Flavors by Emily Sue Harvey Page A

brightly, “Say, why don’t you take the rest of the cake to Grandma’s. She’s just got to see what you’ve done all on your own. I’ll bet they’ll all love it.”
    I sighed and nodded. “Okay.” Maybe they would. I just hated the thought of leaving home again.

    â€œShe baked it all by herself,” Mama gushed to the Melton family at large. It was just past suppertime when we got there. Daddy toted the cake carrier in and placed it on the new chesttype freezer that sat along one kitchen wall. Grandma’s decision to buy it on time came after she gleaned three more families’ weekly laundry. The salary increase allowed the purchase. Grandma said – in so many words – that it would revolutionize her canning and such. She wouldn’t have to worry about foods spoiling.
    Today, my colorful cake looked mighty pretty setting there atop it.
    Nellie Jane looked impressed enough. Grandma nodded. The noncommittal kind. Empty face. Guarded body language. “It’s real good,” Mama added and looked at me with pride. Then she looked at Grandma. “Don’t you want to try a piece, Mrs. Melton?”
    My grandmother started shaking her head slowly back and forth. “I don’t eat anything green,” she said matter-of-factly.
    â€œBut it’s just food coloring,” Mama said gently. She loved my Grandma like her own mama and usually she could coax her into anything reasonable.
    â€œNo,” Grandma insisted. “I’m scared of anything green going in my belly.”
    â€œS’okay,” I muttered to Mama, by now feeling something stirring in my chest, a heavy, slushing, icy sensation that moved all over me. Never mind that Nellie Jane smiled approvingly and that the boys all stood around like football tackles waiting for the whistle. Grandma didn’t want to eat my cake .
    Mama’s face emptied and she quickly readied to leave. Her robin’s egg blue eyes were all black pupil as she ushered me ahead of her out the screen door.

    â€œWalk me to the car, honey,” she whispered. As we spanned the neatly swept yard to the parking lot, silently passing Grandpa holding court with visiting kin, she put her arm snuggly around me. “Don’t mind her, darlin’. She’s funny about some things, is all.” But there was little conviction behind her words and I heard, felt a touch of something alien to my mother: offense.
    Tears pushed so insistently against my throat and behind my eyes that I clenched my teeth together to stem them. It didn’t help. The darned things came splashing over and ran down my face like spring water tumbling over a rocky bed.
    Behind the car, Mama pulled me into her arms and held me, shielding me from view. With my face pressed into her neck and inhaling her Avon Cotillion fragrance and Ponds face powder, I cried softly, deeply as I’d never done. It wasn’t like my dragon-breathing kind of tantrum. It was different. Deep. Consuming. Heavy.
    Her round softness welcomed me, gave me temporary haven. Soothed.
    When the tears ceased, I drew myself up and said, “I’ll be okay, Mama.”
    She looked deeply into my eyes, her soul shining through, connecting with mine. “I know,” she said gently. “My little girl’s growing up.”
    â€œWe’ll get you home soon,” she said, smiling softly.
    She and Daddy left shortly thereafter. I stood rooted there, my heart following them as the ancient Ford chugged up the long dirt road. I remained there until it disappeared over the crest into the dusky evening and the sound was no more. I heard instead the easy, random talk of kin from the front yard, where the single light bulb now limned them as they burst into laughter during one of Grandpa’s yarns.
    Head down, plodding silently on bare feet, I leaned into the encroaching darkness that circled the happy stage and rapt
audience that was