Shadows in the South

By Caroline Smith

A grieving PI meets a sick woman he feels compelled to help. A veteran returns from war unsure of his place in the world. A mysterious pack of dogs show up to protect a woman recovering from an abusive relationship. A woman struggles with isolation and a misbehaving sewing machine during a pandemic.

 

Caroline Smith's imaginative stories weave myth and realism into a modern Southern Gothic world, reimagined. They are filled with the tragedy and struggle of what make us human, always with unexpected twists and turns. Gripping and darkly funny, these are stories of men and women who know what it means to suffer and remind us of our shared humanity through that experience. Exploring mythos and morality through a contemporary lens, these characters take us on a suspenseful journey wondering just what will happen next with the turn of each page.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sisters Three Publishing
• Release date: Apr 26, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224747108

Caroline Smith

Dr. Caroline Smith is an independent specialist educational psychologist with extensive experience of working in the field of autism. Having formerly been a Principal Educational Psychologist working in local authority settings, Dr.Caroline has worked closely with the parents and teachers of pre-school and school-aged children attending mainstream and special schools. Also co-authored 'Special FRIENDS' a new 2015 addition to the FRIENDS materials focusing on the needs of young people with ASD.

Book preview

By Caroline Smith

Fiction

Under a Blanket of Blue

The Feast of the Lotus

Nonfiction

Writing as Meditation

Perspective Parenting

Copyright © 2022 by Caroline Smith

Shadows in the South is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance toactual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely cocincidental.

2022 Sisters Three Trade Paperback Edition Copyright © 2022 by Caroline Smith

Published in the United States by Sisters Three Publishing, LLC.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or transmitted in any printed, electronic, mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.

eISBN: 978-1-0880-4022-5

Printed in the United States of America www.sistersthreepublishing.com

For the Strugglers

CONTENTS

Retired

1

Noire

18

Mask-Maker

37

Buck

47

Dishwater

62

The Pack

71

The Emancipation of 96

Marceline Whitaker

Acknowledgements

145

About the Author

147

RETIRED

The morning sunlight filtered through the smoke and cheap cotton curtains that Laurel had hastily hung when they moved in. Since they’d been used to moving every three years or so, the curtains were one of those things that his well-intentioned wife always meant to change eventual y, but never did. Paul sat in his favorite threadbare chair and remembered what Laurel had said that morning, I do want you to go to your appointment, but maybe today’s not the best day. With the protests going on I’m not sure it’s a good idea. He had focused on the lines of worry indelibly etched into the corners of her eyes—lines he was sure were because of him—that moved in rhythm with her mouth when she spoke. They were new to him. She was new to him somehow, even though he’d been married to her for almost a decade. She seemed to look past him these days, rather than into him like she used to. Though he blamed himself for that, too. He hadn’t much felt like talking since he got back.

He surveyed the second bedroom that he’d moved into after he got home a year ago. His nightmares and thrashing had kept Laurel awake. After a week of seeing her yawning and the dark circles under her eyes, he’d decided to move in here.

Laurel usually kept a clean house, but in here, she’d given up. His clothes were strewn around the room. He wasn’t meant

2

for this version of life. Any of his commanding officers would have given him no end of hel if they’d seen his rack unmade and clothes not neatly folded and stacked in his footlocker.

What difference does it make, he said to the room.

Laurel had apparently reached her shit or get off the pot

moment last week. Paul’s new best friends had become Jim Beam and Jack Daniels. He visited them a few times a week with a guy he’d served with who had a bar and a soft spot for wayward vets. But last week. Last week he’d gotten in another brawl. He couldn’t remember who’d started it, but the cops had brought him home, pissed and beaten again. He smirked a little remembering the face the guy made when he decked him right in the jaw, then winced at the painful reminder of the black eye, stil very present on his right side. Guy gave as good as he got, he guessed.

The clock on the dresser, buried under his bloodstained shirt, chimed a muffled hour. Paul checked his own watch, then stubbed out his cigarette in the only clean space in the room, the ashtray. He checked himself in the mirror by the front door as he left. Dark hair cropped short, shirt and pants pressed, boots polished. Eye purple. He sighed a little and shrugged into his black wool coat.

A small crowd was gathering on the sidewalks outside his apartment in downtown Birmingham. He nodded briefly to one of the men hanging around on the fringes. Paul could tel he was either former military or a plainclothes cop just by his bearing. The man met his eyes and gave the briefest jerk of his head to acknowledge him.

Paul had halfheartedly listened to the news that Laurel kept on while she was getting ready in the morning: another man murdered for the color of his skin. He knew he shouldn’t have, but some part of him couldn’t help but think, Lucky bastard.

He pushed through the crowd and walked to the little shop on the corner. The bel hanging on the inside of the door announced his arrival. Little Otz and his running back frame didn’t even have to turn around to know it was Paul. Instead, he faced the window and watched the crowd through the fliers plastered on the window.

Looks like it’s gonna be rough out there today, Mr. T.

3

Paul nodded.

Big Otz came in from the back, grease-stained t-shirt hanging off of his hundred-pound frame.

Hiya, Paul. Pack a smokes?

Paul nodded again.

Want a coffee today? Keep ya warm. Big Otz inclined his head toward the window to indicate the fal ing temperatures outside.

Paul shrugged, Might as wel .

Big Otz smiled at him, showing his three missing top teeth, that he often had a cigar wedged into.

Paul paid for his coffee and favorite cigarettes—Big Otz knew he preferred the Reds to the Golds and set them aside for him when they ran low—and noticed that Big Otz refrained from saying anything about his shiner.

Paul watched Little Otz continue to stare out of the flier-covered window then headed out.

Have a good day, Otz.

You too, Paul. Stay outta trouble, eh?

The bel s chimed again, and Paul thought briefly of how nice it would be if bel s could always chime out the way in and out of everything—in and out of life—at least some sound to mark the comings and goings…that wasn’t screaming or explosions.

The coffee warmed his hand as he made his way down the street, the opposite direction of the crowd. His other hand started to get numb, so he shoved it in his pocket, wishing he’d brought his gloves. Laurel would have helped him remember them, but she hadn’t been speaking to him much since her ultimatum after the bar.

He could stil see her in his mind’s eye with her face red, a cloth in her hand for the ice she’d gotten for him. He’d only seen her through one, blurry eye but he saw the angry vein standing out in her neck clear enough.

Either get some help or I’m leaving.

Her voice was quiet but firm. He hadn’t known how to respond, so he’d just sunk deeper into his chair with the ice melting against his face. Seemingly frustrated at his silence, she threw the cloth in the sink and stormed off to her room. She

4

didn’t slam the door, but the fact that she hadn’t made him wince that much harder.

She wasn’t scared this time. Or worried. She’d been very matter of fact in her delivery. Like she’d practiced that phrase a thousand times. He actual y admired her and the courage she must have drawn to say it. He knew she stayed out of pity, maybe guilt, but he hadn’t thought there’d been a damned thing he could do about it. It’s really no big deal, he’d muttered to his room, but he’d cal ed the VA anyway. He was surprised to get an appointment so soon; he’d heard it might take months.

As he walked up the marble steps to the hospital, he wondered what he was supposed to say. What he should say.

There were a few guys standing around the entrance, a few in wheelchairs, smoking. When he looked closer, he realized some of them were missing arms, legs, an eye. Maybe their stories were easier to tel . He bet they hated tel ing them.

The receptionist at the desk on the third floor was too cute and too cheery to be in a place like this. The bright red she’d painted on her lips made her look like a corpse in the all-white room with the too-bright fluorescents. He wondered if she knew it. Not that he’d tel her. He’d seen enough corpses to last him a lifetime, but he still couldn’t help but see anything but broken shel s of humanity everywhere he looked. There was no joy, no paradise. Only one battlefield after the other.

He found his name, as instructed, on the sign-in sheet—

Todd, Paul Sgt. Maj. – Ret.— signed his name and entered the time of arrival. He turned to the waiting room to see it empty, except for hard chairs waiting for him. He chose one by the window and picked up a magazine. As soon as he’d leafed through the first five pages of ads, he heard his name cal ed.

Right this way, the living corpse sang as she motioned to a wide door just off the waiting area. Paul hadn’t even had time to be nervous. If he were them, he would have used the same tactic: get them in before they worked up the nerve to change their minds.

The room he was led into was only marginally less clinical than the rest of the hospital. The occupant had obviously decided to try to enliven things by adding a few personal touches. Colorful, abstract paintings hung on the wal , a Ficus

5

sat in the corner by the hissing radiator, and a bookcase dominated the wal near the door. A scratchy sofa sat perpendicular to the bookcase, and two chairs—cushioned this time—sat in the center of the room, separated by a low coffee table. It had been his job to take note of spaces and people, and it was a habit that was hard to break.

Paul wasn’t quite sure what to do with himself. He didn’t want to be caught reading the titles on the bookcase, so he sat down in the chair facing the door.

The radiator clicked, loudly, startling him, but then the door swung open and an older man in a tweed jacket with tortoiseshel glasses came in, clearly at ease in his own space.

He shifted the files he was holding and read the name on the top-most file.

Sergeant Major Todd?

Just Paul. Paul stood and held out his hand in invitation.

The shrink adjusted the files again to shake Paul’s proffered one. The shrink motioned back to the chair.

Just Paul, huh?

The shrink laid his files on the coffee table, retrieved a notepad from the stack, found a pen in his jacket, and made a note while he sat down.

Wel , Paul. I’m Doctor Hammond. The shrink adjusted his pants and crossed his ankle onto his knee.

What brings you in today?

Paul rubbed his fingers together. My wife.

Oh?

Paul sat. Mind if I smoke? He nodded at the ashtray on the table.

Feel free. Do you smoke often?

Paul lit his cigarette. Any moron with eyebal s could have seen the nicotine stains on his fore and middle fingers, but he decided not to go there. Sometimes.

The shrink drummed his pen on his legal pad. He and Paul just stared at each other for a few drags.

So. Your wife. Do you want to tel me about her?

Images of Laurel flashed through Paul’s mind. What to tel ?

The first time he’d met her; their first dance; how beautiful she looked on their wedding day. Paul wasn’t sure he wanted to

6

open that door too wide just yet, so he simply said, Laurel. Her name is Laurel.

The shrink took another note. Paul took another drag.

How long have you been married?

Ten years.

The shrink studied Paul for a moment, sighed, then leaned forward suddenly while Paul watched, slightly unsettled.

Look, Paul. We can do this dance where you answer me in one or two words, trying to be stoic if you want. Or we can get down to brass tacks and you can tel me why you’re real y here. You made the appointment, remember?

They stared at each other again.

I see men like you al the time. Men who have a hard time adjusting to civilian life. Men who drink too much, smoke too much, and never talk to their wives because you don’t want to poison her with what you’ve seen. What you’ve done. I’ve had men sit in that chair and tel me I don’t understand what it’s like. But, I’l get ahead of that argument because I do know what it’s like. I was in twenty years before I started doing this, so I know the toll. Maybe better than most. So can we cut the bullshit?

Paul took one last measured drag. His eyes hadn’t left the shrinks through his whole spiel. He stubbed out his cigarette.

Thought hard about his next words. Cleared his throat.

I miss the war. Especially at night.

The shrink had the good sense to try to hide his reaction in his notes. He sat back in his chair. Why do you miss it?

Paul leaned forward this time. He closed his eyes and saw al the reasons he shouldn’t miss it—Lewis, age nineteen, whose intestines he’d held in his hands. He’d counted his eyelashes while he promised that help was coming. If he turned just the right way, he could stil feel the warm breath that he’d exhaled as Paul held him. He could still smell the metal ic stench of blood and death before his breakfast had even settled in his stomach; men blown apart into tiny fragments where they had been whole just seconds before. But he also saw the faces of the men that had entrusted them with their lives. His brothers.

Men he would happily sacrifice his own life for if he could have.

I wasn’t done.

7

The shrink opened his files again. Says here you were shot seven times and stil managed to save five of your men.

Paul scoffed.

They gave you a Purple Heart.

Should have been a Silver Star, he thought as bitterness welled in his chest. He rubbed his hands together, felt the whispers of the cal ouses from where he’d gripped his weapon so many times.

I wanted to go back. They retired me. I could have done more. I should be with my men.

The shrink regarded him careful y. You almost died, Paul.

Yeah, but I didn’t.

More scratching on the notepad.

Is that what you wanted? To die there?

Paul was quiet when he answered, I don’t know. Maybe I did. The shrink adjusted his glasses and a side of his mouth turned downward. I see.

The