Page 61 of Moonshine Lullabies

“You an’ Jess can use my truck,” my brother said.

“I gotta find a truck of my own,” I groaned and sighed.

“Let’s start with lunch,” Collier said. “I’m starved.”

“Y’all have fun. Leave your cuts here at the club where they’re safe,” La Croix declared.

Both men nodded and that was that. We all went out and crammed into J.P.’s truck. Me an’ Tate sandwiched between him and Col.

Collier held my hand atop my thigh as we bounced on the stiff suspension of the classic pickup and headed toward downtown.

Parking, as always, was a mint – but J.P. didn’t even bat an eye, let alone bitch about it.

We had lunch at a little hole in the wall place that was pretty damn good. Good old fashioned Louisiana soul food. After lunch, we decided to walk, which I was grateful for. Especially after such a big meal.

“Oo!” I stopped in front of the rock and gem shot as we strolled by on Decatur.

“Let’s go,” Collier said and towed us in the doors.

“You guys go ahead, Tater an’ me are goin’ to the ice cream shop – you know the one, Jess?”

“I surely do,” I called out and waved over my shoulder letting them go. Collier laughed and gave my hand a squeeze.

“I do believe they think they’ve tossed me to the wolves,” he said.

I chuckled and said, “They think it’s boring.”

“That’s fair,” he said. “I happen to like rocks.”

“Yeah?”

“You know what a collier is?” he asked.

“It’s a thing?” I asked.

“Sure is,” he said. “A collier is a coal miner, or sometimes a ship that transports coal.”

“Really?” I asked. “I did not know that.”

“Well, they say you learn somethin’ new every day.”

“You ever find any cool rocks why you was down there?” I asked.

He nodded, “Would find a lot of cool quartz points sometimes,” he said. “I still got a couple of the cooler ones I found. They’re small bein’ as I moved down here on my bike and could only carry so much, but my papaws still got a couple of my bigger, cooler finds.”

We slowly wandered around the shop and I picked up several pieces and put them back down, but several more, smaller, stones in the cheaper ranges I kept, thinkin’ about the rabbit heads bein’ cleaned up in the beetle tank in the garage back home.

I sighed and Collier stopped me, a hand on my hip to turn me to face him.

“What was that for?” he asked.

“Thinkin’ I don’t know when it’ll be before I can get back to my art,” I said. “I don’t know how long it’ll be before I can get back to carving and here I am buying yet more stones. Feels kind of dumb, really.”

“No, not dumb at all. Hopeful is a good way to be. It can’t rain all the time, darlin’ and it’s sure to get better. You got enough land back there behind the house, maybe it’s time to put out a shop or a shed big enough to do all your art in, away from the house some. Your own space for you.”

I smiled and laughed a little. “Things like that cost money I don’t have,” I told him.

“Yeah,” he said. “But you never know. Things might pick up, new opportunities might present themselves, that’s the nice thing about hope – it’s endless and dreamin’ is free. Costs nothin’ at all.”

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