Sorry's Run

Back in the kitchen, Shelby stood looking out through the scratched window in the backdoor. It was the middle of the night and she was wide awake. The moon was full, hovering above her beloved hills, throwing shimmers of quaking light over them. They looked to her like sleeping bears. She smiled and took a fleece-lined parka from the hook on the wall. It was a coat she had seen her grandmother wear many times and it felt so comfortable, like Mart was wrapping her arms around her granddaughter. The plastic boots sitting by the door fit her perfectly. Shelby smiled and opened the door to go outside. The early spring air hit her cheeks in crisp layers of chill, but it wasn’t too cold—more like an awakening. She heard the crunch under her feet and remembered the way the grass felt so thick in the summertime when she was little. She never wanted to wear shoes because the grass was like dense, cool silk on her naked feet. There was always plenty of yard to play in on the way to the tobacco plants. Tobacco. Those beautiful leafy plants that somehow turned into the choking smoke that she had come to want as an adult.

Memories flooded back into Shelby’s mind as she walked slowly through the field towards the hills. She had spent hours of solitude out here and it had been a land of dreams for her. And most of her dreams had come true. The only thing missing was true love. There had been plenty of men, but not the right one. Not yet. Maybe there never would be. Her mother had sure never found him. And she had never heard Martha speak too kindly of her grandfather, who had been in a chronic bad mood most of the fifty years he had lived. Maybe it ran in the family. Strong women, loving themselves more than anyone else…like the legendary Sorina. I like that. Shelby heard a hoot owl high up in distant branches and she followed its call. “Whoo-Hoo, Whoo-Hoo.” She stepped carefully, one slender foot in front of the other, keenly aware of the uneven ground beneath her feet. The broken land gave way to a thicker cushion and then she saw the stones straight ahead.

The cemetery.

The headstones were luminescent in the moonlight, almost sparkling. Martha’s urn was there just where Shelby had placed it, at the foot of her mother’s grave. Shelby bent over and dropped her hands to the ground. Warmth rushed through her limbs and in her mind’s eye she could see Neely’s face clearly. She was smiling, approving. An image of Martha looked on and was smiling too. They both reached out waving hands to Shelby and she thought she could hear the faintest voices. More like the wind, but it seemed to say,” Open your eyes, Shelby Jean. Open your eyes.”

“My eyes are open, Mother, Grandma Mart. And I see you. I do.” Shelby sank down and stretched her long legs out next to the grassy ground that covered her mother’s remains. She laid her head down barely touching the headstone and stared into the lit-up sky. She wrapped her arms tightly around herself, guarding against the night chill, and started to cry. The lonely strangeness of her short time home in Kentucky rocked her in unbridled emotion. Quiet breezes sifted through the furry tops of the hills and the country night embraced the sorrowful woman whose sadness poured out of her in needed release until she finally slept.

“Whoo-Hoo, Whoo-Hoo!” A high-pitched screech cut through the brisk night air. “Whoo-Hoo, Whoo-Hoo, Whoo-Hoo!” Shelby jumped and rolled into something hard and cold. She reacted by throwing her arm behind her to brace herself and hit something else hard and cold. “Damn!” The moon was directly overhead and now she had no trouble seeing that she was lying on top of her mother’s grave. The creepiness of the scene startled her so that she kicked her foot out too hard in an effort to stand, causing her grandmother’s urn to teeter, almost falling over onto the ground. “Fuck me!” Shelby caught it just in time. She stared in shock at the vase she held in her ghostly white hands and remembered. “Well, thank God, you’re not in there, Grandma Mart.” She sat the empty urn back down at the foot of the grave site and stood to brush herself off. In another moment she stopped what she was doing and looked incredulously at the fine dust on the palm of her hands. Fresh panic blew through her mind. “Oh, my God!” She crouched down, quickly wiping her hands on Neely’s plot. “I am so sorry, Grandma Mart. Forgive me?” The wind picked up and murmured overhead as it passed through the evergreens in the hills. The hoot owl joined in the night sounds and Shelby could imagine her grandmother giggling at her foolishness.

Back in the house, Wesley stood at the kitchen window staring at the distant, slender figure of his daughter out by the tombstones. Her wavy hair caught the moon’s reflection and shown like yellow gold. He took a deep drag off his cigarette to calm the shiver that coursed over his spine.