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Jane’s Secret
I know Lady Luck must have gone and
struck a deal with me. Maybe it was the
soul of that sweet baby I didn’t get to keep that ran right up to heaven and
started demanding luck for his lost Momma, because no sooner than I let him go,
then luck start pouring over my head.
And to think only a day before the world had been so different. I ain’t far from my home. My momma and I used to live over in Grove
City. If I were to take the stage back
home it would only take me a day or two to reach her. But, even though she is close, each day that
has passed, has made her memory wash farther and farther away. She wouldn’t even recognize me if I walked in
the door of our little cabin on Wolf Creek and I showed myself to her. I’ve only been gone less than a year, but so
much inside me has changed I barely recognize me.
When we lived on the creek, we lived to
survive. We had been there three years when
I left. Three dark winters where we
burned more and more wood that I dragged from the swamps and dried. Three winters where the cold seeped through
the cracks of our cabin into our bones.
Then, three springs where the skunk grass erupted from the creeks’ banks
screaming in green, waxy leaves. It was
just the two of us. We trapped
game. We gathered wood. In the summers I’d collect wild strawberries
and roots that we’d dry for the winter seasons.
Like I said, we survived. Then,
one winter, Mama started talking to herself.
At first, I think nothing of it.
I think, she tired. She need her
rest. Or, I think she talking to the ghosts she’s left behind. There’s her babies she lost, her own mama,
and pa, and then there is him. The man
she never even got to marry. My Pa. He been like a wil-o-wisp in her life so
long, I’m used to his memory rising up from the swamp. But that winter he haunts her. She begin to see him walking in the
cabin. She have whole conversations with
him then she get mad when I tell her to stop talking to the air, when I tell
her that there ain’t nobody there.
“You just jealous.” She say.
“Cuz he visiting me and not you.”
Then, she’d get real mad, rocking back and forth in her wooden rocker.
One day, I went out into the
swamp. It was deep winter so there ain’t
much to find, but our stores are getting low so I set up some snares near the
water. When I go out to check them I
tell her I’ll be right back and I ask her if she could please keep the fire
going. She say, yes of course she
will. Then, I walk out the door, down
the snowy bank and down to the snares. I
couldn’t have been gone more than half an hour before I heard the gunshot. It rang through the whole valley. It
frightened a whole flock of birds into the air.
It echoed in my mind. I dropped
the handful of rabbits I’d snared and ran as fast as I could to the house.
But, by the time I got there I was too
late. She was on the floor,
smiling. Her head half gone. Her body swimming in pool of blood that bloomed
and bloomed around her. There was so
much blood. I felt as if my whole body
had turned to ice in that moment. I
don’t know how long I stood there, the blood blossoming around her, the cold
air pouring into the room before I understood what had happened, before I feel
to my knees into that pool of my Momma’s blood and wept and wept.
After she died. I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t listen to the creek whispering to
me about what I could of done to save her.
And then, there was the complications about where we lived, about
finding money enough to bury her. So,
one day, after I packed up our things, I walked to town and found a sheet of
paper stuck to the side of the salon.
Looking
for work? It
read.
We need strong young girls to work in the hotel trade. If interested send word to Ben, Pithole
PA. Work begins right away.
Well, I couldn’t even wait to
reply. I sold off what little we had and
the few rabbits I’d managed to snare and I bought a ticket on the first wagon
going east. I found myself in Franklin
by nightfall. The next day, I took a
stage up the hill to Pithole and knocked on the door of the Dew Drop Inn.
That’s the day I lost my freedom. Or, that’s the day I lost the freedom of my
body. My minds been trapped in that
cabin with mama ever since that day the gun shot echoed through the valley.
But now, I’m hoping luck will ease me
out of that steel trap. Perhaps,
somewhere in that wooden place joy still exists? I’ve got to believe it does. Diana’s been such a dear friend. She’s the first person I’ve trusted in a long
time. She hides it, but I can see she’s
been to some dark places too. We
understand each other.
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