JoLynn grinned as she walked up to Flannery. “We sure love it. I spend my reading time here.”
“A fine tree. A fine spot for hitching, even.” Mark had rushed Flannery to the courthouse for a quick, cold ceremony, not allowing her to call Mama or any of her college friends. The courthouse clerk had pulled out a Bible hidden under a mile-high stack of government paperwork, and handed it to Flannery, saying she could pick out a verse if she liked and he would read it for them. Mark grabbed it from her, thumbing through the pages to the Book of Ephesians, tapping the written verse—“Wives, submit yourself”—his self-righteousness and expectations laid out in Scripture and a nod to Flannery’s required faithfulness.
“It’s my dream for my son,” JoLynn said, smiling.
Relieved that it wouldn’t be cut down, Flannery patted the trunk. It would live on. Now a Puckett tree that would be cherished. “A fine weeper and a sure keeper.”
“I wish you could meet my son, Ben Junior, but he’s off to conservation camp this week. He loves playing under this tree.”
“Camp John Currie?”
“You know it?” JoLynn asked, surprised.
“My sister and I attended when we were ten.”
*
And they’d gone, but not too eagerly, Flannery recalled. Especially Patsy. She’d thrown the biggest hissy ever. Mama’d fussed at Honey Bee. “You can’t leave Patsy here, you can’t,” Mama insisted in the car. “It’s a barbaric place. She’s not strong enough to survive this wilderness—”
Frightened, Flannery and Patsy had wriggled free from the conservation officer’s hold and fled back to the automobile. The twins knocked on the rolled-up windows, imploring their parents to take them home.
“No, Honey Bee,” Mama said, reaching for his arm. “It’s not a safe place for our young ladies. For Pat—”
Honey Bee’d fired back, silencing Mama. “That’s exactly why I will. Our Patsy has to learn to protect herself.”
Patsy ran down the dirt road after the Butlers’ automobile, begging, crying for her mama and daddy to come back, take her home, until a conservation officer chased her down, dragged her into a barrack, sat her down on a bunk bed, ordering her to unpack.
That long, hot week, the girls boated on Kentucky Lake, learned archery, canoeing, fishing, riflery, and other skills to make them strong Kentucky women.
Flannery earned the certificates Camp John Currie awarded, and Patsy proudly received all her badges except for the one in riflery.
That had hurt Patsy the most, because toward the end of the course she had almost won herself the title of top marksman, outshooting every girl and even the officer when he challenged Patsy to target practice with him one morning after a breakfast of lumpy, cold oatmeal. Patsy had nailed the bull’s-eye on the wooden board, besting the man and also leaving him red-faced and a little hot around the collar.
On the last day before the awards were doled out, the conservation officer had placed rifles in the girls’ hands and lined them all up to shoot.
After firing a few rounds, Patsy put her gun down. Clutching her belly, she teared up. The conservation officer hollered for her to pick up her gun and get back into formation.
Bawling, Patsy grabbed her rifle. In a second, she doubled back over and dropped the weapon. The gun discharged into the officer’s canteen that was sitting a few feet from his boot.
The man ran over to Patsy and shook her. Shook her again and again, thundering. Patsy shrieked, claiming she’d been hit by gunfire, then pointed an accusing finger at Flannery who had been shooting rounds beside her. Patsy’s face was dirt-streaked and pinched, her hands pressed to her stomach.
“Here, right here,” Patsy said hoarsely, and poked her belly, tears leaking onto the officer’s boots. “S-shot.”
“Fibber. I never!” Flannery said.
“Did so.” Patsy gasped.
The officer narrowed his eyes and slowly lifted Patsy’s shirt. A fat, angry hornet flew out, sending the man stumbling back and all the other girls running.
For two weeks, Patsy carried around a silver-dollar-sized bruise, and earned herself Honey Bee’s good favor and a bag of licorice treats he’d bought for her bravery to boot.
*
“I hope your son earns all his certificates.” Flannery smiled at the young mother.
“Fingers crossed.” JoLynn grinned and held up a hand, locking one finger over another. “Come on inside, Mrs. Hamilton. Ben Senior’s gone down to the barn, but he’ll join us shortly.”
She took Flannery on a tour, showing her the new curtains they’d hung in the parlor, pointing out the soft floral print, the many updates, the sassy yellow fabric they’d upholstered the Butlers’ tired settee and drab chairs with, a warm geranium paint coating the walls.
Flannery nodded approvingly when JoLynn showed her the stone shower, marble basin, and new commode that had replaced her and Patsy’s old pink bathroom. Inside the bedrooms upstairs, new carpet hid the old wooden floors she and Patsy used to race pennies across, twirl Uncle Mary’s spinning tops upon.
A couple of rooms had been skinned of their thick wallpapers, replaced with periwinkle, poppies and soft yellows, and other cheery colors of paint.
Still, the house looked pretty much the same in most parts, felt like the cheerful home she and her family had shared long ago, before death had taken hold.
In the master bedroom stood Mama and Honey Bee’s old walnut set. The seven-foot headboard with its wheat-scrolled border that had been carved out across the top. The washstand still jutted out in the corner with the pretty rose marble top that Honey Bee’d hauled back from a Tennessee quarry for Mama’s birthday one year.
The couple had kept the furniture. When Flannery’d sold the home, Mama said she’d leave most of the bulky pieces behind for the buyer. Flannery was glad to see those people had done the same for the new owners. And she was somewhat surprised the young couple liked the heavy, dark furnishings. Most young folks preferred modern pieces.
JoLynn read Flannery’s mind. “I’m twenty-eight, but my mama always said I was born a hundred, if a day. There’s a shine in old things. I believe antique stuff has a soul and deserves to live on. Believe every scratch and scar has earned its right to exist with the living.” JoLynn walked over to the curtains to draw them back.
Flannery looked around and noticed the nicks and bumps in the wood, left from the Butlers’ lives. “Where did you move from?” Flannery asked. “I feel like we’ve met.”
“Knoxville, Tennessee. My Ben is the new pastor here at the United Methodist Church. I’m a nurse now across the Palisades at County Hospital. Sorta followed in my great aunt’s footprints, folks like to say.”
Flannery thought how Honey Bee had wanted her to follow in his footsteps. Wondered how that path might’ve been. Would she have had all those babies, one of the finest stills, with famous whiskey recipes, and owned vast parcels of land like the Kentucky pioneer, Catherine Carpenter? Flannery regretted she hadn’t fought hard enough for the road Honey Bee’d set for her, and for a minute regretted she’d sold those recipes too quick.
“She was a midwife, and I was always pretending to be her with my baby dolls,” JoLynn said. “I was born in Lincoln County, Kentucky, and we had relatives scattered all around these parts. Had kin living right down the road there.” JoLynn parted the curtains and pointed.
Flannery followed her finger toward Ebenezer Road.
CHAPTER 33
“Right on Ebenezer,” JoLynn said. “My great aunt, Joetta Deer. Maybe you heard of her?”
“Joetta?” Flannery said, surprised.
“Yeah, I was sorta named for her. Mama—she’s deceased—just added Lynn to Jo in memory of the aunt she was so fond of.”