Old Tom eased himself down onto the weathered porch swing, the same one his grandmother used to sit on back when the world was smaller and Sundays lasted forever. The chains creaked out that familiar song, the one that had rocked him to sleep more times than he could count. He set his coffee down on the arm of the swing, just the way Granny used to, and let his eyes drift out over the yard.
Lord, how that yard used to sing.
He could still see himself, no bigger than a bushel basket, running barefoot through Granny’s sprinkler on a July afternoon so hot the crickets forgot to sing. His cousins would be hollerin’, and Granny would be shellin’ peas on this very porch, laughing that laugh of hers that sounded like wind chimes in a summer storm. There was a tire swing hangin’ from the old oak back then, the one Papaw hung the summer before he passed, and Tom reckoned he’d spent half his childhood spinnin’ round on that thing till the whole world went dizzy.
And then there was Ginger.
Ginger Mae Halloway, with her freckles like somebody’d taken a pepper shaker to her cheeks, and hair the color of a copper penny left out in the sun. She lived three houses down, and from the time they were both knee-high to a grasshopper, wherever you found one, the other wasn’t far behind. He remembered the first time he ever thought maybe girls weren’t so bad after all. It was a June evening, the kind where the sky turns purple like a bruise, and the fireflies came out by the thousands down in the woods behind Granny’s place.
“Catch me one, Tommy!” she’d hollered, and off they went, tearin’ through the honeysuckle and the tall grass, cupping those little glowin’ bugs in their hands like they were catchin’ stars. He caught her hand instead of a firefly that night, and she didn’t pull away. He was nine years old, and he knew, knew the way a boy knows things before he has words for ’em, that Ginger was his girl.
They grew up tangled together like the wild roses on Granny’s fence. Homework at her kitchen table. Church on Sundays, sittin’ three pews apart tryin’ not to giggle. High school dances where he stepped on her toes and she pretended not to notice. By the time they were eighteen, everybody in town just figured, well, that’s Tom and Ginger. Been Tom and Ginger since they were shorter than the corn.
He gave her his grandmother’s ring on the porch, right where he sat now, the fireflies just startin’ to blink awake in the woods. She cried. He cried. Granny cried loudest of all.
Then life happened, the way life does.
There was a job in the city, a good one, they said. Just for a few years, he told Ginger. Just till we get on our feet. She smiled that copper-penny smile and packed his lunches and kissed him goodbye at 5:30 every mornin’. The apartment was small, and the city was loud, and there were no fireflies, just streetlights that hummed and never blinked.
The job turned into a career. The career turned into a title. The title turned into a corner office with a view of somebody else’s corner office. And every year, Tom would say, Just till the next promotion, honey. Then things’ll slow down.But things never slow down.
Not for a man chasin’ something he can’t quite name.Ginger became what folks call a work widow, sittin’ at supper tables set for two with only one plate touched. She’d call him at the office and get his secretary. She’d wait up till 10, then 11, then she’d stop waitin’ up. She never complained. That was Ginger. She’d just say, I’ll be here, Tommy. You do what you gotta do.
The promotion came. And with it, more hours. More trips. More dinners with clients whose names he couldn’t remember the next morning. His boss clapped him on the back and called him a rising star. His secretary sent flowers to Ginger on their anniversary because Tom forgot. Again.
He didn’t make it home when Granny passed. Big meeting in Chicago. He sent lilies.
And now here he was, all these years later, back on that porch. The swing still creaked. The oak still stood, though the tire was long gone. The woods still whispered at the edge of the yard.
And Ginger, Lord bless her, Ginger was inside, humming to herself while she washed the supper dishes, her copper hair gone silver now, but that smile still the same when he’d walked through the door last week and said, Honey, I retired. I’m home. I’m really home this time.
The first firefly of the evening blinked on down by the tree line. Then another. Then a hundred more, till the whole woods lit up like Christmas.
The screen door creaked open behind him. “Tommy?” she said. “You comin’ in?”
He reached back and caught her hand, just like he did when he was nine.”In a minute, Ginger Mae,” he said, his voice soft as porch light. “Come sit with me a spell. The fireflies are out.”
The Moral
A man can spend his whole life chasin’ after somethin’: a bigger paycheck, a fancier title, a pat on the back from a boss who’ll forget his name the day he retires. He can trade his mornings and his evenings and his Sundays for a corner office and call it success.
But at the end of it all, when the swing stops creakin’ and the porch light goes dim, ain’t nobody ever laid on their deathbed wishin’ they’d spent one more hour at the office.
The job will replace you before your desk is cold. The money spends and it’s gone. The accolades fade quicker than perfume on a Sunday dress.
But the girl with the copper hair? The porch swing? The fireflies in the woods?
Those are the things worth keepin’ your eyes on. Because those are the things that keep their eyes on you.
***
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. If you have fireflies where you are…Well…you know what to do. =Scott
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