Pine needles. They’re everywhere, mixing with red clay at the base of the long drive. It’s the smell. Wild Mississippi smells like pine. Ami’s porch smells like pine and 405s. She sits out front, drawing from a cigarette between old fingers. A tree has fifty bills tied to its branches. Junior sips thick water from a Ball jar. Grandma Mottie opens a birthday card. Her whiskey eyes glow in the sun. I’m in the yard—the grass tickles. Tom Cat hobbles along. His bum leg makes him slow. I get thirsty. Grandma tells me I can’t have Junior’s thick water, though.
Kate Hartikka is a PhD candidate and family historian who shares her unique upbringing with her beloved grandparents, hailing from Mississippi's backwoods and inner-city Chicago.