After Camille's First Visit

I was halfway back to Oklahoma City when I had to stop the car. I was shaking so badly that I could barely grasp the steering wheel. My head was spinning and my heart was racing. I still wanted to run away, but I also wanted to stay. I wanted to help her. And I wanted to shake her and ask her why she couldn’t help herself and solve her own problems without having to drag everyone into her messes. I loved her. And I hated her. And I was so angry at her for making me feel this way, and at myself for allowing it to happen.

I got out, paced a bit on the side of the road and took some deep breaths. After about fifteen minutes, I managed to pull myself together enough to get back on the road. The thoughts and emotions were still there, though. Had I really thought that I could just pop in to say ‘hi’ and leave it like that? What really brought me here in the first place? Was it some kind of morbid curiosity? I couldn’t answer that. I still can’t. And, to this day, a part of me wishes I’d never set foot in that place.

As I drove, SueAnn’s life played out in my head like some kind of strange movie. I kept trying to pinpoint exactly when things went south for her. It was hard to tell. Maybe there was no exact moment. Maybe it was all meant to be. Maybe she was born under a bad sign or something stupid like that.

As children, we were pretty typical. We lived in a rural community in North Mississippi and all the other children our age were boys. Needless to say, being girly girls was not an option for us. We climbed trees, we got into fist fights, played war and cowboys and Indians. My mother wasn’t fond of the fist fights, but she didn’t mind the rest of the tomboy stuff. Aunt Paula didn’t care about any of it. Probably because she paid no attention whatsoever.

Ninny, on the other hand, paid plenty of attention. She desperately wanted us to be proper little girls and behave accordingly. She dressed us up and dragged us to church. I can’t tell you how many times we came home on Sunday with grass stains on our dresses from rough housing with the boys in the church yard. She also tried to teach us to cook and sew. Every single lesson ended with us sneaking out the door the first time she turned her back. She never stopped trying, though.

I guess we were twelve or thirteen when things started to feel different. Our bodies were changing and our friends became more interested in popping our bras and less interested in being our friends. I didn’t quite understand the changes, but I also didn’t have much opportunity to process them. That was the summer that my parents divorced. My sister and I moved into town with our mother just before school started that fall. I focused my attention on academics and SueAnn focused her attention on boys.