Free Wreath by Judy Christie Page A

insisted they drive through the little town “for old times’ sake.” Even though Big Fun had grumbled, he did so, her mother occasionally pointing to this building or that, not saying much at first. “That’s the house we lived in before I quit school,” she said, pointing to a small frame home on a street lined with trees.
    “I thought you lived up near Texarkana,” Wreath said. “Where Grandma lived.”
    “We moved there right before you were born,” she said so softly Wreath could barely hear over Big Fun’s radio. “Your grandmother wanted to be closer to her brother and sister. It’s hard to believe they’re all gone now.”
    Frankie twisted in the seat to look back where Wreath sat. “Enjoy life, sweetheart, because it goes fast. Faster than you can imagine.” She stretched her arm to pat Wreath’s knee, the movement seeming to tire her mama. Wreath drank in every word her mother spoke.
    Big Fun had interrupted the moment, laying down on the horn when a scrawny dog ambled out. “I was happy to see the last of this place,” he said. “Nothing here but white trash and junk.”
    As Big Fun said the
word junk
, Wreath saw the overgrown sign for the junkyard, a handful of vehicles in sight and not a house around.
    The seed was planted, and Wreath filed away details of the towns they passed through, knowing in her gut it would not be long till she needed a place of her own.
    “Stop!” her mother yelled suddenly, and Big Fun slammed on the brakes.
    “What in the world is the matter with you, woman?” he shouted.
    Frankie seemed to shrink into the seat. “This train crossing is dangerous. I don’t want anything to happen to Wreath.”
    “There’s not a train in sight, Mama.” Wreath rubbed her mother’s hair. “Everything’s going to be fine.” She couldn’t quite believe how fast her mother had declined after that day. Frankie went so fast, almost as though the illness
were
a speeding train about to mow her down.
    Trying to stay a step ahead of the sadness that wanted to overtake her, Wreath peered every day into smashed cars, sat in the driver’s seat of the ancient school bus, pretended to scold the kids behind her, and poked around in overgrown travel trailers, wondering if their owners had ever gone somewhere exciting.
    She thought of the van as home, the one place in the whole world that was hers. Each morning Wreath climbed out of the van, nervous about what she might find. The homestead was different, but the feeling was not unlike that at the run-down house where she and Frankie had lived for the past year.
    She made herself walk throughout the junkyard both morning and evening, checking for clues that others might have been there, but all seemed well.
    Using tricks she had read in a detective novel in seventh grade, she set up traps to let her know if anyone came around when she was gone or sleeping. As she went, she noted the tricks in her journal one morning before work.
    SECURITY SYSTEM AT RUSTED ESTATES
    1. String tied to Tiger Van doors on left and right sides
.
    2. Coke can on floor just inside door of travel trailer
.
    3. Piece of rope across path to pond/mud hole
.
    4. Leave one item daily on steps of trailer next to van. Monitor item’s placement
.
    Even compiling the list made her nervous, and she quickly dressed.
    She collected a few items from trailers, amazed at what people left behind, and silently thanked the previous owners for their generosity, from mismatched dishes to a heavy iron pot that would come in handy if she ever decided to build a fire and cook.
    She picked up three tattered books and a handful of T-shirts that had not decayed, but walked away from rotted things that fell apart when she touched them.
    The scattered stuff reminded her of the things she had abandoned at the shabby house in Lucky. She could almost see low-life neighbors pawing through them, a lot more concerned about her hand-me-down clothes than they were about her.
    Her favorite find on