strips of bacon, and two biscuits with butter and some of Horatio Sector’s honey on it.

Just as I finish breakfast a knock comes at the front door and Mama answers it. Men’s voices fill the living room. Some of Daddy’s friends are here with a pine box in the yard behind them. I smell the wood all the way from the living room.

“I was up all night making it,” Silas Magee says. “I think it’s the best I’ve ever done.”

Silas is the best carpenter anywhere. He made practically everything we own. Between him and Daddy our family has enough wood and kindling stacked next to the porch to get us through two hard winters.

Mama thanks Silas and the other men but has that faraway look in her eyes again like she might climb in the box with Daddy if given half a chance.

“We need to get him down the hill,” Silas says. “Doc Lester has that contraption he bought waiting on the road.”

Mama steps aside as the men carry the coffin into the house. Her eyes are fixed on the pine box and when I try to follow the men she holds me back.

“Come on,” Jo says from behind me. “Let’s go pick flowers for the church.” As the oldest, Jo has taken over Mama’s job of telling us sisters what to do.

Meg and Amy follow Jo and me out the back door to the path into the woods behind our house. As we walk, I picture Daddy being carried down the hill by the same men who carried him up.

“Will they take him right to the church?” I ask Jo.

“I believe so,” she says, locking her arm in mine.

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