Watermelon Days and Firefly Nights: Heartwarming Scenes from Small Town Life by Annette Smith

optimistically. “Might be a few. Now Sugar, it’ll take a while, but we’ll be all right. Don’t worry about it. We’ve got each other. What more could we need?” He pulled Sugar to him and plopped a kiss on her cheek.
    Sugar, who was leaving behind her two big sisters, her mother, and her best friend since third grade, kept her thoughts to herself. However, she could think of a lot more things than just Millard that she needed. A man is a good thing to have, but women need friends. It’s in their natures, her grandmother had always said.
    “Long as we work hard, we’ll be fine,” Millard assured her. Millard, a carpenter and handyman, was not afraid of hard work.
    “We’ll make us a good life, baby. You’ll see.”
    And though it took them almost a year to get used to Southern ways, as well as Southern foods (“Okra? What do I do with it?” asked Sugar the first time Millard brought home a sack of the fuzzy green stuff), Millard and Sugar were quite happy in Ella Louise. He found plenty of work, and the two of them became good friends with another newlywed and new-to-the-community couple, Alfred and Tiny Tinker. The fact that Millard and Sugar were black, Alfred and Tiny white, mattered not a whit.
    Within a year of moving to Ella Louise, Sugar gave birth to a sweet little baby girl, whom Millard named Shonda. He was wild with plans and with pride.
    “She’s gonna have the best of everything,” he proclaimed. “Books, pretty dresses, and music lessons. I’ll see to it.” And he worked even harder than before.
    As Shonda grew up and blossomed into a lovely young lady, one who caught the eyes of young men, Millard began to fret. “Shonda, don’t even be thinking about boys. You’re going to college. And you’re going to do good. You’ve got to keep your head in your books. Understand?”
    “Yes, Daddy.”
    “Me and your mother never had the chance to go to college.”
    “I know, Daddy.” Shonda had heard this lecture about a million times before.
    Millard’s obsessive determination that Shonda get an education provides explanation as to why he was so upset when the disturbing word got back to him. Someone had seen his baby girl, by now a university student, sitting in a Chevy pickup at the Sonic Drive-in, necking with some boy. At 2:00 in the afternoon!
    Now, it is joked in Ella Louise that if a person hasn’t heard a rumor by noon, it’s that person’s civic duty to start one.So Millard figured the story to be nothing more than a silly town rumor. Hadn’t he raised Shonda better than that? Of course he had! Still, on the off chance that there was even a shred of truth to the tale, he thought it best to have a little daddy-daughter talk with his girl.
    “Sugar, get on the phone and tell Shonda that she needs to come home this weekend. I want to talk to her.”
    But Sugar wasn’t able to reach Shonda.
    “What do you mean, not in? Ten o’clock on a Tuesday night? Well, then leave a message at the dorm. Tell her to call home as soon as she comes in.”
    When Shonda didn’t call back for three days, Millard fumed. When she finally did call, she spoke to the answering machine. “Sorry Mama and Daddy. Can’t come home this weekend. Lots to do. Maybe I’ll make it in another week or so.”
    “She probably has a test to study for,” Sugar said, trying to soothe Millard. “Honey, it’s her junior year. She’s got more on her mind. She’s not our baby anymore, and we can’t be ordering her around like she is.”
    Millard did not see why not.

    O N THE WEEKEND that Shonda finally did come home from school, which was an hour’s drive away, she did everything she could to avoid being alone with her daddy. On Friday night, she went with her mother to buy groceries. After that, they went to Wal-Mart, where they stayed until after 10:00. Millard got to yawning so bad that he finally gave up and went to bed. On Saturday, Shonda didn’t get up until Millard had already gone to work. That