Read Online Sweet Water by Christina Baker Kline - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Christina Baker Kline
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added.
“Amen,” said Mariflo. “Say.” She turned to me. “You ever been down here before? I don’t recall your face.”
Lois nudged her. “Ellen died in ‘67, remember? It’s Ellen’s girl.”
“Gosh,” said Mariflo. “It still makes me sad to think about it. Your mama was a character.”
“You knew her?” I asked.
Lois nodded. “My children are the same ages as her and your uncle Horace. They all grew up together.” She sighed. “Your mama was the lively one. Kept everybody guessing.”
“It was a tragedy, it really was,” Mariflo said.
The two women stood silent and a little hunched for a moment at the register. A line was beginning to form behind me. I waited to see if they’d tell me anything else, but they didn’t.
“Well,” I said.
Lois looked up and seemed to focus again. Mariflo gave me a sympathetic smile and squeezed my hand before going back to her post. Lois gave me directions to my grandmother’s house and pressed a peppermint swirl into my hand. As I left, I thanked her and she patted me on the shoulder. She seemed to have something more to say, but then she shook her head with a brisk motion and waved me away.
I got back into the wagon, which now smelled of rotting apples, and pulled off the slope of the station onto 622 East, down a long, twisting road into farmland, past herds of cattle and red-washed barns. It was early afternoon, and sunlight stained the fields with a diffuse yellow light. Wild daisies and Queen Anne’s lace lined the roadside in unruly clumps. I zigzagged around hills and ponds, past abandoned, rotting cars, weather-beaten bones of old houses and rusted silos, farm implements left temporarily mid-field.
Eventually the road became littered with the makings of a town. Tony’s Pizza sat in one bend, Harry’s Used Cars in the next. The American Legion hung their plaque on a white clapboard one-room building off by itself on a stretch of road, with a small American flag on a spindly flagpole out front. A little farther down, I could see white-haired ladies with stiff handbags and old men with slicked-back hair and spit-leather black shoes standing around outside the Gospel Baptist Church and North Sweetwater Baptist Church.
I turned left on Guffey Road, up a steep, winding hill. At the top I bore right onto Fork Creek Lane, which splayed into a network of tributary streets that all looked the same. At the corner of Guffey and Fork Creek, a sign carved in wood rose from a bed of geraniums to announce in large script:
Ridge View Homes
“Welcome to Our Community”
H. W. CLYDE AND SON, DEVELOPERS
The houses were one-and two-story structures with aluminum siding and two-door garages, washed in complementary neutrals. Beige, sandstone, white, gray, shell pink. As I drove down Fork Creek I was amazed at the AstroTurf-like lawns, all the same, house after house, and the almost eerily clean configuration of the development. Marigolds and zinnias, bursts of color, clustered under mailboxes, led up to front doors, closed ranks around streetlamps. Sprinklers, like small geysers, sprouted in military formation across the grass.
Driving slowly down the wide streets, I began to notice the features that made each house minutely individual. A low, broad-slatted white picket fence separated one home from its neighbors on each side; another home sported a gravel walkway lined with gnomish sculptures; at a third, stained glass embellished with hearts and bells had replaced the usual clear glass in the front door. Young trees had been planted along the streets, and tall firs lined the edge of the property behind the houses, but there was barely a rustle. In fact, though I could see people clipping their hedges and washing their cars and walking around the neighborhood in sweatsuits and sneakers, the place was unnervingly quiet.
Following Lois’s directions, I turned left onto Cherry Road,descended a sharp hill, and turned right at the bottom onto Webb. The second
“Amen,” said Mariflo. “Say.” She turned to me. “You ever been down here before? I don’t recall your face.”
Lois nudged her. “Ellen died in ‘67, remember? It’s Ellen’s girl.”
“Gosh,” said Mariflo. “It still makes me sad to think about it. Your mama was a character.”
“You knew her?” I asked.
Lois nodded. “My children are the same ages as her and your uncle Horace. They all grew up together.” She sighed. “Your mama was the lively one. Kept everybody guessing.”
“It was a tragedy, it really was,” Mariflo said.
The two women stood silent and a little hunched for a moment at the register. A line was beginning to form behind me. I waited to see if they’d tell me anything else, but they didn’t.
“Well,” I said.
Lois looked up and seemed to focus again. Mariflo gave me a sympathetic smile and squeezed my hand before going back to her post. Lois gave me directions to my grandmother’s house and pressed a peppermint swirl into my hand. As I left, I thanked her and she patted me on the shoulder. She seemed to have something more to say, but then she shook her head with a brisk motion and waved me away.
I got back into the wagon, which now smelled of rotting apples, and pulled off the slope of the station onto 622 East, down a long, twisting road into farmland, past herds of cattle and red-washed barns. It was early afternoon, and sunlight stained the fields with a diffuse yellow light. Wild daisies and Queen Anne’s lace lined the roadside in unruly clumps. I zigzagged around hills and ponds, past abandoned, rotting cars, weather-beaten bones of old houses and rusted silos, farm implements left temporarily mid-field.
Eventually the road became littered with the makings of a town. Tony’s Pizza sat in one bend, Harry’s Used Cars in the next. The American Legion hung their plaque on a white clapboard one-room building off by itself on a stretch of road, with a small American flag on a spindly flagpole out front. A little farther down, I could see white-haired ladies with stiff handbags and old men with slicked-back hair and spit-leather black shoes standing around outside the Gospel Baptist Church and North Sweetwater Baptist Church.
I turned left on Guffey Road, up a steep, winding hill. At the top I bore right onto Fork Creek Lane, which splayed into a network of tributary streets that all looked the same. At the corner of Guffey and Fork Creek, a sign carved in wood rose from a bed of geraniums to announce in large script:
Ridge View Homes
“Welcome to Our Community”
H. W. CLYDE AND SON, DEVELOPERS
The houses were one-and two-story structures with aluminum siding and two-door garages, washed in complementary neutrals. Beige, sandstone, white, gray, shell pink. As I drove down Fork Creek I was amazed at the AstroTurf-like lawns, all the same, house after house, and the almost eerily clean configuration of the development. Marigolds and zinnias, bursts of color, clustered under mailboxes, led up to front doors, closed ranks around streetlamps. Sprinklers, like small geysers, sprouted in military formation across the grass.
Driving slowly down the wide streets, I began to notice the features that made each house minutely individual. A low, broad-slatted white picket fence separated one home from its neighbors on each side; another home sported a gravel walkway lined with gnomish sculptures; at a third, stained glass embellished with hearts and bells had replaced the usual clear glass in the front door. Young trees had been planted along the streets, and tall firs lined the edge of the property behind the houses, but there was barely a rustle. In fact, though I could see people clipping their hedges and washing their cars and walking around the neighborhood in sweatsuits and sneakers, the place was unnervingly quiet.
Following Lois’s directions, I turned left onto Cherry Road,descended a sharp hill, and turned right at the bottom onto Webb. The second
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