The Last Breath. Kimberly Belle

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      Ella Mae Andrews, September 1993

      ELLA MAE THUNKED her empty mug onto the wooden floor planks and gave her porch swing another shove with the heel of a foot. The metal chains squawked in time to her movement. Back. Forth. Back...

      Somewhere in the distance a lawn mower whined, and Ella Mae envied both its gusto and its purpose. With two stepchildren in college and the third headed that way next fall, she found herself with more and more time to fill in her already spotless house, in her increasingly aimless day. She checked her watch. Ten o’clock, and already she was bored as hell.

      A green truck crested the hill, heading in her direction, and the sight of it made her feel like dancing. Even if the driver was merely turned around, maybe she could strike up a conversation. By the time she’d given him precise, detailed directions, she would have killed a good fifteen minutes, maybe more. Would it be completely pathetic if she offered him a cup of coffee?

      Good Lord. When had life become so dreary? She should probably think about getting a hobby.

      Ella Mae stood and walked to the edge of the porch, watching and waiting until the truck was close enough to read the letters above the cab: Golan’s Moving & Storage. The new neighbors, and about damn time, too. The old Bennett house had been empty for over a month now, a month in which Ray had done nothing but complain about how the property was going to pot. Two hornets’ nests under the gable, a milky film on the windows and a patch of crabgrass crawling dangerously close to Ray’s prized fescue. As if Ella Mae gave a shit about grass.

      But now. Now she sure could give a shit, and her heart dealt an extra, hopeful beat at the idea of new neighbors, a new girlfriend, new anything.

      A black sedan with Illinois plates pulled to a stop at the curb, and a family of four clambered out. Two blonde kids—both lanky girls in their early teens—tore across the front yard, screaming and giggling with the sort of giddiness that can only come at the tail end of a long drive.

      Their mother was considerably less merry. She unfolded herself from the car, smoothed her rumpled dress and squinted into the sun at her new home.

      “It’s pretty,” she said. Her tone implied she didn’t really care how it looked.

      The husband, a tall man with his daughters’ flaxen hair and the build of a former athlete, popped the trunk. “I know it’s a little smaller than we’re used to, but just take a look at that view.” His accent was northern and nasal, but in Ella Mae’s ears it sounded electric, exciting, exotic. “That’s not something we would’ve ever found back in Chicago.”

      Chicaaago.

      The woman didn’t seem to notice the rolling fields of grass and wildflowers beneath smoky mountaintops, a view that, the first time Ella Mae saw it, stilled her soul and nipped at her heart with its beauty. Instead, the woman sighed, her expression unchanged, her tone as mousy as her appearance. “Pretty.”

      “Come on,” her husband said. He stepped around the car and swung an arm around his wife’s hunched shoulders. “Can you at least try to want to live here?”

      “I just told you it was pretty.”

      Ella Mae knew she was eavesdropping. She knew they would notice her soon, gripping the rails on the edge of her porch, and see she was hanging shamelessly on their every word, but she didn’t go inside. She wanted to move even closer and hear everything, lean in and get a better view.

      She didn’t care if they saw her. This was the most excitement she’d had since last month, when she’d chased Bill Almaroad’s cows out of her begonias with a broomstick.

      The man looked down at his wife. “We agreed this move would be a good thing, remember? A new job, a fresh start.” He deposited a chaste kiss on her cheek, and she shrunk even further into herself. He released her, sweeping a long arm toward the house. “Welcome to our new adventure.”

      And that’s when he noticed Ella Mae. A jolt of something she hadn’t felt in a good while shot clear to her toes and crackled and popped on her skin like a Fourth of July sparkler. Later, she would think back to this very second, and think it was appropriate their eyes met right as that last word rolled off his tongue. Adventure. But for now, she simply smiled and waved.

      “Hi, y’all.” Ella Mae started down the steps toward her new neighbors. “I’m Ella Mae Andrews. Welcome to Rogersville.”