Who We Were & Who We Are Now

Part 2

You leave him with a smile and a wave before slamming the door to your truck shut. He nods and gives you a small wave in return, arm barely raising as his eyes shift to see if anyone was around to see. He watches the dust kicked up by your tires as he moves to sit back down in his usual chair on the front porch. With the silence that follows after the dust has settled, he finds himself distracted and getting lost in memories of you.
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He sat in the church pew, angled a bit towards the door watching people come in for the Sunday service. The twang of instruments playing gospels in the background. He keeps his eyes to the peeling and pocked doorway, covered in one too many coats of paint over the years.

He see's Cliff walk in first in his Sunday best, Junior right in tow, walking behind his daddy in a clean little suit and shiny shoes. Cliff picks him up and sets him in the pew with a pat on the head, adjusting his jacket as he sat.

He see's your mama, her floral dress swinging as she holds your upper arm, licking her thumb and rubbing at your smudged face. Her dress doesn't match to the nice suits of her second husbands, your stepfathers, and your half-brothers. She has her arm around your back, pushing you into the room, your face was solemn as he usually found it when you weren't daydreaming, which is how he preferred to see you.

He sees your only pair of shoes, besides the boots you wore to work on the farm. They were beaten and too small under the too high hem of your dress, having grown out of it as well. The tattered hem, the dull colors of the flowers that used to be bright like the high summer grass color of your eyes. Your hair a mousey red-brown, pulled into two tight braids that you fussed with as you walked, pulling them over your shoulders. Your eyes are on the floor, no smile to be seen on your sweet face like the other girls in their fluffy bonnets and shiny shoes.

At a glance, anyone else would look over you in the crowd of people, choosing to look at the other bubbly and highly decorated girls that giggled and got shushed by their mothers. But the only girl he ever found himself looking at was you.
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You take a deep breath before knocking on the door of your childhood home. You hear a nasty cough, thinking that must be Cliff. A pounding of feet up to the door before it opens with a creak. The smell of smoke hits you as the form of a young man appears, he'd be about 15 now, wouldn't he?

"Tawny?" he asks, his eyes wide and you nod with a forced smile. "Oh you came!" he practically shouts, moving to hug you. You're taken back by the gesture, but you're thankful he seems like a sweet boy. "Come on, come in, come in," he excited says, tugging you by the wrist into the house. You shut the door behind you. "Daddy's in there," he says in a quieter voice. "You got the letter I'm guessin'?" he asks.

"Yeah, that's why I'm here." you say softly with a nod, setting your suitcase down on the dirty, uneven wooden floors.

"Thank God you're here, I don't know what I's gonna do if I had to deal with this all myself. I don't know nothin' 'bout buryin' nobody." he says, face falling.

"Well I do." you give him a nod, hand rubbing his shoulder. "I'm here to help you Junior. You're my brother hun, I ain't gonna leave ya hangin'." you say, compelled to pull the boy in for a hug. He happily obliges, wrapping his arms back around you. "We'll do this together alright?" you say, pushing him back by his shoulders.

He gives a sad nod and you pat his cheek.

"You look good, Tawny Bell." Cliff voice, rough as the whitewater streams, abused by drink and smokin' and screamin' his whole life is even nastier than you remember it being. He's leaning on the door frame, cane in his other hand. He looked like a corpse already.

"You take my bag to my old room, hun?" you ask Junior sweetly, he smiles and looks happy to be of use. He heads down the hall.

"Can't say the same for you." you say with a stone face, meeting his eyes but not stepping closer.