Excerpt from Aunt Dee, a Recently Published Novel by Stacy Davis

“She left for milk, and never made it back home, Sheryl…” That’s all he would ever tell me. I know it was a car crash, but I don’t know how it happened.  My daddy would never tell me, but I also never bothered to ask him, or anyone else for that matter. My mama was gone; that was all that mattered.
I have a hard time remembering what her voice, my Mama’s that is, sounds like sometimes, but I will never forget how beautiful she was. I keep a picture of her tucked away in my underwear drawer and I look at it every night before I go to bed. I may not remember what mama’s voice sounded like—but I will never, ever forget her lovely smile. My daddy wouldn’t give me the picture at first, so I took it from his wallet one night when he was sleepin’.  I know he knows I took it, but I also know he let me keep it.  He’s too mad at me to even ask for the picture back. He’s still too angry to admit she’s gone; to forgive me.
Because my daddy had such a hard time with my mama dyin’, Aunt Dee stepped in to help raise me in the years when I needed a mama most. Every mornin’ Stretch would come to my door with two biscuits, an apple, and a container a’ butter from Aunt Dee. We’d sit together, Stretch and I, and eat our feast, then set off back to his house where Aunt Dee would watch us on the long summer days when the sun didn’t set until the men on the river decided it was time to quit fishin’. Nice woman, Mother Nature, lettin’ those men fish for so long.
Stretch and I loved watchin’ em’.  We’d lay out in the sand on the river bank and dig our toes into the soil until we finally hit a patch wet enough to cool our feet.  It amazed me, still does, how the sun doesn’t disappear until the last man wades his way outta the water, stringer in one hand, pole in the other.  Then when the last man left and the sun went to bed, Stretch and I would walk hand in hand back to Aunt Dees where she’d cook us popcorn on the stove and tell us stories til’ we couldn’t keep our eyes open no more. Some nights I’d get so tired, Aunt Dee and daddy would let me stay over.  I’d fall asleep next to stretch, snugglin’ up to his flannel shirt he’d let me hold and soakin’ in his scent—saw dust and rain. Those nights were my favorite. Those nights are what made Aunt Dee more my mama than anyone ever had been. I know my daddy loved me, and he tried real hard, but there were times when only Aunt Dee could fix the pain.