On a sunny day in a small town, Birdie King died.
It was not a surprise to anyone. She had done well for a time after the death of her husband, but eventually came down with a sickness that the town’s doctor couldn’t name and no sort of medicine seemed to cure, even the ones that merchants brought in from out of town. On the day they dragged her body out of the small little shack she lived in with her daughters, only one of them was crying. Even though they were twins, the one kneeling down in the mud seemed a lot younger than her sister. That one was Becca. Her sister was Melissa, though most people in town called her Mel.
Frank watched Becca for a time from where he stood beneath the awning of his father’s butcher shop and was absently wiping his bloodied blade on his apron. Then turned his attention to Mel. She had bent down but was not crouching nor kneeling, taking care not to get her skirts dirty. She pulled at Becca’s shoulders and then started brushing her hand over the other girl’s hair, but it was no use - Becca was not getting up from the ground, and would be stuck there for a while yet, like a horse bogged down in the river. Eventually Mel stood up and wiped at the tears under her eyes, but in her efforts to raise her sister she had gotten mud on her palm and thus smeared it across one of her cheeks. Seeing it, Frank’s hand twitched.
He had known Mel all his life but couldn’t recall saying more than ten words to her. His mother had ingrained it into him that it was always polite to wish someone a good morning, but she lived at the end of the street, close to a thicket of trees that Frank had avoided ever since Dennis had been bitten by a snake there and died, and their paths never crossed long enough for him to wish her a good morning. The only time he ever saw her was when she was in the clinic talking to Robby about her mother’s condition, the two of them bent low over a table, and whenever Frank entered, she left so quickly that his entrance and her departure were in the same jingling of the bell. Though he also saw her at church every Sunday, her family usually sat at the back, and since his mother had ingrained it into him that he should not be disruptive during church, he never worked up the courage to crank his head around and get a good look.
He was getting one now, though. While Becca stayed kneeling in the mud, Mel followed her mother up the street. She had handfuls of her skirts in her fist and was squinting at the group of men who carried the body to wherever they would keep her before the burial. The closer she got to the butcher’s shop the more Frank racked his brain for something to say, but he had never dealt with a loss of a parent before, let alone two. In fact most days he wished he could lose his father. Least then both he and his mother would be a lot happier. As it stood, he had nothing to say to her, but he kept staring at her because he couldn’t think of anything else to do.
Her mother’s body disappeared into one of the low-slung buildings while she stood there in the middle of the street. Eventually the rest of the town started moving again, aside from her. And aside from Frank. As cowboys and farmers and buffalo hunters started their walk up and down the muddy road, he began to lose sight of her between their horses and guns and swinging arms. Then, after what felt like a long time, a man rode between them on his horse, and when the horse passed by, Mel was turning and looking right at him.
He didn’t know what else to do, so he gave her a smile. She didn’t return it.
romaincrisis
tangentwithtanner
gummygunk
gamechangershow
2087
gracieabrams
dailybridgerton
