Momma sat in the basement while poetry swirled around her but she wasn’t attentive to it.  Snatches of phrases would pass through her mind, holding her attention for an instant and then fade quickly away as the image of the boy she had met that night rose in front of them.  Green eyes, blonde hair, earnest to a fault and she knew it.  Momma saw through his bravado into the little boy underneath, that little boy who was trying hard to be a man.  She knew he was pointing his energies in the wrong direction, and yet, she was endeared and even somewhat inspired by him.  Momma left the poetry reading soon after the Daddy and Wayne had, unable to focus on the words, unsure of whether she would ever see Wayne again, but knowing that something was now different.  The path her life had been traveling seemed to be turning into an unknown wood and she wasn’t sure what manner of creature or adventure she might meet there…


Wayne and Horace stepped inside their mother’s house where she was waiting for them at the kitchen table, eyes downcast, shelling purple hull peas for their after church Sunday dinner.  Her hands knew what they were doing and had developed a rhythm with this task over the years so that the sound of the peas hitting the bottom of the metal pan created a cadence, a rhythm that seemed out of place with the peaceful surroundings of the kitchen.  Fran’s eyes, which in her youth could be described as sparkling, the brightness having now faded into a faint sheen turned to her youngest son.  Her hands kept up their rhythm of shelling the peas.  

Wayne avoided looking into his mother’s eyes.  Horace shifted his weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other not sure whether he should remain in the room or not.  Three groups of peas peas spilled out of their shell into the pan .  A bed of peas now lay in the bottom of the pan and so the cadence had become less sharp.  Fran seemed to take their cue.  “Just go to bed boys.  I’ve said it all before.”

Wayne bolted from the kitchen to his bedroom up the stairs,  his feet out of time with the cadence of the peas.  Horace looked at his mother.  She smiled at him and a softness came back into her eyes.

“It’s going to be OK son.  I’m not fighting it any more.  Wayne will become what he will become.  He’s getting to big for me to make a difference now.  The next few years may be rough, but we’re going to let him be.”

“Mom…”

“Just let him be, Horace.”

“Alright.”  Horace walked over to the sink and stared out the window just above it.  He could make out the faint outline of the garage in the yard and the large pecan tree behind it.  The tree looked like a dragon ready to swallow the garage in the shadows of the night.

“What else, son?”

“I met a lady tonight.  I barely spoke to her, but she just…”

The peas continued their cadence into the pan.  Fran looked up at her son.  He turned around to face her.  A smile pushed up one side of her mouth.  She looked back at her work.

“It’ll be alright, son.”

Horace looked at his Mom, the one who had always known without him speaking, took a deep breath and walked out of the room and up to his bedroom.  He didn’t sleep that night.