Free Roseflower Creek by Jackie Lee Miles Page B

so this other preacher who wasn't a member of our church started the service with us singing "Shall We Gather at the River." Carolee didn't much like that song. I told that preacher before the service we should sing a marching song, but he wouldn't listen.
        "'When Johnnie Comes Marchin' Home' is her favorite," I told him.
        "Well," he said, "that's not even a church song."
        "Well, it's a song," I said. "I reckon it'll be okay."
        He ordered me to sit down pronto. Fancy that. It's her church. It's her favorite song and it's her funeral! Nasty old man.

    We was gonna be nine years old that spring Carolee got killed. Me and her was just playing at the creek days before, throwing small branches from the chinaberry tree into the water, watching them float along, guessing whose would reach the bend in the stream first. We'd gathered up a passel of them fallen twigs, some as long as our arms. We stirred up a batch of mud cookies with one of them when we got tired of tossing 'em in the river.
        We had ourselves a tea party on the grassy bank. Spread everything out nice like. Even invited John Benjamin. He was the only boy we let play with us 'cause he was real nice. Didn't tease us or pull our hair none. He was real polite and brought us flowers even. He was a whole lotta special things to us, he was. Only one thing wrong with John Benjamin. We made him up. But we pretended we hadn't whenever he was around. Treated him just like a regular person, hoping someday he might be. We told him how tall he'd grown and how handsome he was. That always made his cheeks red. I could see him there plain as pie, scraping the toe of his boot on the ground, his hands dug down in the pockets of his overhauls.
        The day of the funeral we all went to the cemetery after the service. I stayed behind when everyone left. I told Mama I'd walk myself back home. She didn't mind none. She knew how sorrowful I was, Carolee being my best friend in the whole world and no one ever gonna be just like her ever again. I went off to find John Benjamin. It helped some being with him. Mostly the loneliness followed me around that summer. It was a root wrapped around my sadness, a stone that lay flat in my belly everywhere I went. It felt cold down there when I swallowed, even when I slurped down the chicken soup MeeMaw always said could warm the devil's innards.
        When a memory of Carolee planted itself in my head, it cut like a knife that slashed clear down to my chest. Nothing really helped it. Crying come easy, though. Seems tears was always spilling out of me like a water can sprung extra leaks.
        "Carolee would be right sad to see you so sick at heart, Lori Jean," Mama said. "She'd want you to go on up to the cemetery and make peace with her, she would."
        That's what I set out to do three long weeks after she left us. I picked a passel of wildflowers for her. I took 'em and scattered 'em all across her grave spot. Carolee loved wildflowers. I'd gone down to the creek earlier that morning and mixed up a batch of them mud cookies she loved so much, too. They was in my pocket. Some of them got broke apart on the way back to the cemetery, but I put 'em all out for her anyway, next to the flowers.
        "Carolee, kin ya' hear me?" I asked. She didn't answer none.
        "Kin ya'?" I kept talking to her, thinking she might still could.
        "I know you're loving me back from heaven isself 'cause you said you would at your party that day. 'Member?" I laid out the mud cookies in a little circle for her. I put a daisy over the top of 'em. It looked right pretty. I hoped real hard she could see it.
        "John Benjamin's here. See?" I held out his hand.
        "My mama said you wouldn't want me to go around sad all the time. She said that'd make your heart cry. I figure she's probably right 'cause you was the kind of friend that always did nice things for me." I sat down next to her grave spot and