Free A Long Time Gone by Karen White Page A

I wasn’t sure, but I could have sworn she smiled at me before she disappeared through the doorway.
    Sarah Beth and I waited outside on the columned porch, sitting on one of the iron benches Mrs. Heathman had purchased in France and shipped over to Mississippi. I liked our wooden rocking chairs, mostly because they were so much more comfortable to sit in than these metal ones. I never mentioned that to Sarah Beth, who would have been personally insulted and then would have repeated again what she’d heard her mama say about my home and how nobody should have a turret
and
columns on the same house. And having a real castle door was just tacky and low-class.
    I turned to Sarah Beth. “So, have you asked your mama yet?”
    â€œAbout what?”
    She was always like that when she didn’t want to talk about something. She and I both knew what I was asking.
    I sighed. “About those graves we found. And how come your name isn’t in the Bible and theirs are.”
    It had been nearly two years since our discovery, and each time I asked—which was about every week—Sarah Beth started acting all funny and would tell me it just wasn’t the right time to bother her mama. Seems to me that the reason people don’t ask questions is because they’re afraid they’re not going to like the answer. It’s just that I couldn’t figure out what Sarah Beth could be afraid of, and I wasn’t about to let on that there was one more thing that I didn’t know and she did.
    â€œIt’s not the right time. Besides, I’ll just get punished because I’m not supposed to be touching the family Bible. And then I’ll have to tell them that you were with me and Mama will tell your aunt Louise. So then we’ll both be in big trouble. Daddy keeps saying that one morething and they’re going to send me to Miss Portman’s School for Young Ladies in North Carolina.”
    I stared at her, wondering what she thought might happen if her daddy caught her touching his radio box. I kept quiet, knowing how much she hated for me to point out when her thinking went as crooked as the Mississippi River.
    The rain had stopped by the time Willie pulled up in the Ford, but he came out with an umbrella anyway and helped Sarah Beth to the car first so she could sit up front with him. I was stuck in the backseat, as usual.
    Willie drove slowly through the muddy streets toward downtown, being careful to avoid bumps and puddles. I knew this was done for Sarah Beth’s sake, since when Willie drove just me he sped as fast as he could so that I felt like I had lockjaw by the time he stopped.
    He parked at the curb on Main Street right in front of Peacock’s Fine Jewels and Watches. The Peacock family had originally run a general store when Indian Mound was just a one-horse town, slowly selling more and more expensive merchandise as the town got bigger and the farms and plantations that surrounded it began to run their own commissary stores. As Aunt Louise had explained to me, the Peacocks had a good eye toward seeing opportunities for making money.
    Willie helped us out of the car and then held the door open for us as we entered the store. I’d only been inside once, right after my mama had walked off that bridge and out of my life. I’d come with Aunt Louise to sell some of my mama’s jewelry. She’d told me to pick out a few pieces to keep, but had explained that to pay the taxes on the farm we would need to sell the rest. I hadn’t wanted any of it, seeing no need to remember a mother who hadn’t thought to remember me.
    Mr. Peacock stood up from a large wooden desk with a tortoiseshell lamp and moved to the front of the store to greet us. “Mr. Bodine,” he said to Willie. Willie took off his hat and shook his hand.
    â€œMiss Heathman, Miss Bodine,” the jeweler said, nodding to Sarah Beth and me. His hair was parted on the side and slicked back