I used to think I was born worthless, considering the people I come from. But when I saw that blue-eyed baby years ago, it made me wonder. I ain’t done everything I wanted to, but looking at the picture in the newspaper today, I know I was right about that boy in the parking lot. He’s carried me and his mama off into the world and that girl has been the kind of mother neither one of us ever had, and who knows what all that baby is capable of. Ever since I seen them three, I’ve had a little bit of peace. The wind don’t sound as much like cries anymore. Knowing they’re out there makes me feel better about all the wrong I’ve done. At least some good came out of the mess me and Myra made. Sometimes I wish the boy and girl had seen me but there’s nothing I can do now to make them stop and turn around. There ain’t no changing what’s already been. I know I’ll never see them again. They passed me by like they ought to have done. But I was there and nothing can change that, either. I’m still with them, whether they know it or not, part of how they came to be. Before I drove away from that asylum, we was all together there like a family for a while. I wonder if they felt the same thing I did in them few minutes, my blood moving in their veins and passing through their hearts.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THANKS to the Greene, Oler, and McCoy families, especially Adam, Emma, Taylor, Mom, Dad, Stephanie, Mickey, Allen, Arela, Carl, Linny, Sis, Earl, Travis, Dena, Justin, Isaiah, Tommy, Cathy, Brittaney, Colton, Julyanna, and Conner, for love and support.
Thanks to Vermont College and to my teachers and professors, Kathy Levine, Bonnie Oakberg, John Cranford, Bernice Mennis, Peaco Todd, and the late Dick Hathaway.
Thanks to the Sewanee Writers’ Group, the Lakeway Area Writers’ Group, and all those who have given feedback and advice, especially Ashlee Adams Crews, Jennifer Dickinson, Marsha McSpadden, Chad Simpson, Hank Grezlak, Leslie Gathings, Cathy Wilson, Brenda Key, Regina King, Gary Hamrick, Sue Regier, and Suzanne Kingsbury.
Thanks to Beth Miller and Sara Sparkes Hill for being best friends and brilliant readers.
Thanks to Leigh Feldman, Robin Desser, and Jill McCorkle for making this book happen.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
AMY GREENE was born and raised in the foothills of East Tennessee’s Smoky Mountains, where she lives with her husband and two children.