Electric Lights
At the hotel, I stuff my French cologne, old shoes, and bonnet into the already-full suitcase. Tomorrow I will wear high heels and my goldfinch hat.
The hotel has electric lights, and I yearn for sunset. Back home, oil lamps leave sooty images on the wall, and coal oil smells some—though we don’t much notice it anymore.
Electric lights have no smell. I push a button on the wall, and a dim light flickers from the ceiling. In seconds, it burns brighter than any oil lamp.
The light is inside a glass globe Grandpa calls a light bulb. Two wires, no thicker than wild ginger stems, carry all that light from the buttons, up the wall and along the ceiling to the bulb. I feel like Master of the Moon, pushing a button to make more light than a dozen moons, and pushing another button to bring on darkness again.
Grandpa laughs at my fascination with the light, but right in the middle of a laugh, his lips draw tight. “That’s enough pushin’ buttons like a young’un. Better ya write your ma and tell her we’s just fine.”
I write Mama a letter about automobiles and our hotel, but say nothing of the scary night at the last hotel. I tell her about pushing buttons for electric lights, but don’t mention Grandpa’s changeful moods I have no buttons for. I tell her I miss her and Daddy, but don’t say how pleased they ought to be that I’ve kept my tongue through all Grandpa’s shifting notions.
* * *
I wobble into the hotel dining room for breakfast. The high heels on my shoes look sturdy enough, but walking on them is like trying to keep my balance with a corncob tied to each foot.
“Might be we should stay here a spell,” Grandpa says, as a man sets plates of grits and eggs on our table.
“I pine to see where the battle was,” I say.
Grandpa grunts.
I say my next words careful-like. “Is it hard to go back to where Great-Uncle Fred died?”
His face shows no sign he heard me. He leans back so far in his chair, I fear he’ll fall over into the men at the next table. He doesn’t speak. This changed Grandpa silences me, too.
While I’m still chewing, he jumps up. “If ya wants ta see Gettysburg, we’ll see Gettysburg.” He starts across the room.
I scrape the last bite from my plate and swallow it whole before I hurry after him—as best I can in high-heeled shoes.
