Tiny Dancer by Patricia Hickman

Author:Patricia Hickman
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Southern Cross Publishing
Published: 2013-06-23T21:00:00+00:00

* * * * *

They buried Lieutenant Anton Theodore Miller Friday in a military cemetery right outside Fort Bragg on a hill as pretty as the Miller’s gardens. Ratonda’s girls had tied bright dress-blue military ribbons around sunflower bouquets they tearfully dropped into their daddy’s grave.

Reverend Hildebrand, Dorothea’s aging daddy, officiated since Theo was too numb.

Dorothea insisted she would not have me stationed off distantly from them, saying, “You’re family.”

I stood behind the Millers in a respectful spot at the end of the row of cousins and pallbearers. I watched hoping Daddy and Vesta might gather among the handful of neighbors on the next hill. There stood HuiLin. My family never showed up. When I had brought it up over breakfast, Daddy hid behind his newspaper. Vesta took her coffee into the living room.

I had never met Anton Miller, but when the military gun salute went off, I cried so hard with Ratonda I ran out of tissues. I wept for Reverend Theo’s breaking heart and for Dorothea’s empty ache that left her staring out her kitchen window, no thought for cooking or making plans for family gatherings. Grief was like a cold dark spirit traveling down the street, each living soul glad it has passed on by his door. I was ready for the joker to get out of our neighborhood.

Standing behind Ratonda and the girls were cousins Whit and Calvin. I looked twice, thinking I was seeing things for behind Calvin stood two white men in dark suits. I assumed they were there to haul Calvin off again. But when the funeral ended, they followed Theo back to the family limousine. I tried to follow them, but the big white man calling himself a deputy told me, “Go on now, no fraternizing.”

Finally, the two of them left, but their eyes never left Theo.

I asked Ratonda, “What’s going on?”

Ratonda just held up a white-gloved hand to her own lips and mouthed, “I just can’t talk right now.”

I rode back home driven by Billy. He had stayed around to chauffer me back home again. He was the same old Billy again, avoiding talking about the awful things falling down around us. He got me laughing a bit. But when he pulled onto Cotton, a squad car was pulling out of our drive. It passed us on the way in.

I thanked Billy, but ran into the house.

I found Vesta working at her dressmaking, pinning the soft tissue paper pattern to a bolt of yellow fabric. “Oh, you’re back,” she said to me without taking her eyes off the sewing project. “Help me pin on this pattern.”

“Vesta, why were the cops here? What’s going on?”

Daddy held his newspaper up high, like he was holding up the Ten Commandments.

“We got a call from Winston Grooms. Funny, all of a sudden, he’s ready to talk to us,” said Veta, looking pleased. “After all this time.”

“About what?”

“Arson’s a crime.” Vesta looked up from her sewing.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Think what would have happened if you hadn’t have gotten us up.

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