Morganton Winters
by Michael Robinson
The air still tasted like winter. Browning Christmas trees were peppered along the streets waiting to be collected, but the peach trees were already beginning to blossom. Morganton was never cold, but seventy-six degrees in mid-January was unusual even in the south. While the farmers were up in arms about their crops, the rest of Morganton embraced the early spring. The boys walked around in t-shirts and shorts showing off the muscles they’d gotten during football season, the girls found countless excuses to wear the mini-skirts their mothers disliked, and that Saturday everyone made it down to Milburn’s creek for a cookout. Morganton wasn’t a utopia—it was just warm.
It was a habit of Bobby’s to go down to the creek, which ran behind his house. A path led from his back steps to an opening in the trees. As a boy, Bobby and is mother would hold hands as they ran down to the creek each afternoon. The creek is where Bobby learned how to eat honeysuckle, and that blowing three kisses at a Cardinal would grant him any wish he wanted. The path had become narrower over the years, his mother’s footsteps overtaken by grass.
The death was an accident. Bobby’s father, Patrick, thought he could fix anything. So when his wife Lisa told him that some of the electrical sockets in the kitchen kept shorting out, he took it upon himself to fix them. He replaced the worn wires, but set them in backwards. When Lisa went to plug in the toaster 500 volts of electricity surged through her fingers traveling to her heart. Bobby could remember how the lights flickering on and off woke him that morning. The house was filled with the smell of burning flesh. Bobby ran to the kitchen to see his mother lying on the ground, the ends of her hair singed, her mouth gaped open. The toaster lay on her side.
Doctors, police, everyone knew it was an accident, but Patrick never got over it. He boxed up most of her things, pictures, dresses anything that reminded him of her. The pillow she slept on was all Bobby could salvage. Her smell was vivid; he could nearly feel her hair brushing against his cheek as if in a hug, or a soft kiss goodnight. The pillow was all Bobby had left, but as time passed the fabric smelled more like him than his mom. The creek was the place where he felt closest to her, the only place Bobby felt he could say anything, and sometimes, he swore it talked back.
As Bobby approached his spot, he heard a sound in the water. This didn’t faze him, as it was often the case that the kids in town were down here playing paintball. But this was not the sound of feet tearing through the creek, but the rhythmic ratcheting of a fishing pole. As Bobby rounded the bend he saw a girl he’d never seen before. She sat on a tree stump just feet away from the water, shadows of leaves danced on her bronzed arms. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail. He inched closer, careful not to disturb her. She brought her arm back for another cast. Bobby watched as the tension grew in her shoulder. The thin clear wire looked silky as it traveled away from her. Bobby searched for the hook, but it was lost in the sun. He found it. It seemed so close. So close that
as she whipped the rod forward the hook got caught in Bobby’s arm. The fake night crawler lure wiggled as the hook tore through. He screamed, and she jumped.
“What are you doing,” she yelled.
“Why are you yelling at me I’m the one with a hook in my arm,”
“Well, that wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t sneaking around back there,” she said.
Bobby ripped away the sleeve of his shirt to get to the hook. He winced as he tried to remove it.
“Let me see it,” she said,
“No I got it.”
“Don’t be stupid, you’ll never get it out doing it like that,” she said. She reached into her tackle box and got a small pair of scissors. “These hooks are barbed, so you can’t just yank ‘em out.” She snipped the line.
“Now hold still.” She placed her hands on Bobby’s arm. He looked on as she grabbed the hook’s sharp end and slowly pulled it through his skin. Her hair was dark brown almost black, and shimmered in the sunlight. She looked at him, her eyes the color of tupelo honey. Goosebumps ran up his arms. Bobby didn’t know what this feeling was. His mother had once said that when people get nervous butterflies get in their stomachs. This felt like a million of them were stuck in a cigar box, all-fighting to get out.
