Louie\u2019s tail lights motored down Milford and I threw one last look at the red brick house that captured the elusive ingredient I\u2019d never tasted: home.<\/p>\n
I pedaled toward Faulkner Street, thinking about how Jackie spent her Saturdays cleaning all five rooms\u2014trying to make up for the fact that her family lived in the projects.<\/p>\n
My family loved each other, but our love wore sharp edges, taut wires, and crescendos. We lived in an ill-kept \u201cmansion\u2014\u201d my classmate, Ellen Russell surprised me by calling it\u2014populated by a noisy stepdad, piles of clutter, and a profusion of pets. I would have cleaned like Jackie if I\u2019d shared her hope that the visible could change the invisible.<\/p>\n
Jackie\u2019s mom waitressed. My mom worked at the hospital as an R.N.<\/p>\n
Her stepdad drove a semi cross-country. My dad held a degree in business. My stepfather owned Behrens\u2019 Book Store on Canal Street where A Gift for No Reason is today.<\/p>\n
Me (top) and Jackie<\/p><\/div>\n
Jackie\u2019s family sported one more stepparent than mine and a mix of full and half-sisters.<\/p>\n
Her family attended Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. My family went to mass fifty-two weeks a year.<\/p>\n
But Jackie\u2019s family knew how to make home feel like someplace you wanted to go.<\/p>\n
Jackie rubbed off on me in other ways, too.<\/p>\n
One goal ran down her back, firm as a girder beneath the Flagler Street Bridge\u2014to work her way out of the projects. She wouldn\u2019t drink or do drugs because her real dad drank. She wore dresses to school. She cared about grades. She clung to virginity like most girls would fist a handful of diamonds.<\/p>\n
After my failures in Stuart, I\u2019d learned to listen to my friends who had the gumption to make good choices.<\/p>\n
Tomorrow Jackie and I would rehash all things Harm Bosma, tonight\u2019s victory, and what we\u2019d wear to the dance. Our words would race and climb over each other to dive into every molecule of quiet airspace. Even our letters during brief separations sprinted past ten pages.<\/p>\n
From the vantage point of adulthood I see how God super-glued us together. He knew I needed Jackie\u2019s focus in my untethered life.<\/p>\n
Jackie says I was a cool girl and she was thrilled I chose her for a friend. But all I can see is how she filled my life with laughter. Her resolve kept me from sampling the keg at parties and making inebriated decisions I would have regretted the rest of my life. She gave me home<\/em> for the first time in my life.<\/p>\nPhoto by Laurice Solomon<\/p><\/div>\n
In New Smyrna Beach, God slipped me into His pocket\u2014one that might have raised the eyebrows of some churchy folks\u2014the Hendricks-Stegall-Herold house on Milford Place. The family where He kept me safe. Where I belonged.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
[Note: Jackie has spent her career in Volusia County Schools as a principal\u2019s secretary. She also served as research assistant and proofreader for all my New Smyrna Beach Novels.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I glanced at Jackie\u2019s kitchen clock shaped like a frying pan. Twenty minutes till I had to exit the warmth\u2014literal and figurative\u2014for my unheated house. I wanted to soak up every second. Jackie\u2019s Uncle Louie Kistner, only a few years older than we were, shuffled the cards for another hand of Spoons. Her mom, Dee, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2641,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[2,66,322],"tags":[174,171,167,175,176,173,177],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Spoons, Nudes, and Tuna Casserole - Ann Lee Miller<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n