The Orange Blossom Special by Betsy Carter Page A

wife. Her notes were becoming more desperate.
    One night she wrote: “It seems like a betrayal to think of any other man but you. Of course you are the only one.” And on another night, after she’d had a couple of glasses of wine, she’d slipped this note into his box: “You know, Jerry,” it began with a tone of belligerence. “I am a woman and have desires sometimes. It is so strange to me that you are not here and that I have to think about these things by myself.”
    O N THE MORNING of June 4th, Tessie woke with a start. She’d dreamed that she was driving Victoria Landy around Cypress Woods, looking for Crystal and Dinah. The women were lost, and the longer they drove, the further away their daughters seemed to get. “We might never see them again,” Victoria said. It was as if her words took shape and ran in front of the car. Tessie slammed on the brakes and heard the awful noise of shells breaking beneath herwheels. “Don’t even say that,” she shouted, then woke up. She jumped out of bed to get as far away from her dream as possible. She threw on her vermilion robe with beige flowers, the same robe she’d worn for fifteen years. “Rise and shine,” she said, trying to sound chipper as she opened Dinah’s door.
    But Dinah had long since risen. She lay in bed, her head propped up against the pillow, her eyes narrow and swollen. “Didn’t sleep much,” she said. “Can’t go to school today.”
    Tessie hadn’t heard that dullness in her daughter’s voice since Car-bondale. She felt her own anxiety, the clutch in her stomach, the lure of getting back into her still-warm bed. It tugged at her like an old habit, and it took every form of will she could muster to resist it. Instead, she climbed into bed next to Dinah. “We can’t, you and me, go back to the way we were,” she said gently. “I know how you feel. There are some days I can’t imagine going on. It’s just a step at a time. You get up, you brush your hair, eat breakfast. And before you know it, you’ve gotten through an hour, and then another hour, and soon you’re not thinking about the time you put behind you. You just have to keep moving forward.”
    Dinah started to cry. “Sometimes it’s just too hard.” She wasn’t about to tell her mother about Eddie. “I miss Daddy so much.”
    Then Tessie told Dinah about her Jerry Box and how, whenever she had a question, he always seemed to answer. “I believe there’s a part of him that watches us,” she said. “I know him well enough to be sure he’d hate it if either of us was hiding in our rooms. Tell you what. Why don’t you have Crystal come over after school today. I’ll come home early and make you girls some french fries. I’ll buy some Coca-Cola with cherry syrup, too.”
    They lived on a strict budget; Dinah knew never to ask for any of the extravagances. Trips to the supermarket became lessons on indulgence. “Too rich for my blood,’” her mother would say, returningan item to its shelf after examining its price. “Some people can afford to kiss their money goodbye, I guess. Hooray for them.” Consequently, Dinah had never had Coca-Cola with cherry syrup until that first time at Crystal’s house. She turned on her side and rested her head on the inside of her mother’s arm. The familiar smell of stale cigarette smoke and last night’s Noxzema made her feel safe, as if she was a little girl again bundled in her mother’s lap. “Coca-Cola? Really?” she asked.
    Tessie could hear the life come back into Dinah’s voice. She thought about the teacher’s words a couple of months back. It broke her heart to realize how hard every day must be for her. “Yes ma’am,” she said to Dinah, mocking the Southern accents that surrounded them. “Don’t