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Lazy Lion
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Congratulations go out to Nancy Young for taking third place in our Historical Short Story contest. Nancy won a $10 gift certificate to Lazy Lion Books. Keep writing Linda!
Callie's Picture “We got to get going, honey. The preacher’s waiting. Everybody’s set.” “Well, they can wait some more. Pass out the lemonade I set out on the drain board. I told you, once I got Callie all prettied up in her white dress, we’d get her picture done.” Callie’s daddy knew when to push and when to back off. He retreated to the bright kitchen, where his sister and two neighbor ladies were setting out pies. Running his finger around his too-tight collar, he reached for the sweating pitcher of lemonade. The humidity of midday had already nudged aside the cool of morning. A few lazy flies droned around the pies. Callie’s daddy didn’t want to think about the flies or the heat. He wished that photographer man would hurry up so everyone could get on with it. After chipping ice from the icebox into a tumbler, Callie’s daddy poured some lukewarm tart lemonade and ducked through the side porch to sink onto the concrete stoop shaded by a massive oak. Callie’s swing hung from the lowest branch. He stared at it as if seeing not the empty seat, but, long ago, his baby girl, sash flying, reaching her toes toward the leaves as she swung higher and higher. To the right was a patch of grass near Callie’s mama’s iris bed. When he closed his eyes, Callie’s daddy could see his daughter chasing fireflies in the dark. The crunch of wheels on the gravel drive roused him. The photographer. About time, he thought. Setting the empty tumbler on the stoop, Callie’s daddy rounded the corner of the house. The photographer was already unloading his cart. The man’s bustling manner seemed wrong in the hush of this special day. Callie’s daddy extended his hand, creased from years of tilling fields and mending fences. “Glad you could make it. She’s in the front parlor with her mama. Need any help?” Callie’s daddy cast a wary eye at the accumulating pile of mysterious metal equipment. “No, thanks. I’m used to packing and unpacking. Been doing a good bit of business the last few weeks, what with the quarantine and all.” The balding photographer nodded to the sign posted on the house across the lane. Callie’s own house had taken down its red sign. The photographer, laden with his camera, trotted after Callie’s daddy, who led him between the peeling columns framing the front door and into the shaded parlor. They walked past the mirror Callie’s mother had draped with a shawl and over to the corner where Callie’s mama sat with her daughter. “She’s never looked sweeter,” Callie’s mama cooed. Callie’s riotous brown curls were carefully, even artfully, arranged, and her white dress was still clean and pressed. No berry stains or grass streaks had marred the crisp pinafore. The last time Callie’s parents had sat for a family picture was on their wedding day. Callie’s daddy still remembered how he’d had to sit, ramrod straight, his arms and neck immobilized by wooden blocks, for the fifteen minutes it took for the image to be set in the daguerreotype. They had no pictures of their daughter, who was never still for a moment. Callie’s mama twisted one last curl so it lay just so against Callie’s waxy cheek. Then Callie’s mama stepped away from the small coffin so the photographer could preserve her, still at last. ©2004 Nancy Young
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© 2004 Lazy Lion Used Books & More - All Rights Reserved.
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