Page 45 of Bucked Hard

This box didn’t have the same ‘in care of’ and the return address was somewhere unusual, not what he used to use. And it had been so long. I don’t know how he managed it, but he must have figured out a way to get it to me.

When I opened the shoe-box-sized delivery it was filled with letters, pictures of Leander and a small gift box which, to my horror, contained a ring. It was one of those fake carnival prize sort of rings made from cheap brass and chipped glass stones. Presumably all he could get where he was.

But still.

The note attached to the ring box said he would be home soon. I took the box full of horrors behind the barn and burned it without telling Jessie.

After the fight with my mom for custody, there was Jessie, arms open, taking me in, good and bad. I was a handful for a long time before she settled me in, assured me that I was safe and Leander was where he was supposed to be, locked up.

Bile tickles the back of my throat thinking just how close we are to the end of his seven year sentence. And who knows? With overcrowding, for all I know he could be out already.

I shiver and try to swallow back the sickness that comes over me in waves.

“You gonna shuck those ears or just keep ‘em warm?” The warm smile of my Aunt Jessie limping down the porch steps breaks me out of my daydream.

“Yeah. Sorry.” I smile back.

“You got your eye on somethin’, young lady?” A playful twinkle in her eye, Jessie doesn’t miss much.

“Just admiring the view! You always told me there was nothing wrong with that.”

“Yep. I sure did.” A hearty chuckle and open smile follow.

She leans on her cane as she comes around my side of the picnic table. Leroy is lying at my feet, his tail flapping in the dust under the picnic table every time he hears my voice.

I reach down and scratch him under his collar, thinking for the first time there’s a man in my life I may like more than my dog.

Jessie’s wrinkled hands support her on the picnic table as she takes a seat next to me, grabs an ear of corn and starts pulling the outer layers free, tossing them into the galvanized bucket next to my feet.

“You thought any more on what you want to do this year? You think you still gonna go on to that community college over in Monroe?”

Aunt Jessie’s eyes study me. I sometimes really wonder where I would have ended up without her.

“Ummm, not sure.”

“You got the money in the trust fund for your college. You’re so smart, Rachel. You ought do something with your life. Don’t end up a lonely old woman like me.” She winks at me.

“You should use that money for yourself, Jessie. Fix up the house a little, you know? It’s starting to look tired.”

Jessie set up the trust fund with money she didn’t really have, and I feel guilty about it now that I’m old enough to understand.

“Rachel.” Her voice loses the playful tone. “You are smart and you have a gift. You should figure out what God wants you to do with it.”

“It’s really hard to make any money as an artist or a writer though. It’s just something I do. My hobby.”

I started drawing when I was just little. My teachers in school always put my art work up for the class to see. It was something inside me, it just came out; I could look at something and re-create it on paper with paint, pencils, charcoal – almost anything. In high school, I won the Legion’s Award for Inspiring New Artist for three years, and the local literary guild published four of my short stories in their quarterly newsletter.

It didn’t really mean much, but at the time, art and my stories were all I had. It was everything. I remember locking myself in my room, listening to the fury of whatever was going on outside my door living with Mama, and I could lose myself in my drawing, painting or writing.

My art and writing saved me when I felt unsavable.

“Shoot, Rachel. Money ain’t the only thing in life. You gotta do what you love and figure out the money later. Look at me.” She waves her arms to the sky and around her head. “I loved your Uncle and we loved this farm. I’ve lived a good life, Rachel, and we never did worry too much about money. Some years were good, some worse, but we always had each other and the love of this farm.”

What good can possibly come of me going off to school? Even if I do get my degree, I would never leave Jessie here alone. All we have is each other.

“Jessie…”

She sighs, knowing I’m changing the subject. “Yeah, honey.” The sound pulling the covers off the corn and the churning of the hay bailer out in the field swirls through the late summer breeze.

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