If the Creek Don't Rise

by Leah Weiss

I thought we got married for a mighty reason. I thought I was special to him. I musta made it all up, cause none of it’s true.

They was okay as far as preachers go and not too pushy. I told em not to darken my door. I don’t have need for the rules they sell, so they pretty much leave me be.

I gotta stand there and wait while folks come up to Marris and give her a hug and a pile a thank-yous for the supper and the pies and the clothes she give em, when I know they take advantage of her nature. All she gets back is a thank-you. It’s poor trade to me.

All Marris says is, “Roy needs killing.”

What I saw when I looked at Carly was hungry. Won’t a thing in this place that could fill her up. Like she was starved for different and won’t settle for usual.

Truth always hurts and it’s extra hard to look at late in life.

You can starve in a world when you’re hungry and won’t settle for crumbs.”

She wanted more than was her right to have. I tried to tell her. Tried to ease her road the way a mama should. I told her a woman’s gotta learn to settle, stay in the middle, know her place. Carly never learned to settle,

I settled for the middle all my life, swallowed my grief and kept it inside…and it got me nowhere but lonely.

Her weak will’s gonna get her killed. She needs her own perfect storm…and a piece of tin.

The good and bad of me is that I see blessings most every day in every way. Even when it’s a speck that shines in a gray sea of sad. It’s how my heart looks at things.

She needs to hear somebody loves her and that she’s got a place to come to if she’s inclined to leave.

I came upon many poetic and odd phrases found in literature and mentally filed them away: an ostentation of peacocks, a parliament of owls, a knot of frogs, and a skulk of foxes. My favorite is the crows.

There are women in these hills whose men beat them because they misconstrue Ephesians 5:22–23 as saying they can. They twist God’s holy words: “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife.” They stop short of the truth that continues, “Even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the savior of the body.” They conveniently ignore the fact that neither God nor the law gives husbands unqualified dominion over their wives.

“I understand the relief your faith provides. You think it is the foundation for hope and comfort. The cause and effect you believe in are sin and reformation. Fear plays a big part in encouraging people to take the high road. I don’t believe faith or fear lifts people to a better life. The cause and effect I believe in are education and opportunity. Those actions and goals elicit positive change. A god monitoring my days seems naive at best and dangerous at worst.”

we’re not on different sides. I just don’t know what you say you do know.

No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body.

I saw lights ahead, like a landing strip. I coasted closer and saw students, my girls, standing on each side of the road, holding lit candles illuminating young faces. Folded notes fluttered through my open car windows. They held the wisdom of Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan, which we shared in secret, sitting barefoot on the floor of my tiny living room, drinking strong coffee by candlelight until the early hours of day.

I’ve chosen to read The Story of the Three Little Pigs for its fantasy and moral: when you think the odds are stacked against you, preparation can sway the course.

In the quiet, Sadie says low, “Him a big baby. I don’t need me two babies.”

“What do you plan to do with your one special life, Sadie Blue?”

Everyone is born with talents, with gifts and the ability to dream.”