The Secret Sense of Wildflower Read Free Page B

You’d think Woolworth’s was the center of our universe as much as they talk about it. The population of Rocky Bluff is roughly six hundred people. Katy’s Ridge has all of eighty, five of which are my immediate family, and another dozen or so that are related in one way or another. Some of the markers in the graveyard date back to the 1840s, and there are at least a dozen confederate soldiers there, and two Union soldiers on the far side, a whole graveyard separating them. The 1860s saw a lot of funerals in Katy’s Ridge. I can recite nearly every name and date on the tombstones, except the ones that are faded beyond recognition. Meg and Mama like to study the here and now. I like to study the past.
    Mama rests her chin in her hand while Meg shares the latest gossip. Tonight’s news consists of Marcy Trevor’s new dentures that don’t fit, even after paying a fancy dentist in Nashville, three hours away. Mama’s eyebrows arch, as if hearing about Marcy’s troubles gives her a break from her own.
    While Mama soaks in the idle chatter, I sneak a third piece of cornbread, missing her speech on gluttony and how I won’t always be skinny if I keep eating anything I want. Riled up, Mama can sound just like Preacher.
    “Don’t you have something to do?” Mama says to me. She doesn’t wait for an answer.
    I clear the table, a job I inherited after Amy left home. It is a chore I don’t mind because I can let my mind wander while standing at the bucket in the kitchen sink. My thoughts travel old paths as well as new ones, depending on what we are studying in school or what I am reading. Pondering comes natural to me. I can sit and be entertained by my thoughts for enormous amounts of time. Mama calls this just being lazy.
    I scrape the leftovers into a rusty pie tin to take out back to feed the stray cats that stay under our house. Daddy started this tradition, but Mama doesn’t like it. She looks over at me and sighs.
    “Your daddy was just too soft hearted with those cats,” she says. “He would have attracted every stray cat in the state of Tennessee, if he’d had his way about it.”
    “Yes, Mama,” I say. She says the same thing every night.
    “You’re lucky I don’t drown them all,” she says.
    This threat is new and she looks at me as if to register the level of my shock. But I don’t let my face tell her anything.
    Not all the cats decide to stay, but the ones that do, run from Mama every time they see her. Even cats can sense when they’re not wanted.
    A new one showed up two days before, who is small and orange and doesn’t mind being touched. On account of his color, I call him Pumpkin. I go outside and sit on the steps. Pumpkin finishes the little bits of food the other cats let him have and weaves between my ankles. As I rub his whiskers, he soaks up my attention with a raspy purr.
    Even though I am full of Mama’s cornbread and beans, I have a deep ache in my stomach when I think about Daddy being in the graveyard instead of sitting on the back porch with me. Evenings are the worst. It’s the time of day when we all sat outside together. I lean against the porch post and close my eyes searching my memory for how his voice sounded.
    A second later something rustles in the woods and I jump. The cats scatter, taking shelter under the house. Fixing my eyes on the woods, I wait for the next sound. Sometimes wild dogs roam the mountains, or raccoons come to eat what I’ve put out for the cats. I wrap my sweater closer and get that creepy feeling like when Johnny Monroe watches me.
    “Who’s out there?” I yell. My voice sounds shaky, so I stand to make up for it.
    A million crickets answer my question.
    Daddy’s shotgun leans next to the back door, but Mama keeps the shells in her dresser drawer, so I’m not sure it would do much good to get it. By the time I got the gun loaded I could be dead and in a grave right next to his.
    “Are you all right out here?” Mama says from behind the