Flowers Out of Bone (14)

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 trees.             “One thing for sure, I am not going to cry. No more tears for Bone.” I wipe my … Read more

Flowers Out of Bone (13)

Flowers Out of Bone by Ethel Morgan Smith Chapter 1 Flowers Out of Bone (13)             “Just think, I mean, I’m going to Princeton and it doesn’t seem to be that big of a deal,” Emma says.             “It is a big deal. But that’s what the battle for civil rights was all about. Princeton … Read more

Flowers Out of Bone (12)

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 (10)

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 (8)

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 (5)

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 (3)

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 received her acceptance letter from Princeton.             “Of course, but we have to celebrate now. You’ve worked so hard for … Read more

Flowers Out of Bone (2)

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 on them for nothing, other than their mostly self-inflicted drama, always a mess; I need peace. Yes, they love me, … Read more

Flowers Out of Bone (1)

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, when I was eighteen. I always knew I’d leave, but I couldn’t imagine how hard it would be to come … Read more