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Flowers Out of Bone (11)

Flowers Out of Bone

Photo of Ethel Morgan Smith

by Ethel Morgan Smith

Chapter 1

            Crying had helped to free me. Big Mama didn’t allow crying. “Only de weak do dat.” She had even made fun of folks who cried. “Ain’t dey ugly ‘nuff ‘out tyin up dey ugly faces.” I hadn’t cried when Emma was sick; I just stopped talking. And, of course, I hadn’t cried at Big Mama’s funeral. But for three months I paid $100 an hour to cry. Before I left for Bone, I made an appointment with my therapist for the week I get back to Atlanta. There will be plenty to talk about. I am long past just crying. Or maybe there would be a lot to think about.

            I don’t know how to think of my life without being overwhelmed by what had happened in the park. The warmth from the spring sun isn’t enough to keep sharp pains from piercing my stomach. I try to change the direction of my pain by shifting my thoughts toward my aging mother, and the role I’ll have to assume as the oldest daughter. Ruby is more prepared to take frontline duty since she lives in Bone, and would always be there. I feel like a stranger not just thinking about my estranged family, but about the red clay where Emmett’s blood is drenched. How much black blood is soaked in the earth of Alabama?

            “Twenty minutes for the AAA to get here,” Emma beams, hanging up the telephone.

            “Lady of Adventure, let’s get something to drink.” I smile and reach for my daughter’s hand.

            “Your hands are so cold.”

            “They’re always cold,” I squeeze her hand. Emma has Beauty’s small and delicate looking hands; both are the color molasses.

            “I like them cold.” Emma looks around the peaceful park. “This is really nice.” Crickets hiss; it’s too early for picnickers. We stroll through oaks, magnolias, and dogwoods. The scent of spring grass, night flowers and weeds linger in the early air. Dew from the grass beads on our shoes. I wish I had worn sneakers like Emma. Instead I am wearing 3-inch heels, trying to impress my mother–something I should’ve given up on by now.

            “Look, Emma, there’s a basswood. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen one.”

            “How can you tell?”

            “See the star leaves?” We stop and I pick up a few of the leaves that have fallen on the ground. “And there’s the little thistles fallen around its trunk. In the fall the leaves turn red, yellow and purple. When Big Mama first showed me one, I called it the chewing gum tree.” I brush my hands. We continue to walking.

            “Are we close to Gram’s?”

            “About two hours.” Why am I so nervous? It’s just my family whom I haven’t seen in nearly twenty years.

            “Did you come here when you were a kid?” Emma asks.

            “No.” I step over a patch of muddy grass.

            “Was it a park then?”

            “Yeah, but coming here never occurred to me or anybody from our community. But I remember a big celebration with loud music and cars with signs, when this park was named for the one and only George C. Wallace.” I toss a fallen branch out of our path. “There was a big parade and politicians making promises. The smell of barbecue blanketed the entire town. The only Blacks were here to cook, clean, and serve. It was like the town wasn’t ours.”

            “The old governor Gram despised because he made his sick wife run for governor?”

            “That would be him, the infamous governor of Alabama many times over.”

            “Did she win?”

Flowers Out of Bone is to be continued

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