The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek

by Kim Michele Richardson

“Picasso’s painting of the pretty blue lady, the Woman with a Helmet of Hair that I’d seen in one of the magazines you brought us? You remind me of her. Your fine color. My woman always said God saved that best color for His home.” He pointed a finger up to a patch of blue sky parting the gray clouds. “Guess He must’ve had Himself a little left over.” Astonished, I could feel my face warm. No one, not a soul, ever said my old color was fine. The best.

“All children, except one…” Henry paused toward the end of the sentence to cough, his eyes ablaze with happiness, the fever licking his light. He coughed once more, and lifted his “grow up.”

The family would be reading together. And despite the hardness of this sad day, a small joy lit my heart.

someone played a fiddle, tickling the mournful notes, the soft music laddering into tall boughs, carrying across the long day. A wood thrush whistled overhead and folded its flute song into the strings.

I stared up at the tree, rocked the babe in time with her dead swinging pa.