Free No Dark Valley by Jamie Langston Turner Page A

wrapped in a brown Piggly Wiggly grocery sack and tied with string. She handed it to Celia.
    On the top Celia recognized Grandmother’s bold script: “To My Granddaughter Celia. Read This.” Celia knew exactly what it was. She had seen the tattered book in Grandmother’s lap hundreds of times. How like Grandmother to wrap it and tie it all up as if it were something precious and breakable.
    Aunt Beulah stepped forward and hugged Celia. “I’m so glad you could come, Celie. I know how happy Sadie would be. I wish you’d come back and see us sometime. With Martha Sue and Jerry both in Mexico, I get so lonesome I could just sit down and cry.” Celia had almost forgotten about Aunt Beulah’s two children, both of whom must be in their fifties by now. Both of them had served for years as missionaries in different parts of Mexico. Martha Sue and her husband, David, had gone first, right out of Bible college, and then several years later when Martha Sue’s brother, Jerry, went to visit them, he met a Mexican girl who attended their small church near Torreón and ended up marrying her, then staying in Mexico and starting another church farther north, near Delicias.
    As Aunt Beulah hugged her, it struck Celia that her aunt, whom she had always thought of as a tall woman, wasn’t much bigger than she was herself. No bigger than a minute, she thought. That’s what her aunt Bess had always said about small thin people, in fact about Celia herself. “That girl’s no bigger than a minute. We need to fatten her up, put some meat on her bones!” As a teenager, Celia had gotten tired of hearing it but had gradually learned to ignore it, finally figuring out that Aunt Bess, being portly herself, wanted everybody else to be fat, also.
    Before releasing her, Aunt Beulah pressed her cheek against Celia’s. Celia felt its cool slackness and couldn’t help thinking how the funerals among Grandmother’s siblings would start piling up now. Grandmother’s was the first, but the others would come fast.
    â€œThanks, Aunt Beulah,” she said. “It was good to see you.” She opened the car door, and Al raced the engine ever so slightly. “Well, we’ve got to get back on the road now. Tomorrow’s a work day and all.”
    Aunt Beulah nodded sadly. “Everything’s so busy nowadays.”
    Celia got into the car and set the package in her lap. “I’m glad I got to see you before we left. I wanted to.” She closed the door and waved at her aunt and uncle.
    Aunt Beulah said something through the glass, and Celia rolled down the window a crack. “So he’ll probably be sending you something in the mail,” Aunt Beulah said.
    â€œWho’s that?” Celia said.
    â€œBuford. He’s the one who’s settling up all your grandmother’s affairs.”
    â€œOh, okay.” Celia waved again, closed the window, and they pulled away. She wondered for a moment what it was Uncle Buford would be sending her. She sincerely hoped Grandmother hadn’t left unpaid bills behind. She wondered about the funeral expenses. Surely they wouldn’t ask her to help with those.
    â€œHey, maybe your grandma had money stuffed in her mattress,” Al said. He was driving down the winding little road a lot faster than he needed to be, considering the rain and the fact that it was in a cemetery. “Maybe she left it all to you.”
    â€œGrandmother didn’t have money,” Celia said shortly. She could hear the edge in her voice. “Granddaddy left her in debt when he died. She had to close their store and sell everything just to break clear. She lived off her social security check.”
    â€œStore? What kind of store did they have?”
    Celia gave a short dry laugh. “Not much of one. It was one of those little neighborhood grocery stores. About the size of a storage shed.”
    Which was exactly what it