The Sisters of Glass Ferry. Kim Michele Richardson

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СКАЧАТЬ Patsy had hung her robe beside the tub and bumped her sister aside, calling first dibs on the bath. And their mama had let her over Flannery’s loud protests about running late for work. Mama had gasped, “He’ll hear! Heavens, what’s gotten into you, Flannery Bee Butler? It’s nearly six . . . and it would be a sin to make your sister late—no respectable lady has her date sit in the parlor while she’s bathing just a hush away. That’s just plain wickedness!”

      “Scandalous.” Patsy’s breaths hovered above her mama’s. “I can’t be naked in this house and have Danny Henry hearing it behind the wall like that, Mama. It’s my prom!”

      “Indecent.” Mama pressed her hands to her ears.

      “Lord,” Flannery sassed. “You’d think I’m committing a crime of moral turpitude the way you two are carrying on like that. Mama, I doubt if God has given that Henry boy, or any boy, special X-ray ears to hear a female taking her bubble bath through the acres of damask-rose skins that thicken our paper-soaked walls. Let me go first—”

      “It’s my big dance,” Patsy cried.

      “She’s always trying to boss and has to be first in everything, Mama. Everything! If Honey Bee was here, he’d make her be fair,” Flannery groused. “He wouldn’t let her—”

      “Flannery!” Mama and Patsy scolded, running her out of the room.

      Minutes later, Flannery poked her head back into the bedroom. “I’m going to be late, Mama. Can you iron my uniform for me?”

      “Mama,” Patsy said, pulling out one of the bobby pins fastened to her pin curls, “you need to do my hair.”

      “Heavens,” Mama said, “just look at the time.” Mama starched Flannery’s uniform, making it look out-of-the-box new as only she could, then fussed with Patsy’s hair and helped her into the prom dress she had made for her eldest daughter.

      “Where did I put my new stockings?” Flannery wiggled into her girdle, held up a garter buckle. “Mama, have you seen—?”

      “Look on your dresser under your apron.” Mama fluffed Patsy’s underskirts, lifting tulle and satin, and then prissed and fussed some more over the dress’s sunshine-yellow chiffon and lace puffy veneers, inspecting the pencil-thin velvet shoulder straps and sweetheart neckline. Smiling, she clasped the pearls around Patsy’s neck.

      “Mama, you go on now,” Patsy insisted. “I don’t want you to be late.” She couldn’t have Mama making a fuss in front of her date.

      “I’m gonna be late,” Flannery complained again, foot propped on the bed, carefully walking the hosiery up her leg.

      “You could be twenty minutes early and still think you’re late,” Patsy said.

      “I don’t like making folks wait like you, Queen Patsy.”

      “Girls, shh.” Mama rested her hands on Patsy’s waist, looked over her daughter’s shoulder into the mirror.

      “Flannery can see me off,” Patsy told Mama, shooing her away. “Right, tadpole?”

      Reluctantly, Flannery nodded and pecked her mama’s cheek. “Thanks for ironing my uniform, Mama. Go on and get your stuff. I’ll take care of Queenie—so long as they pick her up on time.”

      “The dress is beautiful, Mama. I’ll see you tonight,” Patsy said.

      “It’s one of your best,” Flannery agreed.

      “We’ll make you one just as pretty when it’s your time.” Mama lightly patted Flannery’s cheek. “Okay, girls. I’ll just get my dessert and be off. What time is Sam and Carol Jean supposed to pick you up?”

      Patsy and Danny were double dating with Sam and his girl. Sam had offered to drive Danny and Patsy to the prom since both were weeks shy of getting their own licenses.

      “Soon.” Patsy kissed Mama good-bye and turned to the floor mirror on the other side of the room.

      Satisfied with Patsy’s appearance and her own handiwork, Mama once again lectured her daughters on modesty and manners, then left for her monthly canasta game with some of the townswomen.

      Patsy patted the pearls resting on her collar, taking in one more drinking glance of herself in the mirror. The soft glow of the gems warmed her body, dulling the harsh secrets she carried. She loved Danny, she was sure of it, and that would see her through.

      Turning sideways, Patsy ran a light hand down her neck and alongside the curves of her breasts, admiring. She looked rather like a princess, she mused. Yes, a princess. And her prince would have the prettiest date in Glass Ferry tonight—would walk a thousand miles for her, even farther than Honey Bee had walked for Mama.

      The pearls were her crown—they empowered her—and would give her the courage for bigger things. Tonight her life would change—change so she could reclaim the rightful passage that Danny’s brother had stolen.

      CHAPTER 3

      Flannery

      1972

      Flannery had always managed to slip in and out of town, dodging Hollis Henry most of the time. But there was no escaping the sheriff now with that announcement hitting the air waves.

      Mama moaned and dropped into the chair, pressed a clenched hand to her mouth. “My baby girl, my Patsy.”

      “Mama, shh, that Mercury could be anybody’s—maybe not even from around here, maybe not even from Kentucky.” Flannery picked up the cake knife and set it on the counter. “And if it is the Henrys’ car, it doesn’t mean Patsy was in there. Lately they’ve been pulling all sorts of stuff out of the river not even from around here, from places way far away,” Flannery said softly, hoping she was right. Still, the “maybes” felt dark, not lanterned near enough to be true.

      For many, the river had been a guardian of private matters. A slow, meandering 260-mile tributary of the Ohio River that coursed its way through craggy Kentucky mountains and thick forests, winding past forgotten family cemeteries, small and bigger bluegrass towns. Some of its depths unknown. Folks claimed spots of the Kentucky never had a bottom to begin with, that in certain parts a person could crawl across, and in other parts, drop and never surface again. Recent years of drought had changed that.

      Lost things spilled onto the Kentucky’s banks, into fishermen’s hands, more than a few, revealing age-old secrets. The usual trash: beer cans, bent fishing lures, refrigerators, and other such junk. And a few scarier things: a rubber glove with a person’s bloated hand inside, and the red sneaker stuffed with a human foot. The Glass Ferry Gazette ran a story, but no one came forward claiming to be missing their nubs.

      In the last few years, Mama’d told Flannery the local newspapers and radio stations had been providing exciting updates about surfaced treasures. One Glass Ferrian had found a Civil War sword and a tinderbox full of old Indian artifacts, and another, a large tin of coins from a century-old bank robbery.

      Someone else netted an emerald bracelet, mud-stuffed, inside an ancient bronze goblet. Folks said that chalice was really old and had traveled from Ireland, maybe even from as far away as Japan.

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