Momma Grizzly #3
Entry 3 of 39
Continuing the memoir of Kelly Clegg. - Parce
My mood lightened as soon as I pulled out of the parking lot. This drive tended to do that. I rolled my windows down.
Leaving Bellwether at the interstate, I turned right onto Farm-to-Market 138, which would take me back to Grünwald proper. Ahead of me was a rolling sea of green trees, separated by deep valleys where rainwater cut into limestone. This was the Texas Hill Country as you’d see in a postcard. The flash flood capital of the country. I was headed for one of those low points.
The two-lane road wandered east for a couple of miles, through a wall of red cedar and live oak, before the big plunge. Grünwald lay near the bottom of a particularly deep river valley called the Green Ravine, with a slope so steep it felt like the climax of a roller coaster. Breaking bones and scraping knees skating down this road was something of a middle school rite of passage.
The slope leveled off as the town came into view. A mile or so ahead, the road would bridge over the dry bed of the Green Ravine River and then meander northeast toward Canyon Lake. But I wasn’t going that far. I was home.
Even on clear mornings like this, not much sunlight got into this part of the valley. A sort of fog hung in the branches above Grünwald. Coming from the relative open expanse of Interstate 281, the descent into the Green Ravine felt like a trip into another world. Being whisked into an underground fairy village, maybe, or the medieval past.
I was vaguely aware that the deep greens of this forest had been a draw for the Germans and Scots-Irish who had settled here in the 1800s. Comforts of home, or something. The town’s name even came from the Germans’ fascination with the live oak trees that stayed green through the winter.
I turned left off FM-138. A wooden statue of a grizzly bear, carved and painted by hand in the style of a totem, stood by the main street to greet me. The bear’s front paws held a sign:
GRÜNWALD
Pop. 1,206
“Everyone Finds Their Way Here.”
The bear’s rear feet melded into the tree stump from which it had been carved. Whittled into the bark on the stump were the words MOMMA KODI.
The speed limit was twenty on the main road, so I always got a look at the old town fixtures closest to FM-138. To my right was the museum and the library. On the left was St. John’s, the Veterans of Foreign Wars post, and the park. A group of children, still wearing their Sunday clothes, were jumping rope on the sidewalk. I waved to them as I passed. They didn’t miss a beat with their song, an awful old nursery rhyme I had never heard anywhere else but here.
Axeman, Axeman, hone your blade.
Make the girls and boys afraid.
Sheriff got a gun, went bang-bang-bang.
If they find the Axeman, he is sure to hang.
Further back from the road were the newer businesses that had sprung up in town, enticed by the traffic brought on by Bellwether’s arrival. One of those was the twenty-four-hour brunch place, Forty Winks.
I passed a side road that led to one of the suburbs. My house was a quarter mile down that street. My single-story, two-bedroom house. Seventy years old, like most of these homes, but it would have been perfect for starting a little family.
I forced that thought away as I parked in front of the restaurant. The bright, colorful front of Forty Winks did not quite fit in with Grünwald’s established aesthetic, but I didn’t hate it.
As I was getting out of my car, the glass door swung open and a petite, wide-eyed Southern belle scurried out. In her arm was a three-year-old version of her. My Sammie and her Emma Lee.
“Auntie Kelly!” Emma Lee shrieked. She squirmed and kicked until Sammie set her down, and then she ran for me, pink dress shoes clopping on the pavement. I crouched down with outstretched arms. The instant the child crashed into me, I swept her up into my arms and stood.
“Emma Leeeeee!” I cried with a smile as wide as hers. “You almost knocked me down! You’re getting too big for this!”
“I’ll knock you down when I’m… four!” She thrust a hand into my face with fingers outstretched and her thumb tucked into her palm.
“Hey, hon,” Sammie said. She put a hand on my shoulder and stood on her tiptoes to kiss my cheek. “How are you holding up? Didn’t see you at church.”
“I went to the early service so I could get out in time to meet my parents at Bellwether. Just got back.”
“Oh… oh.” Sammie’s bright red lips pouted. She put her hands in the crook of my arm and pulled me into the restaurant. “Let’s get you some coffee, or maybe a mimosa.”
I laughed. “It wasn’t so bad. But I’m not opposed.”
The interior was all stainless steel and bold primary colors. We got a booth, and Emma Lee elected to sit next to me over her mother. By the time we had placed our orders, the smell of bacon and pancakes had driven my dark thoughts away.
Sammie stirred a spoonful of sugar into black coffee and took a sip. “What did your parents say?”
“Oh, you know. Bellwether’s going to bring eligible suitors of good moral character and no post-traumatic stress disorder.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Boring.”
Sammie was probably the only person I knew who understood. Her husband, like mine, was a combat veteran. In fact, the two men had grown up together right here, friends since middle school.
I knew Sammie would take my side, but I didn’t feel like talking about this anymore. Thankfully, the food arrived just then, and the line of conversation ended when the meal began.
“So are you going to keep going to Bellwether?” Sammie asked.
“I can’t imagine doing that to Pastor Gordon.” I took a bite of pancake while I thought about it. “Almost no one goes to St. John’s at all anymore. Besides holdouts like us. And the retirees. Even they are starting to make the switch.”
Emma Lee sighed loudly and dragged a fork across her plate.
“Eat your tots, Em.” Sammie reached across the table and took the fork away from her. “How are Gordon and Maggie doing?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t talk to them all that much. I’d been thinking about interviewing Gordon for my article, and this morning I finally worked up the courage to ask him. He and Maggie invited me to dinner. I don’t know if I’ll take them up on it.”
“You’re finally writing about Bellwether?”
“Yeah. Ike is coming down on me. I could only put it off for so long, I guess.”
“Ike is more patient than me. I’d have put you out on your ass a year ago. Everyone’s talking about the paper’s radio silence about the new church.”
“Tell him that. Maybe he will fire me.”
“Nah, you’re irreplaceable. You remember what the paper was like when he was doing it all himself? He needed a good staff writer. And besides, you’ve got this. Interviewing Gordon is a killer move. The whole town wants to know what he thinks about Bellwether.”
Suggested Listening: Bosse feat. Anna Loos - “Frankfurt Oder”