Tracie Renee

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Sunday Dinner:
Fritters and Grits

Meals are crowded now that the ghosts dine with us. I set extra places for them just like Ma taught us: plate, cup, fork, spoon, knife. The ghosts touch nothing, eat nothing, and Ma at least lets me and Jolie stick the still-clean dinnerware back in the cupboard at meal’s end. But Jolie don’t like it all the same and steams every time like a kettle ‘bout to boil over.

Ma says the empty plates are how we set a boundary, how we show them ghosts their place and keep ‘em there.

None of the ghosts are dead. They still have names that Ma repeats like prayers in the front porch rocker when she thinks me and Jolie ain’t listening. There’s Grandpa Ed, that drank too much. Grandma Dot, that done diddly ‘bout the drinking. Uncle Bill, who could make a body laugh hard and cry harder and we never knew which Uncle Bill to expect. Also Jolie’s last boyfriend, Randy, who Jolie still loves. And Pa, who I miss sometimes but mostly don’t. Like a scab I got used to picking at ‘til I picked it clean off.

Cruelty is shadows and ghosts sometimes, Ma likes to say. Ain’t always a barn cat with its tail all lit up.

Tonight Jolie pushes her plate away still piled high with fritters and grits and huffs, “Randy’d never do that. And Uncle Bill only did that once.”

“Once that we know of,” Ma corrects. “Not to mention all the times he—”

“Randy ain’t Uncle Bill, Ma.” Jolie hustles her piled-high plate to the sink. “Randy didn’t mean what he did and won’t do it again.”

“Think I’ve heard that line before.” Ma’s eyes narrow at Pa’s empty plate. “And there ain’t no knowing that for sure.”

Jolie empties her plate into the trash and slams the lid back onto the bin. “But Randy really loves me—”

She don’t get no further though cuz Ma’s done listening, already slipped out the kitchen door and onto the front porch. Every night since Ma threw Pa out and started setting boundaries, Ma spends her evenings in the front porch rocker, telling them ghosts all the things she never said out loud when they was flesh-and-blood-and-here. Then she sits and says nothing for a real long time, long after the sun slips off to bed and maybe long after Jolie and I slip off too. Sometimes I find Ma still in that chair at sun-up, staring hard at the place where the sky starts to bruise and the light leaks out.

“Randy loves me,” Jolie says again now. I ain’t sure if she’s talking to me or the ghosts or just to herself so I don’t say nothing back. At the sink, Jolie sets her jaw and starts scrubbing plates so hard I think maybe she’s gonna scrub them right to pieces.

When Ma first invited the ghosts to dinner, she warned us that deep-hurting things always leave a mark even if you can’t see it. Some scars you only feel; some are the way those feelings change you. Shadows and ghosts, Ma said.

I think Ma’s scar-shadow is the sitting and staring. I think Jolie’s is the angry-scrubbing and the big sigh that spills out when she does it. I think Randy smelled nice, like those little cologne samples in the magazines I seen at Buc-ee’s Gas ‘n Go. And I think it was nice how he always brought flowers for Jolie and Cokes for me and Ma when he came calling. But I don’t think he’s worth Jolie’s angry-scrubbing and big sighing, ‘specially not after the last time his nice turned mean.

Nevermind what I think though. Jolie’s still bristling like a cornered cur-dog. I dry the plates that Jolie washes and keep my mouth shut because what do you know Tillie, you’re just twelve.

Anybody ask me, what I know about scars is mostly the pale half-moon from the time I stepped barefoot on a rake. I gotta look hard to see it now but it’s never all the way gone. Scars are a long time hurting and a long time healing, so morning and night, Jolie and I set five extra places at the table and that’s how we practice sitting with our hurt.

It used to be four though. It was just four extra places, right up to the third time Jolie came home from a date busted up like a windfall peach.

Fell dancing in those heels, Jolie said. That was a split lip.

Then: Fell getting out of the truck – that was a shiner.

Then: Fell on the front steps – that was a chipped tooth.

Thing was, Jolie didn’t look Ma in the eye once when she said them things. Her lies steamed like July cow patties, and even I could smell ‘em.

Awful lotta falling, Ma said. Randy became the fifth ghost that night.

Now Jolie’s got a new crown on the chipped tooth. You can’t even tell by looking that it was ever broke, but it weren’t that long ago really. She breathes shallow when she thinks we aren’t watching, like her ribs are still tender. From all that falling.

And Randy’s still an empty plate next to four other ghosts that Ma’s teaching us not to feed.

Monday Breakfast:
Shoulda Been Flapjacks but Made Do With Day-Old Corn Pone

The air is shiver-brisk when I’m up at first cockcrow. I pop a big old sweater over my nightgown and tell Jolie, “Flapjacks for breakfast cuz you know Ma’s sending us out to chop firewood even if it is your birthday”— but Jolie don’t answer. Don’t stir. In the room we’ve shared forever the window over her bed is flung all the way up and she ain’t there. Ain’t nowhere. Most of her stuff’s gone too this time.

Ma ain’t surprised when I tell her. Just nods, like she saw it coming.

I spread butter on yesterday’s corn pone and call that breakfast, eat it right over the sink cuz Ma heads straight for the rocker and ain’t no use setting the table just for me. The pone is cold and dry and crumbles in my mouth. Nothing tastes right when Jolie’s gone.

All day long I hear the rocker on the front porch wheezing under the weight of Ma’s sad. All day long she sits and stares and gives Jolie a talking-to that Jolie can’t hear. I only hear the bits loud enough to leak through the screen door. Things like, “This the example you wanna set for your sister?” And, “He gonna turn out just like your Pa, mark my words.” And, “This the life you want? I raised you better!”

But Jolie’s eighteen today. I guess that means she don’t gotta be here to listen.

Monday Dinner:
Hash and Greens Again

At dinner, I set the table like Ma taught us. One plate for Ma and one for me. One each for Grandpa Ed and Grandma Dot. One each for Pa and Uncle Bill. One for Randy. Ma comes inside to fry the hash but before we sit down to say grace, she pulls one more clean plate from the cupboard.

I sit next to my sister’s ghost at meals now.

It ain’t the first time Jolie’s run off but it is the first time she took sweaters. I ask Ma, “You think she’ll come back?”

Ma chews a long time before answering. At last, she says, “Not ‘til she learns love ain’t no punching bag. Ain’t holding my breath on it.” Then she clatters her fork down and looks me straight in the eye. “Ain’t no more room at this table for ghosts now, you hear?”

“Yes ma’am,” I say, cuz sure as shoot we’re squished tight like pickled green beans in a jammed-full jar.

I put the ghosts’ plates away and do all the washing up, all the drying too. Even though there’s less to wash, it takes twice as long without Jolie. I hope Ma’s wrong about the coming back.

On the porch, the rocker creaks so long my ears stop hearing it.

Almost Tuesday Breakfast:
Maybe Flapjacks?

Almost-October nights are still stifling hot like a hug you don’t want, like all the times before Pa was a ghost, all the times he’d pat his knee and say sit right here, Tillie, ain’t you a pretty thing, come closer and let me get a real good look at you.

I tell myself Pa ain’t here now but I guess I don’t all the way believe it cuz I get the shakes again. Which I guess is my scar-shadow.

Ma’s still sitting and staring, and Jolie ain’t here to rub my back ‘til I stop shaking, so I try those things Jolie read in a book once and said might help: thirty jumping jacks to get my body feeling something else; big, deep breaths; lists in my head of real things I see and touch and hear. Takes a while, but it works more than not and I’ll tell Jolie when she’s back. If back is what she wants.

For now, I open the window and fling it all the way up. I keep the light on too, so the ghosts and shadows don’t crowd in. I stand at the window a good while, thinking: Jolie’s out there somewhere and this light is on, maybe leading her through all that dark. Maybe bringing her home.

When Ma cracks the door to say goodnight, she don’t shut the window or flick the light off. She just shakes her head and says again, “Ain’t holding my breath”— but then she looks at the butter-bright light and nods. I nod back and hunker down in bed to wait. Or sleep. Not sure which.

Maybe Jolie’s gone for good this time. Or maybe she’ll be back for breakfast and we’ll finally get the griddle going and make those flapjacks. Only thing I know for sure is Ma and I keep that light on. We keep it on.

This piece was previously published by Elegant Literature

Tracie Renee (she/her) is a librarian, a Publishers Weekly book reviewer, and a BOTN-nominated writer who lives and dreams in sort-of Chicago. Find her in HAD, Orange Blossom Review and at https://linktr.ee/tracie.renee.
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