from the fictional series Uprooted, by Patty F. Cooper
The child was nine and had always lived in the same
place so far as she knew. She went to
the same church every Sunday unless they went somewhere else for
homecoming. She was just finishing up
second grade, because she had to sit out an extra year due to her birthday
being three days after the cut-off. She
was surrounded by tons of relatives and went to see one set of grandparents one
Sunday afternoon then the other set the following week. There was always a big dinner and all the
aunts and uncles and cousins who lived in the area came, too.
Rebecca knew that she had a wonderful life. She always had the freedom to roam and play
her bare feet causing soft red powdered dust to rise as she ran down the dirt
road toward her cousin’s house. She could always look up at the mountains in the distance of her North Carolina
home. She didn’t know it, but she felt
sheltered by those mountains.
Then one day it all stopped. It stopped because of a letter her mother
received from an aunt who lived in a faraway place called Fort Lauderdale,
Florida. Her aunt had enclosed an orange
blossom in the letter. Pressed tight and
dried, but it still carried its sweet scent.
Who knew that a pressed orange blossom could up-end a life?
After that letter arrived, Rebecca’s mother could do
nothing but talk about moving to Florida.
Rebecca’s father nearly always did what her mother wanted. When they told Rebecca of their plan to move
to Florida she pleaded with them to no avail.
They began by putting the house up for sale and
holding a sale of nearly all of their possessions. Rebecca sat in the newly covered grey
wing-backed chair and watched as the human vultures picked over the flesh of
all the beautiful things they owned then over the carcass of what remained
until the place was nearly bare.
During that horrible day Rebecca wondered how her
mother could so easily part with all those things that she had just had to
have. Rebecca felt hopeless and helpless
and she was. After the house sold they
moved in with her father’s parents. All
sharing one room. They weren’t leaving
until school was out.
They quit going to their church. They stopped other things, but those things
were just a blur to the child. Her home
was gone. Her swing set that her father had built especially for her was gone
as was her special playhouse. Everything
was gone except for some clothes and their new table-model television.
One June morning in 1955, their large black 1949
Ford packed to the gills, the family headed south. Rebecca shared the backseat with her brother
and with the television sitting like a third child between them. Tears were running down her face as they
pulled out of her grandparent’s yard.
Her father picked up speed as he hit the main
road. The telephone poles went rushing
by as Rebecca looked out the window. She
wondered just how many telephone poles were between North Carolina and Florida.
To be continued ….
© Patty F. Cooper
Elizabethton, Tennessee
June 18th, 2014
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