Into the Free

Maybe God doesn't care if we get all dressed up and sit in the pew every Sunday, as Diana believes. Instead, maybe God comes to us through men like Sloth, watching over us as we make our own decisions. Maybe God has always been with me. Opening doors, leading me to opportunities, letting me choose my own path, and loving me even when I chose the wrong one. Never giving up on me. Knowing all along that I am on a journey. That I must find my own way to Him. Maybe River was rights. Maybe God does still believe in me.

I do two things," she told me. "I remind myself that it's not all about me. And I focus on the good. There's always a way to find some good.

Any fool can choose the boy who sends her heart into a flurry. But there’s a big deep divide between desire and devotion. You better not choose the boy who makes you dizzy. No, ma’am. You have to choose the one who is steady. Stable. Safe. Choose the one who loves you, through and through, for who you really are. The one who wouldn’t change a single thing about you, even if he could.

For years, I have searched and searched for this God. This feeling of complete love and acceptance. He was always out of reach. But here, where food is scare, money is tight, heat is heavy and tensions should run high, God is everywhere. Just as during the night around the gypsy fire, I am mesmerized by watching people who are truly happy. At peace. Kind. Grateful.

Ain't nothing more important than loving your mama. Even if you can't understand her. Love her. That's all you gotta do.

I know there is a thin silver line between the sane and the insane, and even in that realm of madness, there are degrees of reason, fluttering moments of clarity and truth. Maybe the world can't handle the their truth. Maybe we are too weak. Maybe, like Sloth used to say, "It's the blind who see the most.

When it rains God be wantin' us to sit still and take notice.

Oh, dear child. You've got a lot to learn about marriage. Any food can choose the boy who send her heart into a flurry. But there's a big deep divide between desire and devotion. You better not choose the boy who makes you dizzy. No ma'am. You have to choose the one who is steady. Stable. Safe. Choose the one who loves you, through and through, for who you really are. The one who wouldn't change a single thing about you even if he could.

My world speeds up. After years of moving along in slow motion, I am suddenly surging through the moments. He touches me, and like flame to dry grass, I am consumed.

I’m tired of her diving deep into nothing and leaving me on the surface. Waiting for her to come back up for air.

There’s nothing in the world like having someone love you for who you really are. Looking at your heavy baggage and leaning down to whisper in your ear, “You’re perfect.

[H]is gentle horses graze on fertile grasses and tempt me to ride off in search of answers to what if and what’s out there and why not. Where everything around me hints there is more to offer but tells me time and again … not for me.

Sophie is the kind who calls our town Millerville. Too good to let a Choctaw word touch her tongue.

Mrs. Talbot’s voice carries like a freight train. Her words have the same dirty impact as a load of coal. I imagine Diana smiling, trying not to show her ignorance, and longing to know the rest of the story.

My name is on the prayer list every week, which means families like Diana’s are talking about me over supper, lifting me up to the heavens. The rodeo-trash half-breed.

I feel my anger rising. The Jack Mr. Tucker is talking about had never lived at my house. Jack must have put on a show for his boss, the doting father who missed his family.

In moments like that, I thought Mama might be right. That Jack wasn’t all bad, and that somewhere, deep down inside of him, we were a family.

For the moment, Jack remained the kind of man who would bring someone a drink just to make her happy. Not because it was expected, but because it was a nice thing to do.

The smell of my grandfather’s chicory coffee slides under the door. My grandmother’s slippered steps skim the wooden beams like hushed secrets.

By some miracle, my grandmother defies his command and opens the door anyway. We stare at our own brown eyes and black curls, hers with silver streaks laced throughout, mine in tangles. I remember all the times we’ve accidentally passed each other on Main Street or in front of Tanson Theater. She always turned away. Now she looks at me, and I feel as if I am meeting myself, forty years from now, and she is facing an image of her wild-eyed past.

I swing the broom back and forth across Sloth’s dusty floor and I spill my secrets, one by one. River leans against Sloth’s chair and I bring him back in time with me, through the dog-eared pages of my tattered life.

Their joy slowly fills the black gaps in my soul. Like river water rising.

Where everything around me hints there is more to offer but tells me time and again … not for me.

I spend a good ten minutes pulling and tugging on Jack’s ax, trying to work it back out of my tree. But once it finally gives free, I realize the scars are there for good.