Chapter 9 #4
She knew within seconds someone had been there. She could smell men’s cologne, and there was a light shining out into the hall from Mayrene’s bedroom. She ran toward the light and into the room.
All of Mayrene’s clothes were gone. All the things Quilla had so carefully kept for her return had been stripped off the hangers, leaving them empty, twisted, and dangling from a slightly rusting rod.
“Why?” she wailed, and ran back through the house, then into the kitchen. That’s when she saw the note.
Mama, I have lost my place in this town.
I am a marked pariah with a well-deserved rap sheet, and I cannot exist here ever again with any joy.
I reconnected with someone I once knew in Shreveport.
I loved him once, and he’s growing on me again.
He’s taking me somewhere new. We’re going to start over together.
I don’t hate you, but I don’t trust you either, so you are no longer going to be informed of my world or my life, or who I’m with or what I’m doing ever again, because you meddle.
I let it happen once. I can’t let it happen again.
Have a good rest of our life, if you can figure out how to do that on your own. All I know is that whatever allegiance I ever owed you for the raising you gave me, I have repaid you a thousand times over at great loss.
Mayrene
Quilla sank to her knees on the kitchen floor, the letter clutched to her chest. The moan in the back of her throat came out first like a scream, and then a wail that filled the house and the air around her until there was no more breath left in her to give away.
It was Christmas Eve.
Floy was coming back from the mailbox with a stack of mail. He noted how snow was falling, but the flakes were so small they didn’t have the weight to settle. He walked back into the house.
Tomorrow was Christmas Day, and for the first time in Floy’s life, he was hosting a holiday dinner on his own.
Beau and Razor had committed to bringing baked sweet potatoes with marshmallow topping.
Jerry Adams and Mary Sue had accepted the invite with such delight that Mary Sue promised not to smoke anywhere on the premises. She also said she would bring apple and pumpkin pies, because she was very good at making crusts.
Floy had done a little investigating some months past and found out Dory Eldridge had filed divorce papers for abandonment long before Floy ever fixed her window, and that all her in-laws had abandoned her, too, out of spite.
He hadn’t known how she would receive the invitation when he called, but when he mentioned there would be other attendees, she accepted with delight and promised to bring macaroni and cheese, because she knew it might be the only thing her three boys would eat.
He didn’t know exactly how he felt about her, but he knew she was in the same maelstrom of disappointment as him. He also knew her from the inside out, and he admired her greatly, which for now, he considered enough.
He had ordered a huge turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, and cornbread dressing along with three sides from Edison’s Eats that were scheduled to be delivered by ten o’clock tomorrow morning. The sides were candied carrots, white shoe peg corn, and cranberry sauce. No green beans. Not ever.
He sat down with the mail in his lap, sifting invoices and bills from the assortment of Christmas cards he’d received, most of which came from companies he sourced materials from. He was getting down to the bottom of the stack when a very colorful postcard caught his eye.
Zanders Exotic Snake Exhibit.
He saw the front of the card before he read the message. It was a color photo of a huge Golden Python in a tank the size of a small room that had been decorated like a jungle.
The interior of the tank had a shallow pool of water at one end, and what looked like soft, artificial moss on the tank floor to cushion the python’s movements.
The trunk of an enormous tree had been permanently attached to the center floor of the tank, leaving the bare limb to spread out within the space.
There were ferns of all kinds hanging from the ceiling and draping down from limbs, and more falling in effortless grace from their pots onto the floor.
And there was Elvis, stretched out across the tree limbs in a pose of elegant leisure, with his massive tail wound around a limb for support.
The sign above the tank read, “Elvis, King of the Jungle.”
Floy’s eyes welled, but the smile on his face was as wide as all outdoors.
“Elvis! Just look at you, buddy, the center of attention now, not hidden down in some dark basement, but in the warmth of a jungle setting just like your natural habitat, right where you belong. You might like to know that the last time Mayrene dumped you out, she got herself locked up for the trouble. Payback is a bitch.”
He turned the postcard over and read, “Merry Christmas from Hoot and Elvis,” then carried the card into his bedroom and put it on his bedside table. Displaying it would only open old wounds that had already healed. Always best to leave well enough alone.