Crystal Faircloth
Emma sat on the front porch watching her glass of sweet tea sweat in the mid-afternoon sun. She slipped one foot out of her cheap plastic flip-flops and pressed it into the darkening puddle that spread ever so slowly next to her chair. With careful precision, she raised the wet foot and stamped a perfect impression into the dry boards of the weathered white porch.
She was bored today. The harvest had already been brought in from the fields, and the last of the season’s tobacco sat drying in the packhouse. Daddy said she should spend more time around Mama learning to be a proper housewife instead of rooting around in the dirt all day with him and the fieldhands, but Emma had no desire to be anyone’s wife yet. Instead, she longed for knowledge.
She was a 17-year-old high school graduate with the heart of a lion. She had scraped and earned every penny she could since she was a little girl to buy a vehicle that would drive her right out of the little podunk town, and straight into the arms of the University of North Carolina. Tarheel nation was where she was headed, and her 1979 black Chevy pickup sat in the worn dirt driveway waiting to take her there.
Daddy dared her nary a glance when Emma first broached the subject of college. Abner felt his daughter was better suited to marry one of the local boys and take over the farm when he was too old to wonder the crops himself anymore. He figured it was a passing fancy and she would give up the goat eventually. It wasn’t until an acceptance letter arrived in the mail that he finally realized he couldn’t reign in his strong-willed daughter.
Abner and Sue had no other children, so they poured all the love and care they had in the world into raising Emma and taking care of the farm. They taught her how to grow corn from seed, and birth calves in the middle of a hurricane. They brought her up smart and strong, and she could outshoot any lady, or man for that matter, for miles around. But the poor child never seemed satisfied to hide underneath her mama and daddy’s wings. She was anxious and restless to get out in a world she had never seen before.
Emma would take her leave in a week. Fall classes started up the day after she was set to arrive, and Mama had followed her around with watery eyes as she helped her plan and pack for the trip. The ladies had secured her a new wardrobe for the coming days. One could never have enough blouses, skirts, and stockings.
Sue had prayed every night for her daughter. Emma was the young version of herself right down to the same hopes and dreams that she had wished for once upon a time. The farm originally belonged to Sue’s parents, and her father had the same aspirations for her that Abner had for their own daughter. Emma was going to break the mold and though she was happy for her, she couldn’t stand to see her baby grow up.
Emma now sat on that old front porch watching the impression of her foot dry in the evening breeze. She wondered if her mother or grandmother had ever made their own footprint in those withered boards. She was jostled out of her thoughts as the familiar creak of the faded rocker groaned under her daddy’s weight.
Emma stared on into the horizon across the empty fields listening to the steady thump of the rocker’s tempo. Tears sprung into her eyes as Abner finally slowed the chair’s pace to a stop. Tension had run high between the two, and their disagreements as of late had often ended up with Emma red-eyed and rosy-cheeked from crying.
She began to rise from her seat when Abner placed a hand on his daughter’s shoulder stopping her from making an escape. The silent was thick, and the crack of her daddy’s voice was a surprise to her ears as she readied herself for yet another battle. But this one never came.
“I love you girl. Don’t you forget that. I’m proud of you too. Just took me a while to figure out how to let my baby go,” he said. Emma weighed his words carefully, shocked by the kindness radiating from the man before her. For weeks they had been at each other’s throats. This was the Daddy speaking that she had always known and loved. “I love you too Daddy. I promise I’ll do my best while I’m there. Just because I’m leaving doesn’t mean I’m not coming back,” she replied.
The weight of her words went straight to his heart. He knew the meaning behind them. She would come back to visit, but then she would go back to the life she was building for herself away from the world that she had grown up in. “She will thrive,” he thought to himself. “And if she decides to run back to these fields again, Sue and I will be right here to welcome her home.”
“Well, let’s go grab a piece of that apple pie your mama’s been slaving over all day,” he said as he lifted his rugged hat from the knee of his dirty jeans. Emma felt as though the elephant had finally been taken off her chest for the first time in forever. “That sounds fine. Just fine,” she repiled.
Abner held the door for her as they made their way inside. The glass of sweet tea was long melted, and the boards were dry as a bone, but the memory just made there would still linger on.
