This post continues the short story I’m writing for practice, fun, and feedback.
[Click here to read a description of my journey to a short story.]
[Click here to read Part 1 of Dandelion Jam.]
[Click here to read Part 2 of Dandelion Jam.]
[Click here to read Part 3 of Dandelion Jam.]
On writing: With this section of the short story, I practiced writing descriptive paragraphs. Ruthie is in the kitchen with one of her aunts, and her observations tell more of the story. My goal is to write paragraphs that help the reader to see, hear, smell, feel, and taste Ruthie’s world. How is that done? I’m having a tough time with this, but it’s all part of the learning process.
I’ve used this section to introduce the story’s title and how it might fit in. Dandelion Jam started as the working title (I just grabbed two words), but I like it and want to work it in somehow. What I’ve done with it here is just a way to get me thinking about the work-in.
In the story’s chronology, this section is part of the afternoon that occurs between Part 2 and Part 3. I skipped Ruthie’s afternoon because I couldn’t wait to start writing her mother into the story (Part 3), which would be an evening setting.
When I began this journey to a short story, I thought the story would be just that: a short write. Now I have it in Scrivener to keep all of my ideas organized. A long short story? Several short stories? A novel?
There’s the beauty of being a writer: I can take my story wherever I’d like it to go.
∞
Dandelion Jam, Part 4
The first thing a visitor noticed upon entering the front door of Ruthie’s house was the grand staircase, its deep pinewood shining and beckoning the visitor to the second floor. To the right were French doors that opened into a large living room with a fireplace that welcomed on the coldest of evenings.
Most of the time, the visitor continued straight through the hallway and to the rear of the home where the kitchen was located. “Life begins and ends in the kitchen at the Reed house,” Minnie informed her visitors. She was always ready to tell her kitchen stories: the birth of Brent-Mitchell there on the floor, and how she had witnessed her brother-in-law’s accident while she stood at the sink washing dishes. She was quick to throw in her day-to-day observations so that her listeners wouldn’t dwell on the ugly events. The telling of those stories was her way of dealing with the grief, she told Ruthie. “The more I share it, the less I have to carry.”
The pressing chair held a place of honor in Minnie’s kitchen. She had been the one to insist on having her mother’s chair there and not in the living room. Lilly argued with her, but in the end, Minnie had her way. There was no resisting her explanation that Mother Eugenia would rather be sitting with the rest of them (“She’s still here in spirit,” Aunt Minnie would say) than gathering dust in an underused living room.
Ruthie’s turn in the pressing chair came once a week, usually after lunch on Saturdays. After her morning’s disappointment, she was glad to be cooped up inside and out of view.
“Aunt Minnie’s not hurting you, now is she, Ruthie?”
“Nope.” Ruthie grimaced.
“You let me know if it hurts.”
Minnie refused to use chemicals in her hair styling: “You ever read the ingredients on the box? And you want me to put that on your hair? Uh-uh. No way. Who you gonna come and yell at when your hair all falls out? Yeah. I thought so.”
Ruthie tried her best to keep her head still as Minnie worked her hair. She knew her aunt looked forward to their time together, even though barely a word was said between them. Minnie had a technique and couldn’t be disturbed with chit-chat once she got started. Ruthie didn’t mind. She had heard her aunts discuss Minnie’s plan to own a beauty shop. Fixing Ruthie’s hair gave Minnie the opportunity to slip away, back some 40 years, before Digger came along and put a stop to her dream.
Ruthie felt behind her legs and rubbed each of the twelve rivets along the edge of the chair. This year her age finally matched their number. She tapped her feet against the chair’s legs, keeping in rhythm with her aunt’s methodical combing. Minnie kept the chair so well-polished that Ruthie, after a pressing, could stick pennies to the back of her legs and make Brent-Mitchell and Junior laugh at the sight.
The smoke from the hot comb hung like a layer of fog. Aunt Minnie shook the comb for cooling and then ran it section by section through Ruthie’s hair. The mixture of hot iron and oiled hair gave off an aroma that was only pleasant in its familiarity. Ruthie didn’t mind the smell or the sizzling. For her it was the means to a hopeful end.
During her turns in the pressing chair, Ruthie tried to look at everything in the kitchen at least once before she settled on her father’s photograph. Antique salt and pepper shakers, flower vases made from glass jars, a yellowed clock radio, cookbooks arranged by height across the counter, pot holders and dish towels in Minnie’s favorite blues and yellows, the ceramic cat dish near the screen door, and the calendar from 1963 that shared a picture and a verse describing God’s majesty. She imagined where each item had originated and what caused Minnie to care so much that it ended up in her “museum,” one of the nicknames she had for her kitchen.
Her eyes moved to the photograph when she could no longer resist. His face rested in the frame she had given him a year ago last February. It had been the sixth day of the month, his birthday, and a fine one in its beginning. She smiled as she remembered the occasion for the photograph and then felt the hole in her soul begin to widen, as it did whenever she thought of him.
“Daddy.” Ruthie said the name silently. She closed her eyes and saw him walking into the kitchen. He lifted her up and she kissed the rough skin of his cheek. She saw how his skin color matched hers and felt his silky hair which never needed pressing.
Then her mind did a switch, which she couldn’t control. She saw the blood and she saw the metal protruding through his chest. She saw Brent-Mitchell against the broken railing, his eyes wide with fear. She felt the heaviness of her father’s weight as she tried to lift him.
She heard him say, “[Author’s note: This is one of the keys to the story and I haven’t decided yet what I want him to say, and I don't want to put in a filler. Sorry!].” She saw his eyes close, her mother crying, and the blackness that surrounded her in clothing, cars, and sky. It rained on the day that Jerome Eric Baxter was lowered into his resting place.
Minnie ended the pressing ritual, and Ruthie’s lament, with her usual three taps on Ruthie’s head.
“Okay, sweetheart. You’re done.”
“Thanks, Aunt Minnie.”
Ruthie walked over to the kitchen mirror and stared at her reflection. Her hair was free of wayward curls for another few days. She hoped the straightness wouldn’t revert before she saw Dylan again.
“Ow-w! DAN-de-lion ja-am!”
Ruth turned around and saw her aunt sucking one of her fingers.
“Aunt Minnie, did you burn it?” She approached her aunt with a look of concern.
“Yes, but I’m good. I’m good. Happens every time, don’t it?” Minnie walked to her refrigerator, filled a plastic bag with ice and placed it on the burn spot.
“What’s dandelion jam?”
“Dandelion jam. Oh, it’s not what you think.” Minnie laughed and poked Ruthie’s nose. “Honey, you ever hear me cuss?”
Ruthie thought for a moment. “No.” It was the first time that had occurred to her. No curse, toward any person or any thing, had come from the mouth of her aunts.
“Well, your grandmother Eugenia didn’t allow cussing. ‘The Lord didn’t make your mouth for cussing,’ she said. ‘He made it for praise.’ Cussing just meant you weren’t smart enough to explain yourself, that you weren’t reading enough. That’s what Mother said. So when we got mad, we’d just say so and be done with it. Now, Digger, she’s been cussing for so long, she just needs a new word or two. And ‘dandelion jam’ is one of my ways to help her stop.”
“She does say a lot of bad words.” Ruthie liked to say those words herself when she was mad, but not so anyone could hear them. She remembered her mother’s look of disappointment when she let one slip out during an argument about chores. Saralisa cussed out loud and said it made her feel grown up.
“Digger’s been reading that Bible and she wants to change some of her ways.” Minnie sat down at the breakfast table and checked the skin burn. “Get me some butter.”
Ruthie took a dish from the counter and a salad knife from the utensil drawer. She placed it near her aunt. “Dandelion jam. That sounds funny.”
“Well, you start listening for it.” Minnie sliced a pat of butter and rubbed it into the burn. “Ah. That feels better.”
Ruthie had long ago stopped thinking that the actions of her aunts were peculiar. “Family is all you get for free in life,” Ruthie’s mother explained. So she loved them, even though she didn’t quite understand them. She reached over and took a turn rubbing the butter into her aunt’s skin. She licked her fingertips and wiped them on her pant legs. Hair pressing time was over.
“Bye, Aunt Minnie.”
Minnie looked up at Ruthie with a solemn expression. “Don’t let me catch you cussing, Ruthie,” she said. “This is still Mother Eugenia’s house. You hear?”
“I hear, Aunt Minnie.” Ruthie started on her way out of the kitchen, slowly and thinking over her aunt’s admonition. She stopped at her father’s photograph and traced over the lettering that spelled out her endearment: Jerome Baxter, M.D. and D.A.D. Love, Ruthie!
Then, she had an idea. She played with it for a minute and then walked back to the breakfast table.
“Aunt Minnie?”
“Yes, honey?”
“Let’s make some. Right now.”
*****
End of Part 4 (Draft 1)
© 2012 Darla McDavid
Kevin
/ February 12, 2012This could easily be a written novel. Very nice piece to start.
Darla McDavid
/ February 12, 2012Thank you, Kevin, for reading it. I appreciate knowing what others think. It does seem like a good start for a novel, but I don’t yet have a compelling plot to weave through it — mainly because I don’t know much about novel writing. Time to do some research!
elroyjones
/ February 12, 2012Darla, tears in my eyes again! Aunt Minnie reminds me of the older women in my family. The butter remedy for her burn made me grin, I remember that remedy. Inventive way to reveal the title, creative demonstration of writing without profanity, ties nicely into your FB post.
I could smell Ruthie’s hair as Aunt Minnie dressed it, could feel the rivets on the chair, saw the light in glass jar flower vases and smelled the clean cotton of Minnie’s blue and yellow dish towels. That cat is likely finicky- gobbling the tinned food and turning it’s nose up at the less expensive dry food.
The beginning description of the entrance to Ruthie’s home and the journey to the kitchen is slightly stilted. I love the elements of her house and I can visualize the staircase, the french doors, the fireplace and the hall to the kitchen. It seems like there are too many words obstructing those welcoming elements. This is what I came up with when I played with it-
Visitors to Ruthie’s house were greeted by a grand shining pinewood staircase inviting exploration of the second floor. On cold evenings, french doors to the right of the stairway beckoned company to linger by the warmth of the fireplace in the living room.Despite the beauty of the front of the house the hall leading back to the kitchen was the most traveled path in her home. “Life begins and ends…” When I get stuck, I try to decide which words I can afford to cut without losing meaning or if I can combine sentences to conserve words.
Your dialogue is lyrical. I was surprised to learn Ruthie is 12 because she tucked cigarettes into her socks in Part 1 then I remembered a few things from when I was 12.
I love your writing and I’m dying to know what Ruthie’s dad said. Dandelion Jam is a really good story, good for you!
Darla McDavid
/ February 12, 2012Thanks again for your feedback! You’re right about that beginning being stilted, so I’ll be sure to flesh it out. I searched online for a photo of an old house and found one I liked for their home. It’s hard to keep the description from sounding like a real estate ad! I also found a photo of an old English throne chair for Minnie’s pressing chair, which I want to capture in the next drafts. The chair is beautiful and I’d love to be able to describe it in text. Practice, practice.
Yes, I decided that Ruthie is 12. The cigarettes will come into play as she deals with Saralisa. I’m going to change Saralisa’s name as I found out there’s a popular actress with that name.
Her father’s dying words — I want to know, too! Part 1 mentions “that sharp conviction in her soul, placed there by her father one February day.” I wrote that sentence not knowing a thing about where this story was going, but now we have the connection. I’m having fun writing this –it’s like working a puzzle — and I appreciate so much your compliments and encouragement!