A Confession Story – Part I of V
Author’s Note: I have this short story that I don’t know what else to do with, so I’m posting one scene a day for this blog challenge. 5 days. The story came from my mother telling me years ago about when she was a kid and found a love letter from her mother to Bill Dobbins, Esq. She said everybody knew her mother “ran around on” her father. For some reason, it sparked this story for me.
1933
My mama is a floozy.
I hate that word. In my head I see flashes of messy-haired women, too-tight red dresses and too much moonshine. But floozy is all I can think as I lay here in the back of the Model T flatbed and look for the stars.
The night is cool for summer, too cool for my short-sleeved shirt and overalls that got damp in the heat of the day. My back hurts from so much time on the rough bed of this truck, but my body won’t move. It’s been a long day, maybe the longest of my life, and I don’t know how it’s going to end.
A sliver of moon is going in and out of clouds. Somewhere up there are Orion and Perseus and Cassiopeia, groups of stars Daddy first showed me when I was five, the day I lost my rag doll with yellow yarn hair. Daddy picked me up with one arm and pointed to the stars with the other. I snuggled my head against his shoulder. “Callie, the night sky is magic,” he said. “Look up when you’re sad or
angry and feel the peace of the stars shining down on you.”
My poor daddy. It’ll take more stars than are in this Arkansas sky to make him feel better when he finds out about Mama.
