Flowers Out of Bone by Ethel Morgan Smith Chapter 1 Flowers Out of Bone (12) “Yes. Lurleen B. Wallace, only forty-one when she died from cancer. Her husband couldn’t run for governor anymore; he had exceeded the law. So they ran her. She died after a year in office in 1968, a little bit … Read more
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 cried. “Ain’t dey ugly ‘nuff ‘out tyin up dey ugly faces.” I hadn’t cried when Emma was sick; I just … Read more
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. But in spite of, maybe because of, growing up in the segregated South, I had succeeded by earning a scholarship … Read more
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 anything like her daddy either, other than a feature here and there. I am pleased that I don’t see my … Read more
Flowers Out of Bone by Ethel Morgan Smith Chapter 1 Flowers Out of Bone (8) Soon after Big Mama moved in with us, Beauty mustered up enough courage to kick Mr. Tex out of the house and out of our lives. He was her third husband, my sister’s daddy, and everybody’s disappointment. A tiny … Read more
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 places he’d never heard of. I’d never seen anything like the beauty of the blooming yard. Even the hibiscus was … Read more
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 be parented, rather than be a parent. She can’t handle anything emotional after losing Ivy, her seven year old and … Read more
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. I should’ve dressed more causal. Don’t they want to see the life I’ve built for Emma and me? How we … Read more
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 weigh me down anymore. Plus they never send Emma or me anything, other than Christmas and birthday cards with a … Read more