South Writ Large will have a new issue out before long, so let me thank them again for publishing my short story “The Death of John Gardiner,” from the 2009 collection Parlous Angels:
That Christmas Eve was wet, and just cold enough that ice was a threat.
“Your mother fixed a good dinner,” John Gardiner said as Will Adams drove.
“She did. She usually does.”
Gardiner was silent except for his watery breathing. “I hope she knows how much her mother and I appreciate her,” he eventually said. He needed half a minute to say this, and he coughed when he was finished. When he finished coughing he took a puff on the cigar that he had snuck past his wife.
“I think she does,” Will said. “I know she’s happy to do it. She’s happy to be able to do it.”
John Gardiner nodded. He stared out the window, watching the thin woods and hemmed fields pass by, watching how the brown high grass of the Catawba valley had shrunk in this weather. Will wanted to think he was remembering the abundant woods and fields that filled the valley when he was a boy, and remembering how much he missed that abundance. Will wanted to think he was reflecting on how the woods and fields had receded since then, and reflecting on the part he had played in that. As a boy John Gardiner had helped his father bring trees down, haul them with hooks and chains out of the woods, and saw them into lumber. In his retirement he invested in development, in housing tracts, condos, and shopping centers. From Hickory to the west side of Charlotte he had helped remake the valley. Will wanted to think he was remembering deer hunts and turkey shoots . . .
Dixie Babble 
Leave a Reply