1 The Country Life

Living in the dead country and growing up dirt poor, is not something I would wish on my worst enemy; even if I had one. There is nothing out here but trees, a lake, and more trees. No houses or stores for miles, unless you count the people who sell things out of their houses. Things like honey, hand-me-down clothes, chicken, medicine, and other things we can get from the store. I don't really trust the medicine these people sell out here because last time they gave me something for common cold and got sicker than I was.

Since then, I just wait it out and hope that I don't die out here. Other than the huge space between houses and the empty roads due to no one really driving down here for any reason, I really enjoy the country life. Horse riding, fishing on weekends, the wide-open space, and my personal favorite, all the trees I can climb.

However, being a girl in the country sometimes isn't fair. While the boys go hunting and dirt bike riding, the girls stay in the kitchen and help with dinner and dishes and cleaning. It's like being thrown back into the 1950s where the women slave over a hot stove just to have the man come home and get told that the women's cooking is subpar. That is not what I want, I want to run with the boys and get dirty, but my advances to tell my mother that falls on deaf ears.

"Cambria! Come on outta yo room and help me with these dishes!" My mother yells from downstairs.

I sigh and get up from my bed after closing my journal and slipping it between my mattresses, "Comin' ma."

We live in a two-story wood made house, almost everything within the house is made of wood, right down to the stairs. I was told that my great, great, great whatever grandfather built this house with his bare hands and a shovel. A shovel? Yeah, that is what I thought when my father told I and my stupid ass brothers the story when we were younger.

I make it down the stairs to find no one there but my ma. She stays in the kitchen, it seems like always doing something. Cooking, baking, cleaning; she is the real example of a 1950's house wife. She doesn't go to work or do any volunteer work around the country, she just stays home and caters to my pa. It irritates me to the fullest to see her not really doing anything with her life but depending on my pa for any and everything she needs and wants. But, I am not allowed to voice my opinion around here, because it wouldn't and doesn't matter what I think. As long as I do what I am told, when I am told to do it, I won't get in trouble. My brothers....they are a different story.

When I get in the kitchen, the nagging of my ma begins. "Cambria, we have people coming over for your brothers and your pa wants a good buffet of a dinner."

I look at my ma with my amber colored eyes. What kind of company could my stupid older brothers be having? I do not ask this, I just grab an apron, put it on and attend the kitchen with my ma. Everything about this is second nature, cooking, baking, and cleaning up afterward. Sometimes I wish I had a sister to talk about this stuff with, but I do not have one of those. I only have my best friend who lives a hundred miles east from me, I visit her every day or I try. If I can't make it, she comes to stay with me sometimes.

I look up at my ma as she moves with no effort at all along the kitchen, gliding smoothly across the floor and getting things done in no time at all. While I am still stuck on cutting up carrots and cleaning the green beans.

"Cambria, please." My ma begs me.

I go back to cutting the carrots and cleaning the green beans. Right now, there is nothing I want more than to question who are these people that are supposed to be coming to visit my brothers. We hardly get visitors as is, but for someone to visit them at all is like getting channel 3 out here. It doesn't happen most times.

"Ma, who are these people coming for my brothers?" I ask keeping my eyes on the carrots and green beans that I have now put in a pot full of boiling water and butter.

She turns to me from the oven, after checking on the biscuits with her hands on her hips. "You ask too many questions for your own good Cambria. I swear that's all you do is ask questions about something that does not concern you at all. But, if you just have to know this one. They are college folk from upstate wanting to enroll your brothers for their baseball skills. Yo pa and I want your brothers to make a good impression on these folk. So, don't go asking them a bunch of questions." She turns back to the oven.

College sponsors? My brothers don't play sports, or so I thought they didn't. The only think I have seen them do is hunting and go mudding through the woods. I have never seen them pick up a baseball, let alone a bat to play with. I am no wondering what kind of tomfoolery is this bull.