Free A Place Called Wiregrass by Michael Morris Page A

until the tree limb above my right shoulder dropped to the ground. Before the pistol smoke cleared, I took off running.
    “I ran all the way around the pond and through the briars and underbrush. The briar bushes tore my legs to pieces, but I never felt a thing. It was only after I made it to Aaron and Missoura’s place that I noticed the blood on my legs.
    “Aaron was hoeing in the garden when I came running up to him, crying and carrying on. Missoura later told me that I jumped right at his big chest like a little young ’un excited to see her daddy. He saved me that day and time and time again. A more gentle soul you never did know.”
    Miss Claudia drew zigzag lines all across the tablecloth. Her face met mine, and she flinched as though she just remembered something she had to accomplish. “Oh, my goodness. Listen to me just rattle on. Not a bit of use in talking about things that are best left buried.”
    She held the edge of the pine table and lifted herself up. I didn’t move to try and assist her. I remained at the table feeling embarrassed over how my own problems had somehow peeled away years of hurt that were draped with cobwebs in her mind. I could not for the life of me imagine this woman I was looking at putting up with the life she described. But then again, maybe she thought the same of me.
    “But what I was getting at is our sheriff.” She leaned on her cane and lectured with her pointed index finger. “He’s not like that sorry excuse for a lawman in Apalachicola. Wiregrass’s sheriff respects a woman and will take her word. You got nothing to worry about, Erma Lee.”
    I never was any good at taking care of myself. I was too busy caring for Cher or Mama or, until a few months ago, Bozo. And now I saw another purpose with Miss Claudia. I wanted to protect her from further heartache. Those early weeks with her had been spent worrying she’d feel sorry for me. Now that had all changed, and the feeling that came over me was strange, an aching for a person I barely knew that good. An aching for what she had lost at such a young age.
    At such a young age…sixteen. Only a year younger than me when I married Bozo. Sixteen. The same age Suzette was when she got pregnant with Cher.
    “We’re just all thimbles on the big Monopoly board of life,” my Aunt Stella used to say. That afternoon sitting at Miss Claudia’s kitchen table, I couldn’t help but wonder if the God Aunt Stella worshiped had sent me to Wiregrass for a reason after all.

Six
    A s soon as Miss Claudia confirmed that Gerald Peterson was the best mechanic she knew, it made me feel a little more confident about advice from my spiky-haired neighbor. Kasi claimed Gerald Peterson was good, but she didn’t say how good-looking he was.
    He pulled up to my trailer in a shiny black tow truck, and with a nod of his Auburn University baseball cap, he lifted the truck bed conveyer to rescue my ailing car. I caught myself pulling at that white polyester cafeteria uniform while he leaned over, hooked, and prodded all kind of equipment under the hood of my car.
    Gerald was probably in his early fifties. He had a square build and a thick neck. I imagined him rushing down the Wiregrass football field decades earlier, scoring for the home team. A combination of curly blonde and gray hair stuck out underneath his cap. His mustache was still blonde with a few gray patches. He moved like a man determined to complete the mission before supper time.
    Most likely he had a wife and kids to get to, I decided. Maybe he was even a grandfather. I caught myself embarrassed by studying his build for so long. Quickly, I glanced to see if Cher had noticed.
    She stood by me with her hands on her hips, drawing rings in the sand with the tip of her big toe. She seemed to consciously ignore the other trailer-park kids who had gatheredon bikes and skateboards to witness the faded Monte Carlo’s elevation to the car ambulance. The humming of the tow truck’s diesel