The Sweet Taste of Muscadines

2021·3.91 MB·english

by  Pamela Terry [Terry

The Sweet Taste of Muscadines is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents
are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual
events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2021 by Pamela Terry
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division
of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
BALLANTINE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Terry, Pamela, 1956- author.
Title: The sweet taste of muscadines: a novel / Pamela Terry.
Description: First edition. | New York: Ballantine Books, [2021]
Identifiers: LCCN 2020007056 (print) | LCCN 2020007057 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593158456
(hardcover; acid-free paper) | ISBN 9780593158463 (ebook)
Classification: LCC PS3620.E7726 S94 2021 (print) | LCC PS3620.E7726 (ebook) | DDC
813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020007056
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020007057
Ebook ISBN 9780593158463
randomhousebooks.com
Book design by Caroline Cunningham, adapted for ebook
Cover design: Ella Laytham
Cover images: Getty Images (composite of door, vines, grapes), Stocksy (flowers)
Frontispiece: Vineyard-grape on trellis: iStock/Maria-Hunter; title page, part title, and
chapter opener ornament: Vineyard scroll ornament: iStock/ggodby
ep_prh_5.6.1_c0_r0
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Epigraph
Prologue
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Part Two
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Chapter Forty-five
Epilogue
Dedication
Acknowledgments
About the Author
After dark vapors have oppress’d our
plains
For a long dreary season, comes a day
Born of the gentle South, and clears away
From the sick heavens all unseemly
stains.
—JOHN KEATS
Life is a mystery
Everyone must stand alone
I hear you call my name
And it feels like home.
—MADONNA
The first time Mama died, I ran off to hide in the muscadine arbor.
She’d been coming around the corner of the swimming pool with a
tray of iced tea in her hands when Abigail stuck her leg out and tripped
her. I don’t think Abby really gave it much thought before she did it; it
was just an impulse, like a sneeze, over before she even knew what
happened. Mama should’ve just fallen into the pool. She would have
been mad, and Abby would have been in for it, but that’s about all.
Might even have turned out to be a funny story to tell company. But
no, Mama split her head open on the concrete before she fell into the
water, sinking like a stone to the bottom while we all just sat there
staring. Red blood floated up like Easter-egg dye. The world counted
to three, and then everybody started screaming. I think it was Uncle
Audie who fished her out, but I was running flat out by then. They told
me later she’d died, just like I thought. She wasn’t breathing at all for a
minute or more, until Aunt Jo pushed everybody out of the way and
started pounding on her chest like you do on a round steak, and Mama
woke up spitting out mouthfuls of chlorinated water. But by that time I
was deep in the middle of the muscadine arbor, hidden by the vines,
getting used to the idea that my mother was dead.
When my brother, Henry, finally found me, the afternoon sun was
turning pink behind the pine trees and I had pretty much written a
brand-new narrative for my future. I could almost see myself, handling
Mama’s funeral with a dignity far beyond my years, moving serenely
through the crowd of grieving relations in an unwrinkled black dress.
Then the letter would arrive. The letter telling us the army was sending
Daddy straight home from the war because they’d never allow Henry,
Abigail, and me to be left all alone now that Mama was gone.
Of course it didn’t work out that way. Mama was only dead for
about as long as it takes to fry an egg, but three weeks later when a
bullet found Daddy’s left temple on that road in the jungle, he was
dead for good. The principal came to get me from English class just as
Miss Hester was telling us the meaning of the adjective “capricious.” It
became a word I would forever associate with God.
I dreamed about the muscadine arbor last night. It must have been
August, because the lime-green leaves were so thick the summer sun
couldn’t find a way in. I sat in the middle of the arbor, cross-legged in
the shade, like I used to when I was little, with my bare toes dug down
deep in the brown velvet dirt. What I didn’t see was Mama lying there
beside me, facedown with her legs stuck out the end of the arbor, her
fuzzy blue slippers all gummy with pollen and dew, dead for the
second and very last time. But that’s exactly where Abigail said she
was when Abby found her this morning at dawn.