Almost Southern (The excerpt, in case you were looking)

"And may Almighty God receive this beloved soul to the gold lined streets of Heaven this very day. Amen." The impassioned voice of the baby-faced country preacher mercifully came to a halt. It had only taken 27 minutes to deliver the funeral service. A lifetime full of ninety-nine years, fourteen children, fifty three grandchildren, one hundred sixty seven great grandchildren, eighty two great great grandchildren, fifty nine years of marriage, fifty eight years of hatred, a lifetime of ambivalence, and one incredible journey was reduced to a twenty seven minute eulogy by a man barely old enough to remember to shave before the service. The irony of it grated on Glory Baker's last nerve.

Walking down the steps of the church to the sidewalk that would take her to the waiting processional, Glory felt heat rising in waves from the sun-bleached pavement. It felt like opening an oven in the middle of baking a cake, but without the sweet smell of chocolate wafting up to slap you in the face. It was yet another miserably hot day, in a long line of miserably hot days, that marked the beginning of summer in Brimstone, Mississippi. Another miserable day in a life that had seen its share of misery. Thankfully, the windows in her car still rolled down. Lord knew the air conditioner had given up the ghost ages ago. As she got into her car, Glory thought of just driving away from Brimstone, out onto the interstate, pointing her car North, and not stopping until she either ran out of gas money or the sputter in the engine finally turned into a full blown pneumonia.

Instead though, she poured a few drops of warm bottled water onto a napkin and dabbed the napkin between her breasts, up and over her left collarbone, and across the back of her neck. She could imagine, if she really concentrated, that she felt the faintest stirrings of a breeze across her moistened skin. It was almost enough to offer some relief. Almost, but not quite. Glory started the car, fell in line behind one of her hundreds of cousins, and glanced in her rearview mirror before pulling out onto the street.

However, the thought of standing outside in this sweltering Mississippi heat, listening to that overzealous young man talk of love and eternal rest in the same breath as her great-grandmother Rose's name, was just too much to bear. Instead of following the snake-like trail of snail's paced cars heading for the small cemetery on the outskirts of town, because Heaven help you if you buried your dead in town like the Catholics did, Glory did the unthinkable. She turned left when she was supposed to turn right, and headed straight to the Sonic. A cherry limeade would make this day ten times better. It always did.

Walking into her grandmother's house an hour later, Glory's senses instantly went on high alert. She noticed the typical mothball smell had a faint tinge of something sweet today. As Granny Grace had given up any type of cooking that did not involve steaming the life out of raw vegetables in the microwave, the smell could only mean that Granny Grace had yet again picked up a stray. Wondering if this time it would be a young man, or maybe an old woman, Glory called out her typical greeting, "Hey Granny, I'm home from the front lines. Did you miss me?"

Holding the extra limeade in front of her like the peace offering that it was, Glory wended her way through the maze of old furniture and tables topped with every form of bric-a-brac known in the South, to the back porch. As suspected, Granny Grace was holding court in her favorite rocking chair, looking for all the world like the matriarch her mother's recent death made her. As the oldest female in the family, Glory was pretty certain Grace would play that matriarch card often, and mercilessly. That was just the way of the Baker women. Use the gifts that God gave you, take control of every situation, and stretch the truth to serve your needs. That should have been embroidered on one of the dozens of pillows that lay scattered around the Baker house, their family motto in cross-stitch, for all the world to see and heed.

"Well, Glor-ee Bea. Where in tarnation have you been? We all gathered out there at the side of that gaping hole in the ground, and I couldn't find you for lookin'. One of the boys swears he saw you turn left onto Main, but I told him his eyes must be going quicker than mine. You know the way to the cemetery, and there's no way you'd have missed Rose's service for no good reason. No self-respecting Southern woman would miss the funeral of the head of her family. So tell me, what good reason have you brought me?" Grace's steely voice dribbled juicy drops of Southern Mississippi onto Glory's screaming senses. Glory knew that the accent could come or go, strengthen or wane, at a moment's notice, at the whim of its owner. Right now, tone and inflection combined to equal one royally pissed off Granny, trying in vain to project the living personification of grace under duress.

Glory leaned down to plant a kiss on a papery cheek, and simultaneously slip the still miraculously iced drink into waiting hands. "Now Granny, your one mistake of the day was spent on me. And so early in the day, too," Glory teased, lovingly.

"Mistake? Now you listen here, Missy. It was not a mistake to expect you to be at that funeral. You know good and well that -" Grace started, before Glory cut her off with the one thing guaranteed to silence her, every single time.

"Southern, Granny. I can't be a self-respecting Southern woman, because I'm not Southern. Your daughter made sure of that. Remember?" Glory finished, full of wistfulness at the one thing in her life that not even her Granny Grace could change.

For it was true. Glory Bea Baker was not Southern. And there was nothing anyone could do to change the twist of fate that brought her into the world across the river in Cincinnati, Ohio. In the North. As a damned Yankee.

Yeah, an excerpt. Not much of one, admittedly. But it's a start. Tell me what you think.