Free Temple Secrets: Southern Humorous Fiction: (New for 2015) For Lovers of Southern Authors and Southern Novels by Susan Gabriel

wash cloth gently down her mother’s arms and hands and avoid the needles that force fluids into her aged veins. Washcloth in hand, Rose stands motionless, looking down at her mother’s body.
    How can she be kind to someone who she could never please? Someone who didn’t know the meaning of kindness, perhaps because nobody ever treated her that way, either.
    “Oh, sweetie, I know it’s hard to see your mama this way,” Lynette says.
    Rose has never, in her entire forty-four years of life, called her mother mama or mom . The terms are too endearing. She always called her Mother or simply said, ‘yes, ma’am,’ like Old Sally and Queenie did.
    Lynette swishes her way to Rose’s side of the bed. “Just follow my motions, sweetie,” she says.
    Following her instruction, Rose glides the moist white washcloth down her mother’s slender arms sequined in liver spots. Colors she’s used in western landscapes. She makes a long, soft brushstroke of care across her mother’s skin. Skin does strange things as it ages. It loosens, puckers, spots and blotches. Rose notes the beginnings of this process on her own body. Thankfully, it doesn’t scare her. She has always felt older than her years. Growing up in the Temple household required a certain amount of toughness.
    As Rose mirrors Lynette’s motions, she pretends she is someone like Lynette who genuinely cares about the person on the bed. To her surprise, the washing of her mother’s unconscious body carries unanticipated emotions for Rose. Hidden within the folds of discomfort is a secret longing for her mother’s touch. Perhaps this reaction is brought on by her fatigue, combined with the onset of hot flashes and all the memories that have been waiting for her here. Whatever it is, she is too tired to resist it. It’s like she’s been running away for twenty-five years only to end up at the same place.
    Unexpected tears rush to Rose’s eyes. More needed moisture, she thinks. Like the droughts out west, she has had a drought of tears over the years. She takes a deep breath and welcomes the rain. Yet with the quickness of a sword cutting through flesh, all emotions cease, as her brother, Edward, steps into the room.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

CHAPTER EIGHT
    Queenie
     
    After Queenie adjusts the seat and air conditioning vents so they’ll blow straight on her, she backs the Lincoln out of the carriage house and waits at the gate for Rose to join her. The drive up the South Carolina coast to her mama’s house will take thirty minutes, twenty if she has good luck with the traffic lights and is generous with the gas pedal. In the past, in return for use of one of the Temple cars, Queenie had to run an errand for Iris. Perks like cars and cash have always been at her half-sister’s discretion. But Queenie has other reasons for putting up with Iris. Reasons that nobody else knows about. Not even Rose.
    Toilet paper is wrapped around the garden gate and thrown into the trees. Good lord, Queenie thinks, we’ve become a college frat house.
    The secrets have brought all sorts of undesirables to their doorstep. When she gets back she’ll remove the toilet paper so Iris won’t wake from her coma to complain. At least the crank calls have stopped. Calls plagued them all evening until Queenie finally called the phone company to have their phone changed to a restricted number. She taps the steering wheel, worn out from worrying that her biggest secret will end up in the classifieds, too. She’s also tired from getting up so early to get a first glance at the secret of the day. So far, several Savannah adulterers have been revealed, as well as a cross-dressing oil tycoon and a mentally ill banker. All deceased, and mostly forgotten, but still. Whoever is doing it likes to throw in a secret from the present-day every now and again just to keep people interested.
    Meanwhile, not a single one of Iris’s so-called society friends visited her in the hospital. Not one. For