Free Wouldn’t Change a Thing by Stacy Campbell

ole’ Sparta, GA. You were beat. You slept all the way in.”
    I sit up and check my surroundings. I talk a good game about being a motherless child, but I loved my hometown when I lived here.
    â€œDo you need to stop anywhere?”
    â€œNot right now.”
    In the rearview mirror, I see Uncle Ray steering my car. He’s keeping pace with the traffic about three cars behind. My old stomping grounds create a flood of questions.
    Aunt Mavis reads my face. “A lot of your favorite places are gone.”
    â€œI see.” A towering new high school sits off the road to my right. “When was this school built?”
    â€œLate eighties, early nineties. It was a long time coming, and a welcome site.”
    â€œWhat happened to the old HCHS?”
    â€œIt’s still standing. I can drive you by there, but it’s a shell of what it used to be and an eyesore.”
    I sigh and a quick image of Willa races through my mind. I tagged along with her for summer band practice. She was a majorette who twirled her baton as if her life depended on it. When Mama didn’t feel like taking her to practice, Aunt Mavis brought us her homemade butterscotch ice cream sandwiches and dropped us off at the football field. I stood in awe of Willa and the other majorettes as they perfected dance routines with the band’s accompaniment.
    â€œAunt Mavis, let’s take a spin downtown.”
    She heads toward the courthouse. We round the square and my heart skips several beats. To the right of the courthouse sits the same gas station Daddy and Uncle Ray frequented for oil changes and tires.
    â€œChamblee’s is still standing.”
    â€œAlways went toe-to-toe with Rachel’s. The store is under new management now.” Aunt Mavis chuckles and points at the competition.
    We swing a left and the Drummer’s Home stands tall and proud. This was Mama’s home briefly, before she went to Georgia Mental. Clay sat at his cherry roll-top desk and wrote out checks for her rent on the twenty-eighth of each month for almost a year. She’d write me letters from the Drummer’s Home and I’d refused to open them. He’d offered to read them, but I thought it best they be returned. The roller-coaster ride with her was too high and too frightening.
    Aunt Mavis slows her pace so I can take in the city. I ache for the missing staples that have disappeared. Allied Department Store is gone, the place Mama stocked up on hosiery and bras. Deraney’s was Willa’s favorite store because the proprietor set aside Jordache jeans for her and allowed her to pay for them with her Captain D’s earnings.
    I look to the right and gasp. “What happened to the Hargrove Theater?”
    â€œBurned down years ago. I was hoping they’d rebuild it. I loved double-dating with your parents there.”
    â€œRemember the Thanksgiving movie festival every year? Or the time Mama snatched the wig off that woman’s head she thought Daddy was seeing?”
    â€œAll Paul did was fix Cathy Jean’s bathroom cabinets, but your mother wasn’t convinced.”
    Laughter fills the car and Whiplash releases a low growl as if she remembers the snatching too.
    She taps the steering wheel. “We need to stop at IGA for Sure-Jell. Before you called, Ray and I were canning jelly and cucumbers. The kitchen is a mess. You’ve been warned.”
    She parks at IGA and fishes in her purse for money. I stop her frantic search.
    â€œI’ve got a little over one hundred dollars,” I joke.
    â€œI beg your pardon?”
    â€œLamonte went to the bank—never mind. I’ll get what you need.”
    My attempt at humor reminds me of how much I never knew him. I look at Aunt Mavis and decide to keep his funds siphoning to myself. She looks exhausted. Guilt fills me for having her come to my rescue.
    â€œTell me how many boxes I need to get.”
    â€œGet three of the small ones and