The Sisters of Glass Ferry

by Kim Michele Richardson

  Memories. Those times when Mama and Honey Bee would place a quilt under the tree for a picnic of cold fried chicken, stuffed eggs, buttered biscuits, and custard cake Mama’d made, sending the girls back to the house for the china, silverware, and linen napkins to make it fancy.

  Uncle Mary would stop by and take his seat near the trunk, whittling on a piece of wood with his knife, carving out a little bird, a dog, spinning tops, or some other whatnots for Patsy, Flannery, and Mama.

  Flannery ran her heel lightly over the patch of earth. “The ground is still bald.” She chuckled. From her and Patsy’s doings. Honey Bee used to also set up a big washtub there in the summer when the girls were little, wearing that grassy seat out.

  Laughing, splashing, she and Patsy had cooled off in the bucket behind the willow’s green, draping curtain. The twins would wave at Mama and Honey Bee sitting on the porch, drinking their lemonade and sharing smiles.

  Tilting her head to the sky, Flannery took a whiff of the sweet summer memories and pulled them into her old soul.

  “That old willow there,” JoLynn called out as she stepped off the porch, tucking a cell phone into her back pocket, “is sure a pretty one.”

  “My sister and I planted it with our daddy when we were four. He said he wanted a proper kissing tree for his girls and their children to get hitched under one day. Said every homestead should have one.”

  JoLynn grinned as she walked up to Flannery. “We sure love it. I spend my reading time here.”

  “A fine tree. A fine spot for hitching, even.” Mark had rushed Flannery to the courthouse for a quick, cold ceremony, not allowing her to call Mama or any of her college friends. The courthouse clerk had pulled out a Bible hidden under a mile-high stack of government paperwork, and handed it to Flannery, saying she could pick out a verse if she liked and he would read it for them. Mark grabbed it from her, thumbing through the pages to the Book of Ephesians, tapping the written verse—“Wives, submit yourself”—his self-righteousness and expectations laid out in Scripture and a nod to Flannery’s required faithfulness.

  “It’s my dream for my son,” JoLynn said, smiling.

  Relieved that it wouldn’t be cut down, Flannery patted the trunk. It would live on. Now a Puckett tree that would be cherished. “A fine weeper and a sure keeper.”

  “I wish you could meet my son, Ben Junior, but he’s off to conservation camp this week. He loves playing under this tree.”

  “Camp John Currie?”

  “You know it?” JoLynn asked, surprised.

  “My sister and I attended when we were ten.”

  * * *

  And they’d gone, but not too eagerly, Flannery recalled. Especially Patsy. She’d thrown the biggest hissy ever. Mama’d fussed at Honey Bee. “You can’t leave Patsy here, you can’t,” Mama insisted in the car. “It’s a barbaric place. She’s not strong enough to survive this wilderness—”

  Frightened, Flannery and Patsy had wriggled free from the conservation officer’s hold and fled back to the automobile. The twins knocked on the rolled-up windows, imploring their parents to take them home.

  “No, Honey Bee,” Mama said, reaching for his arm. “It’s not a safe place for our young ladies. For Pat—”

  Honey Bee’d fired back, silencing Mama. “That’s exactly why I will. Our Patsy has to learn to protect herself.”

  Patsy ran down the dirt road after the Butlers’ automobile, begging, crying for her mama and daddy to come back, take her home, until a conservation officer chased her down, dragged her into a barrack, sat her down on a bunk bed, ordering her to unpack.

  That long, hot week, the girls boated on Kentucky Lake, learned archery, canoeing, fishing, riflery, and other skills to make them strong Kentucky women.

  Flannery earned the certificates Camp John Currie awarded, and Patsy proudly received all her badges except for the one in riflery.

  That had hurt Patsy the most, because toward the end of the course she had almost won herself the title of top marksman, outshooting every girl and even the officer when he challenged Patsy to target practice with him one morning after a breakfast of lumpy, cold oatmeal. Patsy had nailed the bull’s-eye on the wooden board, besting the man and also leaving him red-faced and a little hot around the collar.

  On the last day before the awards were doled out, the conservation officer had placed rifles in the girls’ hands and lined them all up to shoot.

  After firing a few rounds, Patsy put her gun down. Clutching her belly, she teared up. The conservation officer hollered for her to pick up her gun and get back into formation.

  Bawling, Patsy grabbed her rifle. In a second, she doubled back over and dropped the weapon. The gun discharged into the officer’s canteen that was sitting a few feet from his boot.

  The man ran over to Patsy and shook her. Shook her again and again, thundering. Patsy shrieked, claiming she’d been hit by gunfire, then pointed an accusing finger at Flannery who had been shooting rounds beside her. Patsy’s face was dirt-streaked and pinched, her hands pressed to her stomach.

  “Here, right here,” Patsy said hoarsely, and poked her belly, tears leaking onto the officer’s boots. “S-shot.”

  “Fibber. I never!” Flannery said.

  “Did so.” Patsy gasped.

  The officer narrowed his eyes and slowly lifted Patsy’s shirt. A fat, angry hornet flew out, sending the man stumbling back and all the other girls running.

  For two weeks, Patsy carried around a silver-dollar-sized bruise, and earned herself Honey Bee’s good favor and a bag of licorice treats he’d bought for her bravery to boot.

  * * *

  “I hope your son earns all his certificates.” Flannery smiled at the young mother.

  “Fingers crossed.” JoLynn grinned and held up a hand, locking one finger over another. “Come on inside, Mrs. Hamilton. Ben Senior’s gone down to the barn, but he’ll join us shortly.”

  She took Flannery on a tour, showing her the new curtains they’d hung in the parlor, pointing out the soft floral print, the many updates, the sassy yellow fabric they’d upholstered the Butlers’ tired settee and drab chairs with, a warm geranium paint coating the walls.

  Flannery nodded approvingly when JoLynn showed her the stone shower, marble basin, and new commode that had replaced her and Patsy’s old pink bathroom. Inside the bedrooms upstairs, new carpet hid the old wooden floors she and Patsy used to race pennies across, twirl Uncle Mary’s spinning tops upon.

  A couple of rooms had been skinned of their thick wallpapers, replaced with periwinkle, poppies and soft yellows, and other cheery colors of paint.

  Still, the house looked pretty much the same in most parts, felt like the cheerful home she and her family had shared long ago, before death had taken hold.

  In the master bedroom stood Mama and Honey Bee’s old walnut set. The seven-foot headboard with its wheat-scrolled border that had been carved out across the top. The washstand still jutted out in the corner with the pretty rose marble top that Honey Bee’d hauled back from a Tennessee quarry for Mama’s birthday one year.

  The couple had kept the furniture. When Flannery’d sold the home, Mama said she’d leave most of the bulky pieces behind for the buyer. Flannery was glad to see those people had done the same for the new owners. And she was somewhat surprised the young couple liked the heavy, dark furnishings. Most young folks preferred modern pieces.

  JoLynn read Flannery’s mind. “I’m twenty-eight, but my mama always said I was born a hundred, if a day. There’s a shine in old things. I believe antique stuff has a soul and deserves to live on. Believe every scratch and scar has earned its right to exist with the living.” JoLynn walked over to the curtains to draw them back.

  Flannery looked around and noticed the nicks and bumps in the wood, left from the Butlers’ lives. “Where did you move from?” Flannery asked. “I feel like we’ve met.”

  “Knoxville, Tennessee. My Ben is the new pastor here at the United Methodist Church. I’m a nurse now
across the Palisades at County Hospital. Sorta followed in my great aunt’s footprints, folks like to say.”

  Flannery thought how Honey Bee had wanted her to follow in his footsteps. Wondered how that path might’ve been. Would she have had all those babies, one of the finest stills, with famous whiskey recipes, and owned vast parcels of land like the Kentucky pioneer, Catherine Carpenter? Flannery regretted she hadn’t fought hard enough for the road Honey Bee’d set for her, and for a minute regretted she’d sold those recipes too quick.

  “She was a midwife, and I was always pretending to be her with my baby dolls,” JoLynn said. “I was born in Lincoln County, Kentucky, and we had relatives scattered all around these parts. Had kin living right down the road there.” JoLynn parted the curtains and pointed.

  Flannery followed her finger toward Ebenezer Road.

  CHAPTER 33

  “Right on Ebenezer,” JoLynn said. “My great aunt, Joetta Deer. Maybe you heard of her?”

  “Joetta?” Flannery said, surprised.

  “Yeah, I was sorta named for her. Mama—she’s deceased—just added Lynn to Jo in memory of the aunt she was so fond of.”

  “Everyone’s heard of Joetta. Such a tragedy.”

  “When I was little, Mama used to bring me here to Glass Ferry, out to visit Ebenezer. I’d help put flowers on the graves. We’d clean up the weeds as much as we could, but it was hard to keep up, hard to come all this way. My parents both worked,” JoLynn said. “But we would try to visit a couple times a year and make the trip at least once. Mama said there should always be flowers there for her baby cousins, Uncle Ebenezer, and her sweet Aunt Joetta. God rest.”

  Flannery said, “I didn’t know any Deer kin were still around.” “Most of us settled in Tennessee in the ’40s and ’50s, and a few stayed put like Joetta,” JoLynn said. “But my old heart’s always been in Kentucky. Mama would drive by your place here, and I remembered how beautiful it was. Declared I’d have it one day so I could make sure my relatives’ graves would always have flowers. Stopped by once when I grew up, and left my contact information with the owners to call if they ever had a notion to sell. One day they did, and I knew I had to have it.”

  “I hadn’t heard the Murphys put it up for sale,” Flannery said.

  “It was too much for them, getting on in years like that. A lot of upkeep. The very first thing I did was plant a big flower garden out back. I’ll make sure and share some with your kin on Butler Hill, too,” JoLynn said with a sweet, sad smile, her eyes suddenly watering.

  “Thank you. Joetta’s grand-niece,” Flannery marveled.

  “In the flesh.” JoLynn pulled a tissue from her pocket and dabbed at her eyes. “Oh. I almost forgot. Speaking of flesh. I believe I have something that belongs to your family. Let’s go down to the dining room.”

  Flannery followed her downstairs.

  JoLynn ran a loving hand along the massive cherry sideboard, bent over, pulled open the bottom drawer of the chest, and lifted out a little photograph and a wooden box about the size of a small book. Nervous, she handed the box to Flannery. “When Ben was painting and laying carpet upstairs, he moved some of the furniture and found these. I tried to get them to you.”

  “It’s lovely.” Flannery rubbed the smooth wood, touched the tiny pearl inlay on the lid.

  “We called the Murphys, but it didn’t belong to them. The initials carved on the box are J B. I guess it’s Butler.”

  “I’ve never seen this.” Flannery inspected the box. “It could have been Mama’s.” The hand-carved box had a delicate scroll border and a tiny lockset drilled into it.

  “We didn’t open it,” JoLynn offered a little more nervously.

  “I didn’t want to . . . to intrude, or risk busting the lovely wood. We wanted to mail it to you, but I couldn’t find your address.”

  “It’s locked,” Flannery said, and shook it. Something solid was inside.

  “Sorry, we didn’t find a key.” She handed Flannery the photograph.

  Flannery narrowed her eyes, pushed her spectacles higher on her nose. “This is my mama. But how—”

  “I wondered if that was Mrs. Butler sitting on the bed there with Aunt Joetta, holding her newborns. Or another relative of yours.”

  “Yes, it must be.”

  “Are those the same babies up in your cemetery? The headstones up there are so old we couldn’t read the names very well.” JoLynn tapped the back of the photo.

  Flannery flipped the photograph over and saw in faded ink, 1931, April 22, Paxton and Preston Butler with Mother and midwife Joetta Deer.

  “Oh my, yes. My mama’s handwriting. But I’ve never seen this photo. My brothers only lived about a week. The summer diarrhea or such claimed them and a lot of infants back then, I believe she told us.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Hamilton,” JoLynn said sadly, and cast her eyes down.

  Flannery peered closer. “I never knew Joetta delivered them. My sister and I were born in the hospital, you know.”

  “Aunt Joetta died in 1931,” JoLynn said quietly.

  “That explains it. We didn’t come along till ’36.”

  “Mama said Aunt Joetta delivered lots of babies around these parts. Guess the apple didn’t fall far and all. I’m a delivery nurse too.”

  Flannery peered closer at the photo, seeing the resemblance between Joetta and JoLynn.

  “Your brothers were beautiful boys, ma’am,” JoLynn said.

  “May I keep it?” Flannery asked.

  “Sure. I made a copy, and I have plenty of other pictures of my aunt that my family has passed around.”

  Flannery studied the old black-and-white picture again, looking at Mama sitting on the bed, tired but smiling with her babies in her arms. “From the date here, Mama was twenty, and it looks like Joetta wasn’t much older. Both handsome women.”

  JoLynn said, “I believe my mama said Joetta was close to thirty in this picture. But she didn’t know for sure. Joetta started midwifing when she was barely twenty. My family said she brought over a hundred babies into the world and never lost a’one in delivery.”

  “Remarkable lady,” Flannery said quietly, studying the photo some more.

  Flannery never dreamed Mama knew the midwife like that. Though she now remembered that anytime someone said anything about old ghost Joetta, mused about or poked fun of her legend, Mama would shush them, demand they never utter Joetta’s name in her house. Usually it was Patsy doing the poking—Patsy who hated Joetta’s tale. Though Patsy could never really say why, just tried to make Flannery feel the same.

  “Well, you must be starved,” JoLynn said. “Let’s get you that lunch I promised.”

  JoLynn and her husband shared a fine meal with Flannery.

  Flannery enjoyed the young couple, and they welcomed her warmly and asked her to spend the night, but Flannery declined.

  JoLynn was easy to talk to, and Ben reminded Flannery of Honey Bee, the goodness in her daddy, and he’d told her to visit anytime. By the time lunch was over, Flannery insisted they call her by her first name.

  JoLynn took down Flannery’s address, promising to write, and told her she and Ben would visit her in Louisville one day. They hugged on the porch, and still something more tugged at Flannery’s heart, was tucked in JoLynn’s solemn eyes, she felt.

  Flannery held up the wooden box, gave it another shake.

  JoLynn frowned, her gaze set on the box before she caught Flannery studying her. JoLynn looked away.

  For a second Flannery doubted the key had indeed been lost. Wondered why the keepsake had been hidden, why Mama would hide the key unless she’d lost it.

  Ben came out onto the porch, said good-bye to Flannery, and told his wife he’d be in the barn finishing chores.

  JoLynn gently took Flannery’s arm and helped her down the porch, giving her guest one more hug.

  Flannery thanked her again and put the box onto the backseat of her car. She pondered on what Mama had thought was so important inside that i
t had to be locked away from her girls.

  2012

  Nearly a decade had passed since she had buried Mama.

  Flannery had placed the wooden box JoLynn had given her on the mantel in her home, admiring the rich, reddish tones on the locked keepsake, never bothering with it much, just enjoying the beautiful wood and its carvings, resolving that Mama probably kept old compacts, makeup inside she didn’t want her young twins getting into, and had placed the pretty box out of reach of clumsy hands that might break it.

  Years passed, and Flannery mostly forgot about it, but JoLynn hadn’t forgotten about her.

  Flannery returned to Glass Ferry once a year to visit Ebenezer and the Butler cemetery. JoLynn always flagged her down as she was leaving, inviting Flannery in for a chat, tea, or a meal.

  The two became close. JoLynn surprised Flannery with monthly letters, unheard of in this day and age when advertisements and scam flyers littered mailboxes.

  JoLynn called her once a week too, making sure to keep telephoning if Flannery was out and until she reached her. And twice a month when the young mother and her family came to Louisville to shop, JoLynn made sure to stop in and visit Flannery.

  Ben Junior even dubbed her Aunt Flannery, and when the Pucketts’ sitter canceled on them for the parents’ second honeymoon trip, the boy spent a week in Louisville with Flannery. Ben Junior had trouble with his fractions and Flannery enjoyed helping him learn. She told him to think of fractions as slices of pizza pie. “Ben,” she’d say, “five tenths is like five of the ten slices of a pizza, and we all know that when I’ve eaten five of ten slices, I’ve eaten half the whole thing.” He got that real fast. They’d celebrated at a pizzeria.

  And when Ben Junior was married under the weeping willow last spring, Flannery was invited. She couldn’t have been prouder if it had been her own son, and felt Honey Bee was looking down, pleased to see one of his dreams come to life.

  Flannery had stayed at the Puckett home last Christmas for the first time, enjoying Ben Senior’s fine Christmas Eve service he’d preached over at the United Methodist Church, seeing Ben Junior’s pretty new bride, and helping JoLynn prepare a grand Christmas feast.