A Cold Coming

T.J. Latham's old farm house, I remember, was a ramshackle place, filthy and dark. A sticky, greenish film coated the kitchen table where we sat for our interviews. The only light came from a hot, yellow lamp in the corner. The dust caught in its beam looked like swarms of dancing insects. When the time came, T.J. needed my help prying open the pine drawer on the left-hand side of his desk. "That's Mother," he said, blowing the soot from a weathered photograph. He studied it for a long moment with a large magnifying glass, then handed it to me. "She died in March of 1931, up there in Haralson County, when all of that happened. She's buried with the rest of them in the Philadelphia Church Cemetery. The grave stones all have the same date of death, you know. Mother and Dad and all the kids. They're all wrong, though. Someone in the family made a mistake. They all say 1930. But it was 1931. I remember. I was there when it happened."
Read W. Jeff Bishop's novel, A Cold Coming: February, 2013.