• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1332 0

the flatware, dishes, and glasses and thought, well, they were good enough for a college student and they would have to be good enough for tonight. Spending money made me nervous and even though I was giving Aunt Daisy dozens of hours of help with her business we had yet to discuss a salary or any kind of compensation. After all, I was living in the Porgy House rent-free. But at some point I’d have to do it or get another job. I had to consider things like health insurance for Sara and me. It was foolhardy to be without it and I knew Addison’s policies had a time limit. I’d have to ask Mark to look at all of that for us, because reading insurance policies and trying to make sense of them made my teeth hurt. I think that’s a pretty normal reaction for most people.

I was just putting the plump, herb-stuffed bird in the oven and closing the door when I heard a voice.

“Anybody home?”

It was Ella.

“Hey! Come on in! I’m in the kitchen!”

“I’ve got your pie.”

“Pecan?”

“Lord, no! I can’t even look at a pecan for right now. Too many pecan pies, even for me.” She delivered it in a sweetgrass basket lined with a red-and-blue plaid kitchen towel. It looked like something out of Southern Living magazine. “No, I made an apple pie this time. Is that okay?”

The minute she folded back the towel, the smell of apples and cinnamon filled the air and my mouth started to water. The way my salivary glands reacted to Ella’s baking? You’d think I’d spent the last twenty years in the woods, wandering aimlessly, starving and foraging, living on a few berries and roots. Actually, that wasn’t too far off—the aimless wandering part, anyway.

I clasped my hands together and gave the glossy golden crust a good once-over.

“Oh, Ella, it’s gorgeous. How can I thank you?”

“Humph. You can get your Aunt Daisy to a doctor instead of those Marsh Tacky Races down in Hilton Head. I don’t like the way she’s looking for the last week and I can’t get her to go see her doctor.”

I began to panic inside at the mere thought of anything being seriously wrong with Aunt Daisy.

“What are you saying? What kind of symptoms does she have?”

“Well, it started the night you, Russ, and Alice came over, after y’all left. First, she seemed sweaty, you know like flu. But it ain’t flu. Then she starts getting all kind of cranky.”

“More than usual?”

“A lot more. And I think she’s running a fever. I see her taking aspirin and ask her why and she tells me to mind my own business, which isn’t unusual for her. But something’s wrong. I think her pressure is up. And her breathing ain’t quite right.”

“She’s congested? Maybe she has bronchitis?”

“I don’t know. Anyhow, she’s determined she’s going to get me to drive her to Hilton Head to watch these fool horses run on the beach and I just don’t think she needs to go this year.”

Aunt Daisy loved the Marsh Tacky horses and I knew why. They were like us—a little bit abandoned but adaptable in tough situations. Once, when we were sitting around talking, she told me that if a Marsh Tacky got caught in the pluff mud and started to sink, he didn’t panic like a regular horse. He just lay down on his side and pulled his hooves out. Then he got up and went on his way. They were tough little fighters like Aunt Daisy and me, too, if I could remember how to fight.

“I’ll talk to her. She probably does have the flu. In fact, I’ll make her go with me in the morning. Who’s her primary doctor? She’s not still seeing Harper?”

“Yeah, God. She’s the only woman her age I know that uses a pediatric allergy doctor but all these years after y’all all grown? You can’t get her to change and he doesn’t seem to care. Maybe ’cause she give him and his family a house last summer for two weeks. I don’t know. Maybe he’s her long-lost son. Here’s his number.”

Ella reached in the pocket of her cardigan and handed me the folded paper that revealed his office address and phone number in addition to his cell phone number.

“You’re really worried, aren’t you?” I said.

“I don’t know, but I don’t like what I see and I ain’t no doctor to decide what’s best.”

“I’ll