Sundays meant trussing up in one’s best dress, piling into the Chrysler, jostling down the dusty back roads that snaked in twists and turns through the woods of Trinity County, until at last they ended up at Mama’s family church. Only Kizzie supposed it was now her family church too–being Mama’s daughter. Sometimes she wished she didn’t have to go–that she could just stay home, sleeping in her soft bed beneath the tree-shaded light of her bedroom window. Summer mornings slow and glorious–that touch of coolness before the heat set in. And Kizzie loved the way the house went quiet when she was alone, when everyone was gone, and she had time to think, any thought she liked. Everyone at church was family–Mama’s family. Daddy was part of Mama’s family now too. Mama ruled their roost, fussing and shushing and prodding and scolding and feeding and washing and yanking and spanking and kissing and hugging. Mama was a force of unnatural proportions–like a hurricane that bullied its way from the Galveston coast up into the Piney Woods. Kizzie loved her, but wanted to be someone else, someone with a different life, someone light and airy as a whisper, someone nobody would notice much, unless she wanted them to.
