Page 50 of The Next Chapter

Jessie was the cute one. The baby of the family.

And me? I was the difficult one. The one born in a storm.

I didn’t mean to be a problem. I was always just under Ma’s feet, in the way. And if we were all playing, I’d be the one to fall and rip my dress.

Pa wasn’t around a lot. He was a singer so he went where the work was. Did a few stints in prison too. I sometimes wondered how Ma managed to have so many babies, seeing how much time she spent on her own with us.

There were some happy times too, course there was.

Ma had this garden at the front of the house that was real beautiful. Pa used to say that she’d grow a flower from a stone given half the chance. Sometimes, she’d let me help her. That’s when I didn’t feel in the way so much. When me and Ma would plant in the garden together. Growing flowers from tiny little seeds.

But it was hard too. I think we all felt like the walls of the house might fall down at any time. It was this rickety old thing. Down a path that got so dusty in the summer. It’s not like here, where houses are built of bricks or stone, solid like. The wood was nailed together for a wall, and here and there you could see the outside through it. It had been in Ma’s family for decades. They’d been farmers and it was the old farmhouse.

Pa was no farmer, though. I reckon Ma’s parents thought him a right flighty thing. He had these big ideas about how the world should be, but he never bothered so much with all of us in the farmhouse. The world at home. I know that now, looking back. At the time, I think I blamed Ma for driving him away. For never smiling when he came home and always nagging at him to fix this or to get a proper job. It got to the point where all they did was argue.

I guess that’s why he started coming home less and less.

I think I was about twelve when he stopped coming home at all. He didn’t even take his guitar with him. One day he just got up after supper and walked out of the door.

Didn’t look back.

* * *

‘Do you mind if we stop there?’ Lola asks and I jolt.

‘Of course.’ I reach to turn off the recording, finding it harder than I should to look Lola in the eye.

It’s just… sad. I’d known that Lola’s family were poor, you can find it out on any internet search of her: ‘Lola Starr grew up in poverty on the outskirts of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.’ But hearing it brought to life… It makes Lola more real than I was prepared for.

‘It’s nice that you come from a big family,’ I say, even though we’re not really meant to pass comment on what the clients have revealed. My eyes flicker to the guitar again. I wonder if that was her dad’s?

‘I don’t know, all those little ’uns put me off babies for life.’

It’s a throwaway comment, but I feel it sting like a slap to my cheek.

Lola must realize that she’s said something to upset me because she says, ‘I’m not trying to make anyone feel sorry for me.’ I have to look at her, then. She’s clasped her hands together, linked her fingers so tightly that her knuckles are pulled taut.

‘I know, don’t worry,’ I say, forcing myself to relax. It’s not like I don’t already know that she left. It’s hardly a surprise to hear that she doesn’t like babies. ‘This is your story,’ I tell Lola, because she still looks troubled, shifting around on her stool, hands still tight. Even the dog seems restless, he’s twitching away in his sleep. ‘It’s your recollections that we’re noting down here. We can work it however you want.’

‘I want it to be the truth.’ She looks at me then with piercing blue eyes. Like she’s willing me to believe her.

‘The truth,’ I agree.

Heck, it’s not always the case. Chances are, in most instances, people might tweak things to make themselves look better than they really are. And I get it. Who wants to come across as anything but the hero in their own life story? Even when people say they want the truth, they don’t mean it. That’s our job. To give people a starring role in their own lives. But something tells me that when Lola says she wants the truth, she means it.

‘Well, I’ll work on typing this up,’ I tell her. ‘There should be enough here for a first chapter. If it’s okay with you, I’ll add some context. Describe Baton Rouge in the seventies, that sort of thing?’

Lola nods, standing up. ‘I’ve got a picture of us all that you can see, if it would help?’ she asks.

‘Absolutely.’ I aim for professional, thinking that it comes off far too breathless. Lola doesn’t seem to notice. I’m going to see more of my family! I think, my palms suddenly clammy. My insides squirm as Lola pulls out a black, worn notebook from underneath a pile on a bookshelf and thumbs her way to the back page.

‘I think it’s in… ah yes, here it is. Y’all can keep it for a while if it would help.’

Holding it between her thumb and forefinger, Lola passes me the picture. It’s in colour, but that sort of watered-down colour that makes it seem like everything in the past took place in sepia.

There they all are.

Stood in front of a one-story wooden house, with long grass pushed up against the front and a window shutter hanging on its hinges, there’s Lola’s family.