Uncommon Clay by Margaret Maron

Author:Margaret Maron [Maron, Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Detective and Mystery Stories, Knott; Deborah (Fictitious Character), Mystery & Detective, Women Judges, North Carolina, General, Women Sleuths, Large Type Books, Fiction, Potters
ISBN: 9780786233700
Publisher: Thorndike Press
Published: 2001-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

15

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While Southerners seek and enjoy the boons of progress, they are also reluctant to abandon old ways.

—Raised in Clay, Nancy Sweezy

Thursday was my brother Seth’s birthday, so Minnie invited the whole family and a few friends over that night for cake and homemade ice cream.

Seth is five brothers up from me and I’ve always felt closer to him than to some of the others—probably because he cuts me more slack than they do. He doesn’t spend half his life criticizing me or giving advice or acting like I’m still the baby sister, with emphasis on the baby part.

This makes birthday and Christmas gifts something of a problem. I always want to give him the moon with a silver string around it, but I can’t get too fancy for Seth or my other ten brothers will get their feelings hurt if the difference between his presents and theirs is too great. Not that most of them would notice, but their wives tend to keep score.

This year, I got sneaky and enlisted Haywood’s son Stevie, who’s in school over at Carolina. Seth’s a huge Carolina fan and I’d scored a couple of tickets to the last home game of the basketball season from a fellow judge who’s another Carolina alum. Stevie was more than willing to pretend that the tickets came from him and were practically freebies.

“How the hell’d you do that?” asked Will, who’s three up from me. “I been trying to get tickets all season.”

Stevie just grinned and murmured about friends in high places.

Haywood, Robert, Zach, Andrew, and Daddy had chipped in to get Seth a photocopier for his home office. Since Seth does all the bookkeeping for the farm, it struck me as a rather pragmatic (not to mention tax-deductible) gift.

Will gave him a gift certificate for dinner for two at a steakhouse in Dobbs, and Herman, who’s an electrician, gave him a paddle fan for the porch. (Annie Sue, Herman’s daughter, promised to install it before summer.)

My official present, reservations at the Carolina Inn for the night of the game with a buffet breakfast next morning, slid right in among the others without sticking out too far, and Stevie gave me a thumbs up as he went out on the porch to help turn the crank on one of the two ice cream churns that Minnie had going.

In a family this big, it’s impossible to get everyone here at the same time. Adam, Ben, Jack, and Frank live out of state and many of my nieces and nephews are married and off on their own, but that still left a lot of enthusiastic voices to sing “Happy Birthday” to Seth when Minnie brought in the cake, aglow with so many candles that Zach asked her if she had a permit from the fire marshal.

Through it all, Daddy sat beaming. He’s not much for speech-making, but as he’s gotten older, these times are precious to him. “Means a lot to me to see the family sticking together, prospering,” he said, savoring the dish of strawberry ice cream I brought him.

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