Read Online Leaving Eden by Anne Leclaire - Free Book Online
Authors: Anne Leclaire
Tags: Fiction
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were limp, I spread my towel near them and fought not to drift off to sleep. The buzz of their words circled me. “ . . . come so close . . . the punishing weight of secrets . . . only regret I didn’t get to see Natalie’s grave . . . thought there’d be plenty of time.” Just before I fell asleep, I heard my name.
Some time later, I woke to their conversation. I kept my breathing steady, feigning sleep.
“ . . . going to tell them?” Martha Lee was saying.
Mama was quiet.
“They’ll have to know sooner or later.”
Mama gave a thin, wispy sigh. “They’ll find out soon enough.”
I forgot how to breathe.
They’ll find out soon enough
. Find out what? Then I realized it must mean that Mama was going to leave us again. I must have made a noise, because they stopped talking.
After that, I kept watch for the first sign betraying Mama’s intent to leave. I stopped hanging out with the Bettis twins and stayed right at her side. I checked to make sure the gray suitcase stayed empty. Most nights, when everyone was sleeping, I continued to sit on the porch watching homely brown beetles night-altered into something special. Change, they flickered in the dark.
Change.
I’d concentrate on erasing their message and pray for things to stay the same.
When Raylene closed up at five, I had another dollar to add to my savings. Effie hadn’t tipped me a penny, but Cora was so happy knowing where to find her ring, she slipped me four quarters.
On the way home, I stopped by Simpson’s Cash Store and picked up a couple of pork chops. My plan was to get supper ready, to make something really good. I figured maybe it’d get Daddy back on track. Although I generally stayed away from Halley’s Mill, I even considered riding out to tell him I’d be fixing something special.
The mill was older than any person in town, built back before the Civil War, and it was one of only three working water-powered mills in all of Virginia, a fact my daddy liked to repeat with pride, as if he owned it instead of just working there. When I was younger, I’d go out back in the warehouse and play hide-and-seek between the rows of full sacks, stacked nearly to the ceiling. Or I’d make out the letters on the blackboard that swung overhead by the cash register, listing the things available: laying mash and hog meal. Barley and oats. Cottonseed and peanut hulls. All kinds of flour: corn and wheat and bran. I’d stand on one of the big iron scales—the one with raised letters declaring
July 3, 1894, Moydyke & Marmon Co., Indianapolis
— until someone came along to weigh me. I loved the sound of the mill, all the whirling of the belts and pulleys and elevators and the chatter of corn falling in the hopper. I liked the way every bit of wood in that place was worn smooth and how you could leave reverse footprints in the flour dust. Sometimes I’d climb up to the second story and stand at the window by the steel waterwheel, listening to the hollow sound of water coming through the run and then the soft, liquid
splish, splish, splish
of it hitting the cups. And I’d stare at the sparkle of water flicking off in the air like real rhinestones.
Just like Mama knew everything about Natalie Wood and movie-making, my daddy knew everything about that mill. He said milling by water was becoming a lost art. He showed me how to tell which grain was being milled just by the feel of it. Wheat grain was small and smooth. Corn was flat and round and bigger than wheat. Barley was easy: coarse husk. Buckwheat was a three-sided grain. Oats was a husk type. I’d try and try, eyes squeezed tight with concentration while I rolled the meal between my fingers, but no matter how I tried, I could never tell them all apart. My daddy, he’d just rub his thumb over a few grains and tell you right off, never missing.
Used to be I couldn’t get enough of the mill, but about the time I turned twelve and Mama was off chasing her dream, my feelings changed. Once, one of
Some time later, I woke to their conversation. I kept my breathing steady, feigning sleep.
“ . . . going to tell them?” Martha Lee was saying.
Mama was quiet.
“They’ll have to know sooner or later.”
Mama gave a thin, wispy sigh. “They’ll find out soon enough.”
I forgot how to breathe.
They’ll find out soon enough
. Find out what? Then I realized it must mean that Mama was going to leave us again. I must have made a noise, because they stopped talking.
After that, I kept watch for the first sign betraying Mama’s intent to leave. I stopped hanging out with the Bettis twins and stayed right at her side. I checked to make sure the gray suitcase stayed empty. Most nights, when everyone was sleeping, I continued to sit on the porch watching homely brown beetles night-altered into something special. Change, they flickered in the dark.
Change.
I’d concentrate on erasing their message and pray for things to stay the same.
When Raylene closed up at five, I had another dollar to add to my savings. Effie hadn’t tipped me a penny, but Cora was so happy knowing where to find her ring, she slipped me four quarters.
On the way home, I stopped by Simpson’s Cash Store and picked up a couple of pork chops. My plan was to get supper ready, to make something really good. I figured maybe it’d get Daddy back on track. Although I generally stayed away from Halley’s Mill, I even considered riding out to tell him I’d be fixing something special.
The mill was older than any person in town, built back before the Civil War, and it was one of only three working water-powered mills in all of Virginia, a fact my daddy liked to repeat with pride, as if he owned it instead of just working there. When I was younger, I’d go out back in the warehouse and play hide-and-seek between the rows of full sacks, stacked nearly to the ceiling. Or I’d make out the letters on the blackboard that swung overhead by the cash register, listing the things available: laying mash and hog meal. Barley and oats. Cottonseed and peanut hulls. All kinds of flour: corn and wheat and bran. I’d stand on one of the big iron scales—the one with raised letters declaring
July 3, 1894, Moydyke & Marmon Co., Indianapolis
— until someone came along to weigh me. I loved the sound of the mill, all the whirling of the belts and pulleys and elevators and the chatter of corn falling in the hopper. I liked the way every bit of wood in that place was worn smooth and how you could leave reverse footprints in the flour dust. Sometimes I’d climb up to the second story and stand at the window by the steel waterwheel, listening to the hollow sound of water coming through the run and then the soft, liquid
splish, splish, splish
of it hitting the cups. And I’d stare at the sparkle of water flicking off in the air like real rhinestones.
Just like Mama knew everything about Natalie Wood and movie-making, my daddy knew everything about that mill. He said milling by water was becoming a lost art. He showed me how to tell which grain was being milled just by the feel of it. Wheat grain was small and smooth. Corn was flat and round and bigger than wheat. Barley was easy: coarse husk. Buckwheat was a three-sided grain. Oats was a husk type. I’d try and try, eyes squeezed tight with concentration while I rolled the meal between my fingers, but no matter how I tried, I could never tell them all apart. My daddy, he’d just rub his thumb over a few grains and tell you right off, never missing.
Used to be I couldn’t get enough of the mill, but about the time I turned twelve and Mama was off chasing her dream, my feelings changed. Once, one of
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