One day, a small tiger mosquito crawled onto my mother’s skin, possibly from the bully bay, the muhly grass, or just dropped in from the night sky and pierced her, taking her blood in tiny droplets and exchanging it for Yellow Fever.

It’s said that the fever started in East Africa somewhere and passed from land to sea, sea to land, person to person. Eventually, one mosquito in a long lineage of short-lived ancestry reached St. Augustine, Florida, and passed on this small dark gift to my mother.

March 26, 1929 

The Florida sun pulled itself over the horizon and caromed off the gaps in the wind-bounced palm fronds in the front yard. I can’t remember the last time I spent all night out. I put one hand on the doorframe and the culmination of the night’s adventures peeled tocsin through the front of my head to the back of my ears. Once inside, I made coffee and sat at the kitchen table until Papa came down at exactly 6:30, like he did every morning. Then Abby.

I heard the thwack-thwacking echo in the hallway, the unmistakable sound of bare feet slapping across wood floor in sloppy, unequal steps, then Abby appeared in the kitchen doorway. She rubbed her eyes, yawned, and plopped down at the kitchen table beside Papa. 

She laid her head on Papa’s shoulder, gave him a sloppy kiss on the cheek. “You smell sweet, Papa.” He half smiled and kissed her on the forehead.

Abby carried her body like a burden to be fully relinquished to gravity at every moment. So many plops, thwacks, and thuds, but her excessive physicality endeared me. Her stringy arms and legs like the tentacles of an 11-year-old in transit to womanhood. She dragged them around, not fully aware nor fully accepting their presence. A small rebellion against the measured attack of maturity. And I loved her for it.

“Did you get run over, Fitch? You look terrible,” Abby asked.

“Just a long night at the paper.” 

Papa cracked the speckled eggs against the counter and used both hands to pull the shells apart, and dropped the eggs in the skillet. The eggs sizzled like punk wood in a fire, breaking the morning silence. Papa wore his white dress shirt, starched to the brink of bone, and his blue tie. His brown hair, thinning slightly at the crown, was slicked back with Brylcreem and his black shoes shined to the sheen of Georgia marble. As the hotel manager for the St. Augustine Inn for over 10 years, he always took great pride in his appearance. 

“Papa, will mamma ever get better?” Abby said.

Papa looked over at me, then back at Abby; his upper lip collected air, and he quickly blew it out. “Abby, there are some things we need to talk about. Tough things. And I don’t know how to say ‘em.”

“Well, you just open your mouth and let the words out,” Abby said. “It don’t matter if they’re tough words; you still just say ‘em.”

Papa slid the eggs onto a plate and laid them on the table in front of Abby. He sat down, pulled her close. “I don’t understand it, Abby, but the Lord is calling your mamma home.”

“This is her home, Papa.”

“I mean, to her final home, Abby”

“Like mansion in the sky home?”

“Yes, like mansion in the sky home, that’s right.”

“Why would the good Lord want her so soon?”

“I wish I knew.”

“When is she leaving?”

“It could be as soon as tonight.”

Abby flung her arms around Papa’s midsection. Her face, covered slightly by her frizzy blonde hair, nestled deep into his chest.

I heard mamma moving in the other room. “I’ll check on her,” I said.

Mamma’s room was dark and smelled of candle wax and lilac water. “It’s me, Fitch,” I whispered. She stirred in the sheets. Her voice slipped past the comforter in broken lilt—leaving space for breath, “Would you … open the curtains?”

I pulled the curtains apart at the seam, rupturing the center. The clouds had rolled in, and the sky was half gray boned and tallow and half splinting light on the horizon. A light rain dappled the window. The dim low light illuminated the room, glinting a thousand particles floating in the air like planets in an endless galaxy.

“Can I read to you, mamma?”

She didn’t answer, but I took her Bible off the dresser, sat down beside the bed, and took her hand.

Later, when I came back to the kitchen, Aunt Liz and Uncle Ira were there, along with their twin girls, Ada and Anna. The twins were only three years old and kept Aunt Liz busy with endless games of peek-a-boo, children’s songs, and twin squabbling. The twins were dressed in matching twill jumpers with white shirts underneath. Anna was shy, but Ada was all chatter—she was also in the habit of repeating random phrases she picked up from others’ conversations. Uncle Ira and Aunt Liz tried to get her to stop months ago, but nothing worked. Soap in the mouth, spankings, then soft hugs, and finally begging and bribes of ice cream and peppermint sticks. Nothing. Aunt Liz and Uncle Ira did find a trick—they often spoke to one another in whispers to avoid their little mockingbird.

Later that morning, Doctor Kimball came to the house. He was a short, elderly man with a gray-flecked beard, fusty and spent. He came into the kitchen and sat his dusty medical bag, the one with rusted clasps, on the table like he had many times before, and stroked his beard. “I just need a few minutes alone with her,” he said. “Better to have you all in the kitchen for a bit.”

“I just need a few minutes. Few minutes—few minutes,” Ada repeated, without taking a breath. Aunt Liz looked up at Doctor Kimball and whispered, “Sorry. We can’t get her to stop.”

Doctor Kimball shrugged, lifted his dusty medical bag from the kitchen table, and vanished into the bedroom. Abby took the twins into the study to play with dolls, and we all waited and drank coffee and waited some more.

When Doctor Kimball came out of the bedroom, he walked back into the kitchen, placed his medical bag on the table again, and kept his head down. “It’s time to call the preacher, Lee. I’m sorry.”

“How long?” Papa asked.

“Not long.”

Doctor Kimball picked up his black bag one more time and looked at my father straight in the eyes, “Within the day, I imagine, but she’s in very little pain now.” Then the kind doctor walked through the study and out the front door—leaving us with a black hole in the room.

“Ira, will you get the preacher?” Papa said and covered his mouth with his hand.

Ira shook his head, took his coat off the post, put his hat on, and stepped out into the late morning Florida rain.

While we waited for the preacher, Aunt Liz prepared a lunch of fried bologna sandwiches, dill pickles, red chilies, and tomato soup. The rain let up, but the sky was still gray.

“Where’s that preacher?” Papa said, mostly to himself.

Aunt Liz lifted her hands, “Maybe he’s out of town?”

Truth be told, the preacher, Reverend Cavendish, as everyone in St. Augustine called him, was a stubborn man whom my mother often disagreed with passionately, but he was the only Baptist Preacher in St. Augustine she could tolerate. And she couldn’t stand him much. He was a rusty-browed teetotaler who believed everything was a sin except prayer, tithing, and a healthy meal. My mother’s progressive optimism had little room for church politics—her circles were much bigger than the ones he drew—especially when it came to things like alcohol and women’s rights. My mother wasn’t a heavy drinker, but she firmly believed an occasional drink was a gift from God. Could it be abused? Certainly, but so could food and power and pulpits, she would say. 

Ira returned alone.

“Well, where’s the preacher?” Papa asked.

Ira motioned Papa to come into the other room. I followed them.

“The reverend said he wouldn’t come … unless,” Ira said.

“Unless what?” Papa said.

“Unless Rose repents from her wayward views on alcohol,” Ira said. “The reverend called it church discipline.”

My father remained like a statue.

“I’m so sorry.” Ira said.

My neck tightened, and my stomach turned hot. The thought of the reverend refusing to comfort my mother in her final moments on earth turned something inside of me. I felt a brand of anger my heart had never known. My lips quivered, and tears burned hot trails down my cheeks. Then I wondered what my father would do.

Papa put his hand on my shoulder, and I could see something different and detached in his eyes. No tears. Face blunted. Like he was no longer present.

“Your mom can’t know about this, Fitch,” he said.

I nodded. “Should I find another preacher?”

“No. We’ll do all the preaching on our own,” he said.

I didn’t like the preacher much to begin with, I’ll admit, but there was comfort in knowing he would speak a blessing to our mother before she went to glory. When that blessing was held back, it felt like the cruelest thing in the world.

We walked back into the kitchen. The twins were still eating lunch. “The preacher can’t make it,” Papa said. “There’s an emergency in Ocala he needs to attend to.”

I’ve never heard my father lie so easily.

We decided to take turns sitting with mamma. She could still speak in low whispers, but her breathing was worse—sharp and sometimes heaving. Her hands were cold to the touch and the color drawn from her face.

The curtains stayed open, and the sun found its way through the clouds, piercing them in tiny slits. At dusk, the palms in the backyard stood like ancient shadows on the horizon.

Mom died on a Tuesday.

The sun had long been down when she breathed her last breath.

In the morning, when we heard the knock on the door, we all expected it to be Carl Truman from the funeral home.  

Instead, Reverend Cavendish stood quietly, without saying a word, clutching his tattered black Bible with both hands in front of his perfectly round belly on our front porch. He smelled of rubbing alcohol, and the white borax on his fingertips stood out against the black leather of the Bible he held and smudged it. He must’ve come straight from his taxidermy workshop. God help me, he was tending to dead birds, I thought.

Reverend Cavendish had a fetish for stuffing small birds to use as illustrations in his sermons. Over the years, I heard countless messages about the Green-tailed Towhee, Sage Thrasher, and even the Snow Bunting. Each one related to a passage of Scripture like the Sermon on the Mount, the perseverance of Job, or Rahab’s scarlet cord of mercy—using the Cut-throat finch, of course.    

Reverend Cavendish swayed back and forth, looking down, then to the side, fidgety, pecking the ground with his feet. He was a heavy man with wavy grey hair, a salt-and-pepper beard, and tiny, perfectly round spectacles the scale of pennies. His bottom teeth shot in every direction like weathered fence posts, but his upper teeth were straight, with a large gap between the front two—creating a subtle lisp.

“I heard the news, Fitch, my deepest condolences,” he said, and squinted his eyes, then shook his head.

“You’re too late,” I said and started to slam the door when Aunt Liz grabbed it.

“I’m so sorry,” Aunt Liz said, and gave me a look.

“May I come in?” the Reverend said, “Please.”

Aunt Liz stepped into the doorway, “Fitch, make room for the preacher,” she said and pointed to the back of the house. The Reverend put his head down and shuffled sideways to make it through the door, into the foyer, and past the kitchen without a word. I followed.  

My father sat by the bed with his head down, holding my mother’s hand, waiting for the funeral director. The room still smelled of lilac water and candle wax, but my mother was no longer present in her body. When the Reverend entered the room, my father looked up, but he didn’t say a word. Didn’t even look surprised.

“I’m so sorry for your loss, Lee,” the Reverend said, “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.”

There was silence.

Then the Reverend opened his Bible to prepare a reading. My father stood up. I knew this wasn’t going to end well, but instead of walking toward the Reverend, my father went over to his cherry dresser and started opening drawers. My father moved around some white T-shirts, clearly looking for something, going from drawer to drawer, and the Reverend continued to turn pages—both searching but oblivious to the actions of the other.

Then I saw my father pause and pull out his old John Browning .38. Before my hands knew what they were doing, I approached the Reverend and jerked the Bible out of his palm. He looked at me and then back to his naked hand in disbelief. I walked out of the room and into the study. The Reverend followed.

“How dare you, Fitch!” the Reverend yelled.

I turned to face him. “You shouldn’t be here,” I said.

“It is my duty to bring comfort to God’s children at times like this, Fitch!”

“Why didn’t you come when she needed you? When she called for you to come two days ago? Or when we called for you yesterday morning?” I said.

“I can’t expect you to understand church discipline, but it was for the glory of God that I refused to come earlier.”

He reached for his Bible, and I pulled it back. “There’s no glory in refusing my mother a final blessing,” I said.

“This conversation isn’t pleasant for me, Fitch, but if you must know, your mother’s sinful ways kept me from coming to her side. She was offered many opportunities to repent, mind you, but she refused.”

“My mother didn’t have sinful ways,” I said.

“When we passed the petition for church members to abstain from all worldly sin, she refused to sign,” the Reverend said.

“She didn’t sign, because she didn’t like you bossing people around.”

My father walked in, bearing no pistol, and placed his hand on my arm and whispered, “It’s alright, Fitch.”

I squeezed the thick leather Bible in my hand and shoved it into the Reverend’s belly. I nearly knocked the wind out of him.

The Reverend gathered himself and pointed his finger inches from my face. “You, sir, just brought the wrath of God on yourself,” the Reverend said, now red-faced and shaking, “Only a fool reproaches the Lord’s anointed!”

I’ve never laid my hands on a man of the cloth, not before and not since, but I grabbed the Reverend by his collar and dragged him like a feed sack out of the study and through the foyer and into the kitchen. Aunt Liz looked up from the kitchen table like a pillar of salt.

“Please open the door,” I said.

Liz, speechless, opened the door. I took the Reverend outside as the sun was pushing over the horizon. I let go of his collar and tossed him into the yard. His glasses fell to the ground. The Reverend stumbled but didn’t fall. His mouth gaping. The commotion roused a flock of gulls along with a snowy egret with its bright yellow legs and pure white body. The egret flashed its wings and flew gracefully over the palms and toward the coast.    

The Reverend straightened his jacket, picked up his glasses, and raised his Bible in the air, “Curse you, Fitch! May God’s wrath fall on you for generations!” At this point, he was shaking his Bible to the heavens as if unlocking the curse with his salute. I walked down the front steps toward the Reverend, and he quickly dropped his hand and scurried backward.

That’s when the shot was fired. My shoulders flinched, and the Reverend closed his eyes in horror. I turned to see my father holding the Browning to the sky.

He pointed back to the house, “That woman in there? The one you wouldn’t come see on her deathbed? That was the Lord’s anointed,” he yelled.

Then the Reverend turned his back and walked toward Vine Street and away from our home. Maybe God will curse us for this, I thought, I don’t know.

When I walked back in the house, Aunt Liz, still shocked, stood beside my father at the kitchen table with her mouth wide opened. “The Lord’s anointed. The Lord’s anointed…” Ada repeated in a quiet whisper as she colored a picture on the floor. I felt Abby come alongside me. She put her hand in mine, squeezed, and leaned her head on my arm.

“Fitch, you just threw the preacher out of the house,” she said like it was the most matter-of-fact thing—like getting the mail or washing the dishes. 

My father gave what looked like a subtle nod, then walked back to the bedroom. When he turned, I saw the John Browning pistol tucked in the back of his tweed pants—the pewter handle resting neatly against his starched white shirt.

– Brian Orme

Author’s Note: I wanted to write something focused on the dichotomy between transcendence and immanence (played out in parental roles). I wanted to see what would happen if you took out one of those elements through a death. In this case, the mother was the part that represented the immanence—God’s closeness—and when she dies, she sets off the balance. Also, I love when short stories have a subtle twist at the end that reveals a character’s motives in a different light. That’s what I attempted here as well.