Free Roseflower Creek by Jackie Lee Miles

out from the kitchen. He's Dottie's husband. He owns the place, and he does most the cooking 'cause he's real good at it. This big fella I never seen before was telling them mens that just come in about the tractor accident. Mr. Peters wiped his hands on his apron and sat down to join 'em.
        I was thinking on whether it'd be okay to ask Ray if I could have me another Co-Cola when I heard Mr. Peters say something that caught hold of my ear.
        "They ain't told him yet 'bout Carolee," Burt Peters said. He was talking to the two that just come in. Now I 'membered their names, clear as church. It was Hoyt Anderson and Daryl Davis. They both owned farms up the road a piece.
        "Doc thinks the shock would kill him for sure," Mr. Peters said.
        I jumped up from the table we was at and run over and yanked on his sleeve. "What about Carolee?" I asked. Mr. Peters kept talking to them fellas.
        "Mr. Peters, what about her?" I said. Mr. Peters turned around and looked me straight in the eye.
        "What you need, Lori Jean?" he asked me.
        "What about Carolee? Is she okay?"
        "Why…she…she…" Mr. Peters was having trouble getting his words out. The men fellas all got real quiet and started looking round at one 'nother.
        "Mr. Peters," I said. "Is Carolee okay? Is she?" I was getting a lump in my throat and a sick feeling in my tummy.
        Mr. Peters turned his head to the side and spit tobacco juice into the can on the floor. That same floor was getting dizzy under my feet.
        "She fell under the tractor, Lori Jean," he said.
        "Oh no!" I said. "Well—did they fix her all up? Did they?"
        "I'm sorry, Lori Jean," he said and shook his head from side to side. Now my tummy was really hurting. Carolee might be hurt real bad 'cause Mr. Peters had a powerful sad look in his eyes.
        "They couldn't save her, honey," he said. "They tried real hard."
        He reached out to grab hold of me, but he didn't move fast enough. The room spun me round and round like a toy top gone nuts. Then it turned itself plumb upside down. And if that weren't bad enough, the colors all about the room played tricks on my eyes. The yellow walls was blue. And the brown tables was red. Sparks flashed in front of my eyes like stars and the floor danced up and smacked me in the head. Voices screamed at me with lips stretched wide as a funhouse mirror. Words flew out of them voices; flung themselves towards my ears, stretched themselves like rubber bands strung out of a tunnel. They made their way into my ears, but they didn't make sense. First they whispered. Then they roared. First they was soft and then they turned mean. They screeched louder and louder. Still, they made no sense. Mean words, they was. They chased me. Slammed me down to the floor; sharp words, cut like razors into my chest. They dug out my heart. They squeezed out the blood, then printed their letters on top, right where it beat. They run all over the room, them words. They pushed in the walls and closed in the ceiling. They clawed and they poked. They spit and jabbed. They threw me into a cave; a black pit; a hole so tight I couldn't breathe. I heard them words. Bad words; crazy words; foaming-at-the-mouth words. They pushed their way into my head. Then I heard them good. I knowed what they said. I knowed what they meant.
        "Carolee! Carolee!" I yelled back at them words. Too late. They pushed me deeper and deeper into the hole. The hole stunk like vomit and pee. I clawed to get out. Strong arms held me down. The room went all black and something in that blackness—something sharp and cold—took hold of my heart and cut a piece right out of the middle. I never got it back. Never. It was gone for good.
        Just like Carolee, plumb gone forever.

Chapter Ten

    They sent for Doc Crawley to come over to the café. Make sure I was all right. He give me a shot in the arm of something he had in his bag.