Marianne Worthington
My mother attempts to negate my ride across the river

No way you could have been on that car ferry, my mother tells me. You were born after the bridge
was built.

I am standing up in the back seat, watching over my dad’s shoulder as he aims his old blue Ford into the tire tracks down a steep grassy hill. He takes it slow as we bump onto the boards of the car ferry.

He parks and lights a Winston, pushes open the triangle-shaped window so the smoke from his nose is pulled through the little window and into the open air.

I don’t remember Virgie ever wearing purple, my mother says.

Virgie hops out of the car mid-sentence wearing her lavender-striped shirt waist, black Keds, a man’s wristwatch. She lights a Camel and tilts her head to the sky as she exhales.

The sun makes little stars on the ripples of the Tennessee River.

My grandmother holds my hand as we leave the car to join her. Virgie finishes her sentence. Her arms are semaphore flags signaling the rest of her story. She whispers the punchline to my grandmother so I won’t hear. My grandmother covers her mouth when she laughs.

The ferry slugs across the river. The water is murky and I can’t see the bottom where my cousins say the whopping catfish live. I skip across the rough boards of the ferry.

My mother says, Now, no, you got that splinter in your foot from running barefoot across the barn loft.

That night my grandmother holds my foot in her palm and aims the tweezers at the hurt.

The mean old ferry, she says, sticking you like this. Now hold still.