Temple Secrets: Southern Humorous Fiction: (New for 2015) For Lovers of Southern Authors and Southern Novels by Susan Gabriel Page B

by the time she went away to college.
    “I do still paint,” Rose says. “Mostly Western scenes now, but I’d love to paint more of the landscape around here.”
    Violet’s creative side comes out in her cooking and baking. She walks over to the window and tries to open it but it won’t budge. A large crepe myrtle twists upward outside the second story window. At least the blossoms offer a touch of cheerfulness to the drab room. As girls, they rarely spent time here and played in the kitchen or in the garden while her grandmother worked.
    “It looks like a museum or something,” Rose says. “No wonder I could hardly wait to leave home.”
    Violet resists confessing that she can hardly wait to leave, too.
    “I’m surprised a security guard isn’t stationed at the door to make sure I don’t touch anything,” Rose says.
    “I can get you one if you want,” Violet says, and they both laugh.
    A small photograph of Rose and her mother at Rose’s college graduation sits atop her antique bureau. Rose looks sullen in it, as she always did when photographed with her mother. Miss Temple doesn’t look that thrilled, either, her chin tilted upward in typical Temple fashion. As teenagers Rose talked to Violet about how she was a constant disappointment to her mother. That’s also when their friendship began to fade.
    Queenie calls from foyer that the ambulance has arrived.
    “Should I go downstairs and greet her?” Rose asks.
    “It’s up to you,” Violet says. “She won’t know the difference.” Or will she? Violet thinks.
    Violet follows Rose downstairs where two men wait with a stretcher next to Queenie. Strapped onto the stretcher covered with a white blanket, Miss Temple appears small and vulnerable, the opposite of the critical force she usually is.
    Violet, Queenie and Rose follow the men carrying Miss Temple upstairs. It feels ceremonial, in a way, as if they are practicing for the funeral, not that Violet would be part of the procession. Violet never knew her own mother, so she can’t imagine what this is like for Rose. She imagines it is like witnessing a fire-breathing dragon whose flame is going out. She is surprised her arm isn’t hurting, since it usually announces a death or injury. Does this mean Miss Temple isn’t ready to die?
    Two technicians join the crowd in Miss Temple’s bedroom to set up the various machines. A hospital bed sits where the four-poster antique used to be.
    “Mother won’t like this,” Rose says to Violet and Queenie. “She would want to die in a Temple bed.”
    “I know,” Queenie says. “But this is the only way her doctor would agree to let us bring her home.”
    Even the Temple beds have lineages. Miss Temple was born in the same bed in which her grandmother and grandfather died. Working for Miss Temple meant Violet had to know the history of every piece of furniture in the house, as if it somehow might make her dust and polish everything with more care.
    Why anyone would want to sleep where numerous relatives have died is beyond me, she thinks. At the very least, it verges on weird. But to Miss Temple, tradition trumps weird. Tradition trumps everything.
    Stories about the Temples are given on every carriage ride tour that passes the house. Most famously, the story of Rose’s great grandfather, one of the more eccentric Temples, who took to his deathbed requesting a final visit from his pet pig, Salty. According to legend, Salty lived on the Temple family’s plantation near Charleston and was transported the hundred miles between Charleston and Savannah and led up the stairs to say his final goodbyes.
    Violet overheard Miss Temple tell Queenie one day about how much she liked that “dumb old pig.”
    Evidently the same evening the grandfather died, the grandmother condemned Salty to their dinner table. Revenge for his transgressions , Miss Temple said, of which there were supposedly many. To this day, Violet is to never serve Miss Temple pork of any kind.
    The