I took one last long look at Miss Emily’s book and then slid it into my purse, zipping it up so I wouldn’t be tempted to take it out again. Maybe I’d even have been able to talk Mama back into her right self, help her see how wrong her thinking had gone. If I’d been faster with those eggs, if I’d been doing what I was supposed to and not sneaking in time to read poems I didn’t even understand, maybe I’d have been fast enough to help get to Mylie before it got so bad. It wasn’t the book’s fault, everything that had happened . . . I couldn’t stop thinking about it, how I could’ve done more, could’ve been there when Mama and Mylie needed me. I hadn’t touched it since Saturday morning-every time I saw it there in my room, it was like I could hear Mylie’s screaming in my ears, see the blood where Mama had chewed her lip to the quick listening but not helping. I ducked into my bedroom and found the little blue book of poems by Emily Dickinson sitting on my dresser. Hadn’t that Quigley honey been responsible for miracles in Maryville longer than I’d been alive? Surely if she’d wanted to help bad enough, she could’ve. I still couldn’t think about Miss Tabitha and her magic honey without curling my hands into fists, so angry and sad I could scream. She didn’t even have to nag at me to load up the dinner dishes, like normal all week long, I’d been doing my chores and plenty of hers, too, giving her as much rest as I possibly could. I’ll have to.” Before Grandpa Kelly’s stroke, he’d always been the one to do most of the repairs.ĭaddy shrugged and looked at Mama. “Ask Anton for a refresher,” Mama said, wiping spaghetti sauce off Mylie’s forehead. “I gotta drive over and pay for it after dinner,” Daddy had said, “and hopefully I can get it in before dark tonight.” He’d scratched the back of his neck and frowned a little. Finally, on Thursday evening, Anton had called Daddy and told him the belt had come in. We’d been waiting four days for the tractor belt to come into Anton’s store-four days when Daddy couldn’t use the tractor at all.
I stuck my arm out the window of Daddy’s pickup and felt the wind play over it, still thick with humidity even when we were going nearly fifty miles an hour, trying to pretend like it was Thanksgiving time and I was sitting outside in the crisp chill of fall. Summer evenings in Maryville are just about as hot as any other time of the day, but at least once the sun starts going down in the sky you don’t feel quite so much like an egg frying on a pan anymore.
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