Clara Mae from Her Porch Swing

I seen him from my porch before word even reached the IGA. You can always tell when something’s about to happen in Piedmont. The cicadas hush up, and the air gets that strange, heavy stillness, like the world’s leanin’ in to listen.

That afternoon, I was shellin’ peas with the radio low when I seen a man walking slow up Church Street. Hat in his hand, dust on his shoes, the kind of walk that says he’s been gone too long and don’t rightly know how to come back.

Took me a minute, but then I knew. It was Tommy Wayne Turner, all grown, shoulders broad, but the same lost boy behind the eyes. My heart did a strange little twist, because I remember him as a boy who’d bring me wildflowers and ask questions about everything under God’s sun. Lord, he could talk. Talked so much his Aunt Lily Pearl used to say his mouth would wear out before his feet did.

But that mouth is what got him run out of town. Or maybe it was the truth he told with it. Nobody ever says the same thing twice about that summer, but they all lower their voices the same way. Some say it was about a man who wasn’t his Daddy. Some say it was about his mama and the preacher. Me, I don’t know. I just know a child shouldn’t carry that kind of weight.

He passed my house slow, eyes flicking toward the church steeple. The way he looked at it, I swear it was like he expected it to strike him dead. I nearly called out to him, but something stopped me. You don’t interrupt a man walking with ghosts.

He went up toward Lily Pearl’s, and I sat there with the peas cold in my lap, remembering that day fifteen years back when the sheriff’s car rolled past, and everybody whispered about the Turner boy running off.

Piedmont’s memory is long and mean. Folks here remember who borrowed sugar in 1974 and never brought it back. You think they’re gonna forget something like that?

Later that night, I saw the porchlight at Lily Pearl Pearl’s flicker. Same one she’s kept burning all these years. She makes out like it’s to keep the moths company, but we all know better. I thought I saw two shadows in her window, and I prayed it meant forgiveness had finally found its way home.

But this morning, the light was out. First time in fifteen years.

I don’t know what that means, but the town feels different. Quieter, and not in a peaceful way. Like the air’s waitin’ for somebody to say something they’ve been holding too long.

Maybe it’s Tommy Wayne’s turn again. Or maybe it’s the preacher’s widow’s. Lord knows she’s got her own ghosts walkin’ around in the hallway.

*****

New Yesterdays is available through the following links: Books-A-Million, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon as well as your favorite bookshops. The Audiobook is available from Libro.fm, as well as Amazon.