The Long Journey Home Read Online Free PDF

there was only a photograph hanging over the bed, a close-up of her head. She was lying on a rug with her long hair spread around her. She was movie-star glamorous like Lauren Bacall. I wished I was beautiful like Roberta.
    I loved being in her room. It felt like being in Hollywood. But even sleeping in Roberta’s room, I didn’t really like to spend the night at Uncle Frank’s. Only I felt guilty if I didn’t. He was Daddy’s brother, and Daddy loved him more than anything. Uncle Frank wore pajamas with stripes—white stripes and stripes the color of Welch’s grape juice. “Come here and sit on the bed with me,” he’d say. “Rub my head.”
    I walked past the Dunns’ house, with its strange tropical fruit tree that looked like a palm tree. Long woodlike things grew from it that looked like round-bottomed canoes stuck face-to-face. When the fruit was ripe the canoes burst apart; the orange fruit inside was about the size of a kumquat. Mr. and Mrs. Dunn were old, white-haired, and kind. They liked children and told me that I could come into their yard any time and eat the fruit. Sometimes I did, but notoften. The fruit had a strange taste and texture, but I loved sucking on its smooth black seeds, rolling them over and over with my tongue.
    Once Roberta’s younger sister, Marybell, caught me walking along the sidewalk just past the Dunns’ house. I was making up a play and saying all the parts aloud. I was so caught up in being those characters that I didn’t realize I was talking aloud, or how loud I was talking. I felt like dying when I saw Marybell on her horse, riding beside me, listening to every word I was saying. I’d not even heard the footsteps of her horse, an old white horse retired from Barnum & Bailey’s Circus, a horse with one pink eye and the other one blind. I didn’t want Marybell to know that I saw her. That would just make me feel worse. I clamped my mouth shut and walked on, looking straight ahead, trying hard to forget what had just happened.
    I remember the exposed roots of the oak tree that grew beside the dirt sidewalk where Mother pushed Bubba up and down in his carriage when he was a baby. I remember the fig tree from which my rope swing hung at The Old Home Place. I remember sunlight through the fig leaves. I remember the first time I saw my cousin Hugh’s butterfly collection—all those beautiful butterflies, dead, their exquisite wings forever pinned down in that box.
    But try as I do, I can’t remember what caused me the dreadful shame I felt. Maybe it’s just such a part of me now that I don’t need to remember what caused it any more than I need to remember that I have arms, legs, and feet.
VI
    My cousin Margaret, and her brothers, sisters, and parents, lived with her grandmother just down the street from us. Aunt Wyche, Margaret’s grandmother and my great-aunt, had an enormous two-story Greek revival house with tall white columns that rose magnificently just like those on Tara in
Gone with the Wind
. The yard was broadand had few flowers, only shrubs. Margaret and I played with our dolls on the grass in the cool shade of the old oak tree near the house. She had a Scarlett O’Hara doll with pale skin, a long yellow dress, pantaloons, and lips that Margaret had painted red with nail polish.
    Except for the bride doll that I hated, all of my dolls were boys. I had Hans, the Dutch boy with blond hair, blue pants, and real wooden shoes. There was Robin Hood, with his green tunic and a feather in his cap. Pedro, my Mexican doll, had a real straw sombrero and leather sandals. He was beautifully made, with stitching to define each toe and finger in the fabric of his dark skin. His body was stuffed with sawdust, his hair was black fuzz. A bright pink circle was painted on each cheek, and a cigar was stuffed in his open mouth.
    Margaret loved her Scarlett O’Hara doll.
    The role of Rhett Butler and those of the other leading men in our plays were reserved—comic as it might