Burying the Honeysuckle Girls by Emily Carpenter

Author:Emily Carpenter [Carpenter, Emily]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781503935013
Published: 2016-04-26T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

October 1937

Sybil Valley, Alabama

Before the end of the month, Howell Wooten had to go to Huntsville three more times. The CCC boys were planting pine saplings, cutting paths through Monte Sano Park, and building trail shelters, and even though Howell grumbled that he was a farmer and not a government hand, Jinn knew they were lucky he’d gotten the job. He’d had to say he was unmarried in order to get it, but he reckoned nobody was going to bother and tromp all the way up Brood Mountain to check if there was a wife and kids sitting around the table in his cabin.

When Howell went off to Huntsville, Jinn went up to Tom Stocker’s house. She waited until Walter got off to school and Collie to Aggie’s, then she took a stroll up Old Cemetery Road to make sure there weren’t any neighbors watching from porches or fields. If things looked quiet, she walked the rest of the way up. She wasn’t so awed by the big brick place anymore. Nor did she feel one bit shabby when she stepped onto the wide front porch. It was probably because Tom broke into such a wide grin the minute he put eyes on her. That grin made him look like a boy. It made her heart feel it might crash right through her ribs.

The first time she visited Tom, he led her to a nook under the staircase, out of sight of the windows. They stood, pressed together, and kissed and touched until their mouths were raw and they’d felt just about all they could of each other’s bodies through their clothes. He whispered feverishly to her, about California and Hollywood and the Pacific Ocean, and, even though she didn’t say she’d go, she dropped a kiss on his neck, just under his collar. The sun shone year-round out there, Tom said, trailing kisses along the rise of her jaw, up to her bruised temple. You didn’t even need a fireplace, he said. There were palm trees, a thousand cars, and castles set on cliffs. After he said this, they kissed again.

They never went upstairs. He wouldn’t. He wanted her as his wife and told her so.

She didn’t say yes, but she didn’t say no either.

He caught her hand as she was leaving. “The Sunset Limited runs from New Orleans to Los Angeles. I could buy two tickets for you and Collie. Two for me and Willie.”

She thought of Howell and her duty before God. She thought of Walter and the calf strung up, black against the sky. She smiled at Tom, but shook her head.

That night, her mother’s soul finally left its tortured body and flew to glory, and Jinn felt a sweep of relief. The whole valley gathered at the church a couple of days later to bury her. Howell couldn’t make it back in time for the funeral, but Jinn thought it was just as well. He might have found it strange that she didn’t cry at her own mother’s burial.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.