Flowers Out of Bone by Ethel Morgan Smith Chapter 1             “Mom, I can only imagine how hard this has been on you.” Emma touches my left shoulder. Flutters of butterflies float toward the magnolia… Flowers Out of Bone (14)

Flowers Out of Bone 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… Flowers Out of Bone (11)

Flowers Out of Bone by Ethel Morgan Smith Chapter 1             Surely there must’ve been some joy in my childhood. It’s hard to imagine that anybody could grow up without something other than mutilated memories.… Flowers Out of Bone (10)

Flowers Out of Bone by Ethel Morgan Smith Chapter 1 Emma sighs and stretches her arms forward and sits up. She doesn’t look as much like me as I do Beauty. But she doesn’t look… Flowers Out of Bone (9)

Flowers Out of Bone by Ethel Morgan Smith Chapter 1 Old Man Forest from our church worked in the yard. He told us how the white woman ordered expensive flowers from all kinds of foreign… Flowers Out of Bone (7)

Flowers Out of Bone by Ethel Morgan Smith Chapter 1 I wish Big Mama could be there; it’d help me to feel part of the family again. Beauty is needy and whiny; she wants to… Flowers Out of Bone (6)

Flowers Out of Bone by Ethel Morgan Smith Chapter 1             I love wearing Big Mama’s pearls. I run my finger around the rough edge of the faded beads hanging around my mint-colored silk blouse.… Flowers Out of Bone (5)

Flowers Out of Bone by Ethel Morgan Smith Chapter 1 Writing checks to my family felt cold and heartless at first, but I soon got used to it. Even the coldness of hard cash doesn’t… Flowers Out of Bone (4)

Flowers Out of Bone by Ethel Morgan Smith Chapter 1               “All I want for graduation is you to go home and see Gram. She’s an old woman, you know,” Emma said after she… Flowers Out of Bone (3)

Flowers Out of Bone by Ethel Morgan Smith Chapter 1             But that doesn’t mean I’ll be getting involved in my Alabama family’s life out of some kind of ‘empty nest syndrome.’ I can’t rely… Flowers Out of Bone (2)

Flowers Out of Bone by Ethel Morgan Smith Chapter 1               The highway stretches before me like an open grave. My approach is as quiet as my exit had been nearly twenty years ago,… Flowers Out of Bone (1)