Congratulations to Terri Miller, the winner of our recent online writing challenge. The challenge was to write an inspirational flash fiction story (less than 1000 words) about Summer. We received many great submissions, and are excited to share Terri's story below. Terri won free registration to the Fall Fiction Writing Workshop on Oct. 19 in Orange Beach, Alabama.
(Other winners include: 2nd place to Marion Surles; 3rd place to Nancy Duren; honorable mentions to Kristy Ensor, Jena Reeves, Cathy Posey, and Doyce Powell.)
"Assurance"
by Terri Miller
Mama should have been in the kitchen cooking supper, but she wasn’t. It was nearing six o’clock. Supper was usually ready by six. Sometimes during the summer, we would have a cold dinner of sandwiches and potato salad along with some sliced tomatoes and cucumbers to avoid heating up the kitchen. So, I wasn’t too concerned. I looked in the refrigerator. No potato salad.
Mama’s father, my grandfather affectionately known as Pawpaw, had died suddenly in March of a heart attack, and some days were still hard for her. Today had been one of those days. A couple of times I thought her eyes seemed red like she might have been crying. I decided to go look for her.
School had been out a month and a half and my brother, Cyrus, and I had settled into a regular routine of sleeping late, watching the Price Is Right and Hollywood Squares in the mornings and soap operas in the afternoon all while snapping mountains of beans and shelling heaps of butter beans. Of course, there were plenty of days when we had to help out in the garden, but not without much groaning from us and threats from Mama. Maybe she was in the garden.
I pushed the screen door open and stepped out onto the back porch. Before getting fully out the door, the heat hit me in the face and took my breath. The humidity wrapped itself around me and immediately sweat beads formed on my upper lip. “Ugh," I sighed. It was July in Alabama. Unbearably hot and humid, and it would only get worse over the next few weeks.
“Maaamaaa,” I called. No answer.
There was the faintest stir of a breeze as I walked down the back steps and looked around the yard, but even that was hot. I could see right away that she wasn’t in the kitchen garden to my right. The tomatoes were beginning to get that mid-summer scraggly look where the bottom leaves on some of the plants were turning yellow or even brown and the fruit was more towards the tops of the plants. The leaves of the squash and zucchini were wilted down after bearing the sun all day and no rain in well over a week.
I called out again. Still no reply.
A butterfly lit on a zinnia in the flower bed that lined the edge of the porch. That’s when I saw Mama’s garden gloves one on top of the other neatly lying across the bricks that made up the edging of the bed. Using my hand to shade my eyes against the late afternoon sun, I scanned the yard for any sign of her. To my left, the cornfield which covered the distance, a good ten acres, between our house and Uncle Jasper’s. To my right, the kitchen garden and beyond that fruit trees. Peach, pear and apple. Pawpaw and Grandma’s house was on the other side of the little orchard. Three frame houses all in a row sitting on the edge of sixty acres that had belonged to our family for three generations.
Straight ahead was the pasture that held the cattle and horses. Mama’s straw hat hanging on the fence post by the gate caught my eye. I decided she must have gone to the pond that lay on the other side of the pasture. My long wavy brown hair was beginning to stick to the perspiration on my neck. I twisted it into a knot and headed out on the path to the pond.
As I walked along barefoot, I thought of how different things were without Pawpaw around. In the summertime he was always out tending the gardens or animals. Many days, he would drive up in his flatbed truck, and me and Cyrus and our cousins would climb onto the bed. He would drive us down this same path to the pond where we would spend the afternoon swimming. Since he’d been gone, it was as though our whole world had shifted on its axis.
Nothing felt right.
Dragonflies buzzed past me as I got closer to the pond, and the chorus of the frogs intensified. The path took me through a small stand of pines and then to a thicket of blackberry bushes. Unable to resist, I pulled a few and popped them in my mouth. The sweet juice quenched my thirst as I crunched the seeds between my teeth. From where I stood, I could see over the tops of the bushes to the pond. There she was sitting on the pier. Her back toward me, feet dangling in the water. Her hair the same wavy brown as mine only shorter. And then, as if from out of nowhere, Daddy stepped onto the end of the pier. He must have come from the barn which would have brought him here on a different path than the one I’d traveled. His long legs quickly closed the distance between him and her, and he sat down beside her.
His broad shoulders, which seemed like they could hold the weight of the world, now held her grief as she rested her head there. They sat like that for several minutes, and then I saw him squeeze her and tenderly kiss the top of her head. A tear rolled down my cheek. I couldn’t explain why, but in that moment, I knew everything would be alright.
I turned and left without them knowing I was there. The sun was sitting low in the sky and the breeze picked up rustling the leaves of the cornstalks. A dream I’d had the night before came rushing back. It was of Pawpaw riding his blue Ford tractor. I waved and smiled. He looked at me and tipped his hat as if to say, “I’ll see you later.”
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