Free One More River by Mary Glickman Page A

poodle skirt.
    To my married cousin Patricia Ellen’s house, I guess. I’ll have her call Mama so she doesn’t worry. I cannot go back there tonight. Tomorrow, maybe. Yes. I’ll go back tomorrow and reason with them.
    Of course, darlin’, he said, concealing the disappointment he felt. Cousin Patricia Ellen’s. Show me the way.
    And she did.
    She told him to go home, she was alright, she needed to talk things out with Patricia Ellen, but he stayed on, sleeping on Patricia Ellen’s couch. In the morning, her five- and six-year-olds woke him up by pelting him with Cheerios. It was a workday. He had appointments up and down the Pearl as there was a new flood insurance policy he was pushing. He called Uncle Tom-Tom from Patricia Ellen’s party line and asked the office secretary to cancel them all.
    I am at your disposal, he told a pale-faced Laura Anne when she descended the staircase looking so fragile and tragic his heart overflowed with pity.
    Just take me home, Mickey. I need to face the dragons.
    He drove her home, then waited for her at a diner downtown for three hours. As soon as she entered the place, he knew she had not fared well dragon-wise. They held hands across a table while she told him what her parents had to say.
    Daddy said, Baby, the world is full of men good at courting sweet, inexperienced gals. They’re all soft words and flowers and bowing when they open the door. Don’t say peep about their character. Now, blood does.
    That was a fact she was too young to know, but one her parents had witnessed with their own eyes time after time. How could they let her link her fate to a man whose people were a complete mystery? It just wouldn’t be right. For all they knew, there were thieves and murderers and madmen in his line.
    She reminded them Mickey Moe’s mama’s people were like royalty in the South. She stuck out her chin like a boxer, daring them to knock her down.
    Daddy sighed in a manly way, letting out a great burst of locked up air with plenty of noise and whistle. There you have it! Only half the story! he’d said. I doubt very much the Sassaports would have allowed his mama to marry that pretender had they even a clue about his true origins. Which they didn’t and still don’t. Look. We give in to you on this one and, Lordy, one day you’ll likely present us with three-eyed, one-legged grandchildren with a cruel streak. You have to trust your mama and daddy, sweetheart. You’ll get over this boy. You’ve known him what, three weeks? It’s puppy love you’re feelin’. That’s all it is. Three month from now you won’t recall the sound of his voice or the color of his eye.
    Oh, Mickey Moe, that’s what he said but I don’t believe him. I will love you ’til the day I die.
    Mickey Moe listened to her story, knowing how it went before he heard it. Somewhere between thieves and murderers and three-eyed, one-legged grandchildren, a plan came to him. It was a simple plan, as all glorious plans are. He tried it on in his mind, and it fit him. Fit him so well he wondered if his love for Laura Anne was a mystical thing, a product of divine intervention, moving him down a path he’d longed to travel his whole life.
    It’s alright, darlin’. Don’t you cry no more. I know how to deal with your mama and daddy. I know just what to do.
    She picked up her head and gave him a wondering, tear-stained look.
    What’s that? They are not changing their minds. What can you do?
    Go on a quest, he said. A quest to find my daddy’s people. From everything I’ve heard all my life about my daddy, he was well mannered, educated, and rich. Surely his people were as noble as any, including that great-great-auntie of yours who arrived in Virginia clutchin’ a soup bowl. There’s a mystery to it, that’s for sure. Whatever made him hide his origins, it must have been some misfortune of his own, not because his people were trash. I’m sure of it.
    They were so elated by this plan that, before taking