The Sisters of Glass Ferry

by Kim Michele Richardson

  Mrs. Fulson sent an explanatory note home with the girls, threatening to kick them out of third grade. They dared not give it to Honey Bee, knowing that he’d find out their wrong to its full extent, and that a lie added to the serious crime they’d originally committed would mean even double or triple their punishment.

  After supper, Honey Bee called them outside. “Go pick your paddle.” He pointed to the willow, expecting them to get the switches he’d tan them with.

  Dutifully, the girls walked slowly over to the tree, broke off the smallest branches, and handed them to Honey Bee. After a few squirming seconds he asked the girls if they had been cheating.

  Patsy pushed herself in front of Flannery and said, “Oh no, Honey Bee. Only me. Flannery was just caught smiling.” Patsy yanked Flannery to her side. “See, Honey Bee?” Patsy poked Flannery, urging her to smile for him. “Show him, Flannery.”

  Flannery beamed the same as she had in school for Mrs. Fulson. Patsy lifted a sweet but dimple-less one too, and let a tear weight her lash for insurance.

  “Well, hell’s bells,” Honey Bee chortled low, looking at his smiling daughters, shaking his head and dropping the switches. “I can’t be whipping ya’ll, looking all sweet and smart like that. Run on into the house and help Mama with the dishes, and no more cheating, or tricking poor Mrs. Fulson, or she’ll send you to second grade, and I’ll burn up your hineys with big fat switches.”

  “You get the dishes and set the table. I have to brush my hair,” Patsy’d bossed Flannery, skipping off.

  Mrs. Fulson had the two separated into different classes at the beginning of fourth grade.

  Soon, Patsy began hanging out with other friends at school, picking pretty Laura Adams for a best friend over Flannery but dropping Laura just as quick when a boy came sniffing.

  Flannery stayed after school more, hanging with her small baton group, hoping for Patsy’s favor when she was in between boys and friends.

  But Patsy was never alone and only chummed with her sister when she needed something.

  On their fifteenth birthdays, Patsy sweet-talked Mama into taking her to a real hairdresser. Mama took Patsy to Junie Bug’s Hair Styling, where she had Miss Junie give Patsy a hair color bath like the coppery colored one that Suzy Parker wore. Patsy had been begging for the new do ever since she’d spied the famous woman’s hair in the magazines.

  “Get the blond,” Patsy ordered Flannery. “Make her get blond, Mama.”

  As usual, Flannery agreed. It had always been Patsy who had her say, the first and final words between the two, content to lead and let Flannery puppy dog behind her.

  Rather than hear the fuss, Mama’d always let her.

  When the first drops of Junie’s hair dye lit Flannery’s scalp on fire and burned, Mama stopped the hairdresser cold, wouldn’t let Miss Junie touch another strand.

  Instead, Mama bought Flannery ribbons at the dime store to hide her mousiness in braids and ponytails. Flannery’d hid her platinum, skunk-spotted hair under an ugly old scarf Patsy insisted she wear. The only good thing about it all was when Patsy kicked Violet Perry for making fun of Flannery.

  Flannery felt hurt and lost. If she had thought hard enough about it, she would’ve rightly guessed that it had really started the Easter before they turned ten.

  Patsy had thrown a hissy over wearing identical dresses that year, insisting Mama let her wear something different. “Mama,” Patsy’d demanded, “I’m almost ten. I want a different dress. A purple poplin one with a red satin ribbon like the one Cora Wallace’s mama is making. One like my best friend’s dress.”

  But Mama wouldn’t hear of it back then, agreeing only that Patsy could wear a different color sweater over her dress.

  “But we’re best friends, Patsy,” Flannery had chimed, embarrassed, thinking something was wrong with her.

  “Cora is my new friend,” Patsy told her. “And my best.”

  Hurt, Flannery lashed back, “Mama, I want a different dress, too. And prettier than those ol’ ugly colors Patsy picks out.”

  Patsy snickered. “You’d still be ugly. Stinky, like Honey Bee’s old whiskey and that nasty ol’ fishy river.”

  Those digs cut, and after Patsy said enough of them, Flannery began to feel them in the worst ways. “At least I’m not a priss pot, always crying and—”

  “Stinky pig. And my friend Cora says you can’t put a ribbon on one,” Patsy spat.

  “I hate you!” Flannery screamed.

  Patsy jerked hard on Flannery’s braid. Flannery hit back.

  Honey Bee caught them bickering and swatted both of their tails.

  Flannery’d burst into tears, running up to her room. Later, Honey Bee called his girls to the porch and said, “Daughters, you’ll make yourself a heap of friends and even lose yourself a might more, but you’ll never lose what’s in your blood, what belongs in that blood and to each of you. Your sister. Lose that blood, and you will become weak. Stay good to each other, so you can stay strong.”

  Flannery thought she should be Patsy’s best friend. Told Patsy she was hers, even over her group of baton girlfriends nobody else hung with.

  But Patsy liked her new friends just fine, and pulled to the attention they gave her, ignoring Honey Bee.

  Flannery felt lost, halved, like an arm had been split off. After all, they were born together, one and the same, and that was about the closest friend you could ever have. And any less of a friendship was betrayal if it wasn’t. Wasn’t it?

  Mama said there wasn’t any harm in Patsy’s wanting to make different friends and maybe Flannery should try it too. “After all, you’ll marry one day, and have yourself a different life.”

  Honey Bee kept Flannery busy with chores in the barn, took her out on the river in the boat, and taught her more about his business.

  * * *

  Flannery snuck glances over to the Henry boys waiting to escort Patsy to the dance. Something was rotten, and she could smell it stinking and sticking all over those two.

  Patsy said, “I’ll be home directly after prom. Don’t wait up, tadpole.”

  Hollis Henry stood there by the tree, shifting his eyes Patsy’s way, stripping off tears from the willow’s drooping branches.

  Flannery looked at his head, fat, almost neckless, the way it sat stubbed too close to the shoulders. His hair prissed and looking better than hers, slicked up and pushed into a pompadour, styled to the middle, a loose strand slipping over a prowling eyebrow. It all looked odd on him. Like he’d borrowed himself from another for the night. Hollis didn’t match the nice duds he’d picked out to escort Patsy and Danny to the door. She knew he was more suited for motor oil cologne, grease-stained T-shirts, and doing sweaty back-bending work. But lately he’d been wearing pressed shirts, dousing himself with his daddy’s cologne every time he was around Patsy.

  Flannery figured Hollis would try to pinch off the pair’s date time by loitering in the school parking lot, smoking, drinking with the other troublemakers who didn’t get approved by Miss Little until she’d open the gymnasium door and spot them and threaten Bible study for the rotten lot.

  Hollis snapped off a bough and dropped it. She wanted to kick him, shove him away from the weeping willow, and yell at him for stealing the life of the tree.

  There was something about him killing the leaves that just lit her nerves. She loved the old willow that she and Patsy and Honey Bee’d planted long ago. They’d found a sapling along the Kentucky banks a decade ago, and together dug it up and planted the tiny life here by the house. Honey Bee’d built a little wooden enclosure around it to protect its tender bark from deer, leaving the fencing up until the branches were high enough that the critters could no longer nibble on them and the trunk thickened.

  Honey Bee’d declared it a fine kissing tree, maybe even a proper hitching spot for his daughters, and had pecked Mama’s, Flannery’s, and Patsy’s cheeks with light kisses.

  Flannery hated Hollis Henry yanking on it like that, groping it the wa
y she’d seen him do the girls at school when the teachers weren’t looking.

  Flannery knew Patsy felt it too, knew the tree was special to both of them. When they were little, the two had played under the branches, dressed up in Mama’s dresses, church heels, and made daisy chains to wear in their hair, pretending they were princesses marrying handsome princes, Patsy’s favorite game.

  Honey Bee had joined them, hunkering low to the grass, sneaking toward them, hopping like a frog, croaking, “Who wants to marry Mr. Toad?” They squealed and ran, and he caught them, pronouncing them each Mrs. Toad, leaving them all tangled on the grass, rolling, laughing in each other’s arms.

  The two pretend princes standing before Flannery today were toads.

  Hollis threw down a wad of crumpled leaves and murmured an obligatory “Yeah, sure would’ve been swell if we both could’ve gone. If only I didn’t have that damn detention on my back, we could’ve,” but looking at Patsy in a way that only Danny should be looking.

  Liar, Flannery thought. You asked Violet Perry first. Patsy must’ve read her mind, because she pinked a little and looked down at the ground.

  “Least I get to take ’em. Stick around some until old bat Little runs me off,” Hollis said.

  Danny laughed. “Better not, big brother. Ol’ Little catches you, you’ll be reading the Good Word for a mess of weeks to come—four weeks to come, maybe more.”

  “Gee, then I’ll be trapped hanging with the old folks forever, not just this evening,” Hollis pouted. “Oh well, least I’m not stuck playing Cinderella to the royalty tonight. Dishing out ice cream and all those fun treats.” He swallowed a snicker. “Gonna have me some fun.”

  Flannery’s nerves itched a little more. She could sense a meanness, a cruelty of sorts in Hollis that had rooted years ago. He was “the disgusting part of a person” as her daddy would put it about bad folks. Flannery couldn’t help but wrinkle her nose at the man Hollis was growing into.

  “Going to be a blast.” Danny grinned.

  “Nifty,” Patsy piped, then opened her little clutch and pulled out the compact of pressed powder to check her lipstick and eyeliner, sweep the thin velvet puff across her button nose.

  Last Christmas, Flannery had saved to buy Patsy the gold-tone compact. She’d worked it out with Mama to secretly drive her to Purcell’s in Lexington. Flannery’d spent her whole paycheck on the elegant compact with its filigree and inlaid rhinestone clasp.

  For Flannery’s present, Patsy had tossed her a stale Chicken Dinner candy bar Danny’d given her months before.

  Flannery dug into the apron pocket of the blue gingham-print uniform for her soda jerk cap. “I better hurry ’fore Chubby Ray has a hissy. Have fun.” She waved a lame cheer with the paper-cloth hat.

  Hollis stepped forward, pulling a stink of grass and woodsy cologne he’d pilfered from his daddy’s medicine cabinet. Flannery smelled the drink on him before his words cut the air.

  “We’re going to Chubby’s for treats before the prom,” he said. “You can ride with us, peaches. Snug beside me.” Hollis patted the side of his leg. “Ain’t that right, Danny?”

  Danny, who had been chugging on something that looked a lot like whiskey-brown water in a 7UP bottle, lifted the glass neck to his lips in agreement.

  “It’ll be swell. C’mon on, peaches,” Hollis urged.

  Patsy’s cheeks colored, and she shifted her leg, silenced Hollis with a cold eye.

  Flannery stepped back and pulled Patsy to the side, whispered, “Those boys are getting pie-eyed—”

  “Don’t make a fuss and don’t tattle to Mama. Don’t, tadpole. Please,” Patsy hushed.

  “They’re getting sauced, and you know it, Patsy—”

  Patsy put a finger to her lips and grabbed her sister’s arm, turning her around and out of the path of the boys’ nosy glances.

  “I don’t like this one bit,” Flannery said.

  “Please don’t,” Patsy said, pulling Flannery into the sheaves of satin and netted tulle under yards of petticoat trappings that scratched out her echoing pleas. “I have to go tonight; please, it’s important.” Patsy fidgeted with the heirloom pearls collaring her slender neck.

  Flannery pushed her off, popped a worried look over to the Henrys. “Mama’ll have both our hides if you go off with those boys like that,” she said, though she knew Mama never had an angry hand for such harsh matters. But Honey Bee had and would take a switch and light your tail in a short Kentucky second if you showed yourself or shamed your family in the slightest.

  “It’s not my fault Carol Jean got sick!” Patsy swept her fingers under the pearls and scratched the small, rising bumps she got whenever she was upset. The boys stood back watching.

  Clutching the bottle to his frumpy tuxedo, Danny pretended to inspect his trousers and black dress shoes, run a hand through his light brown locks. Hollis leaned against his shiny red Mercury, holding his silver flask, brooding over something.

  “You can’t go off with them like that,” Flannery insisted.

  “I’m going,” Patsy declared.

  “You know how Mama feels about liquor. Don’t get into that automobile,” Flannery warned.

  Patsy raised her chin.

  Flannery gripped her arm, and Patsy jerked away. Flannery tried to yank her back, missed her arm, but caught her shoulder and neck.

  Patsy kicked Flannery’s shin hard enough to make her let go, and then ran over to the Mercury, hopped into the backseat, and slammed the door.

  Danny and Hollis jumped in after Patsy.

  Flannery stooped over and rubbed her leg and saw a running snag. “Patsy Butler, you better get your butt back here,” she yelled, and then caught a glint in the dirt. It was a silver clasp. Not a foot away lay the family jewels.

  Snatching up the string of pearls, she slipped them into her pocket before Patsy could look back to notice.

  “You’re going to be sorry,” Flannery hollered as Hollis goosed the engine and lit off, spraying gravel and grit on her freshly starched uniform. Danny’s bottle flew out the window and hit a rock, rolling its broken, toothy neck her way.

  The automobile’s radio mewed Patti Page’s “Tennessee Waltz” into the countryside.

  Old winds snagged Hollis’s and Danny’s chorally whoops. Patsy’s nervous giggles spilled into the jeers, their laughter trailing into the exhaust’s smoke, slashing Flannery’s skin, cutting deep into dark, tender spots.

  Sweeping a hand down her dress and nylons, Flannery dusted off the hurt and dirt.

  Carefully, she dug out the string of pearls and inspected them. The clasp had broken clean from the small loop at the end of the string.

  Flannery dropped them back into her left apron pocket, the one that was always the cleanest at the end of her shift. She wasn’t about to give them to Patsy now. Those two drunken fools would have them off her sister before the night ended, or Patsy would try to fix the old clasp herself and then lose them again.

  Flannery stroked her smarting leg again. In the morning and in front of Mama I’ll give them back. That’s the right thing to do. Mama needs to know the whole story too.

  She glanced at her wristwatch. Look at the time. Patsy didn’t have the desire to keep it and thought she didn’t need it, having been declared the firstborn by a few measly minutes. Never on time, and mostly never caring, Patsy had always run others late, secretly enjoying the luxury of milking time and making others lose their own precious minutes, even hours, over her.

  Flannery headed down the drive toward Ebenezer Road, picking up her step and pocketing Patsy’s time. She’ll be late just like me, Flannery soothed.

  CHAPTER 4

  Patsy

  June, 1952

  At the end of Ebenezer Road, under a thinning day that rubbed itself against the bark of a spreading elm, a murky light laundered saw-toothed leaves, splashed down onto the gnarled feet of the old tree, the 1950 Mercury resting in its puddled path.

  Patsy inspected her new prom shoes, wor
rying about them getting dusty. At least it’s still daylight, she comforted, standing under the elm, wringing her hands, stroking her arms. The early evening light slashed coppery-gray streaks across her pale skin.

  The leaving hour. She feared this time of day, hated that the last hour always felt like it was snatching a vital part of you with its leaving—could pull you into its sneaky shadows and disappear from the world without a trace. Frightened by the way the bats swooned for skeeters, cartwheeling, dipping a little too close to your head, and hated the way chittering birds hurried to tuck themselves in. Hated this place, too, lately fearing it more than ever. Though she didn’t understand why the old spot had set its tentacles onto her like that. That was the reason she’d stopped riding her bike and started catching rides with Danny and his brother down the road in the mornings, begged for the totings in the afternoon.

  Sometimes Flannery stayed after school to practice her silly baton twirls. If Patsy couldn’t hitch a ride, she would get stuck walking weedy Paintlick Field. Bad enough, but there was Ebenezer Road too, the only cut-through to home and all by herself—something that gave her the willies.

  Old Ebenezer snugged alongside a cemetery and was an occasional private nest for lovers and rumored to be haunted. Walking the dirt-packed road, under a canopy of sleeping elms, she’d have to keep a sneaking eye behind and ahead, loudly humming to get out of that pocket of fear she carried.

  Patsy snapped her head away from the cemetery gate. A shudder climbed up her backbone and slid around her scalp.

  Others felt the same way, and, over the years, more than one stranger’s automobile had broken down on that dead-end road. Some in Glass Ferry said the town should build a filling station out there.

  Just last month, one carload of out-of-towners swore they’d seen what others had over the years. A small family cemetery crooked across from a white clapboard house. Children yelled out of its two-story panes, and in the yard below, a long-skirted woman wearing a bonnet called back to the youngsters.