How Sweet It Is Read Online Free

register, I take another look at the journal. This time when I open it, surprisingly I have the desire to write something. This is a moment I can’t let get away. Focusing on the first page, I uncap my pen. I run my finger over the smooth, lined paper. Concentrate on writing as neatly as you can, I tell myself. Such a hard thing for me to do.
    April 15th, diner outside Gainesville. I ordered iced tea and fries. I wanted a slice of peach pie, but they were out. They have chocolate, but I am almost allergic to that. The rain acts like it doesn’t want to stop. I’m on my way to Bryson City. I am leaving Atlanta.
    Putting down the pen, I think, “That wasn’t too bad.” I have Tylenol to mask my physical pain and this journal to tackle my emotional pain. What can go wrong?
    Before leaving, I place two dollars on the table for a tip. Then I add another dollar, and from the bottom of my purse, a quarter, two dimes, and a shiny nickel. I feel sorry for the waitress having to work in a place that isn’t well stocked with peach pie. After I gather my purse and my small amount of courage, I plunge out into the rain again for the rest of my journey.

four

    W ell, well. It’s been a while, Shug. Look at you—all growed up.”
    Aunt Regena Lorraine is wearing a bright orange dress, a color that might appear on those decoratively-painted Ukrainian eggs featured in travel books and posters. Light swirls of white and yellow are mixed in with the orange, giving the dress an intricate look. Her gray hair is tied in a ponytail, though a few tendrils float free, one curling along a large gold hoop earring. She poises a pudgy bejeweled hand—I count three silver rings—against the side of her lined face and studies me through leopard-spotted glasses.
    I’m twenty-seven years old; I hope I’m grown. And on the other hand, she just saw me less than five months ago at Christmas. I haven’t growed up since then.
    Aunt Regena Lorraine shifts her attention from me to a shaggy creature she fondly calls Giovanni. The dog is golden with a patch of olive on its left front paw. “He got in that paint I was using in the downstairs bathroom,” she explains as Giovanni sniffs my knees.
    “Nice color,” I tell her while I watch the animal circle two times and make himself comfortable on a striped rug by the sliding glass door that leads to the deck of the A-frame cabin.
    My aunt waddles into the kitchen, gives a sigh as large as she is, and starts opening cabinets. As she moves, I smell her perfume, which is light and sweet. I recall her wearing the same scent at Christmas when I sat next to her on my parents’ couch and she showed me photos of her father’s recent trip to Venice. Grandpa Ernest traveled from North Carolina to Italy to Greece to spend Christmas at his favorite island, Kos.
    My aunt mutters as she fingers various items she pulls out from the cabinet shelves. “I can’t believe he didn’t get rid of this,” she says as she touches a fondue pot. She notes a bowl with a crooked rim. “Oh, he kept this all these years. Well, well.”
    The “he” she is talking about is Grandpa Ernest, who, until his recent death, occupied this cabin. Perhaps she never had the opportunity to look through his kitchen cabinets while he was alive and today she’s enjoying the chance.
    When she takes out a tin can with Santa’s jolly face painted on the side, she muses, “I gave him this years ago.” Opening the tin, she cries, “It’s still full of licorice!” Then she laughs, takes out a piece of the black sweet, and pops it into her mouth. After a moment of chewing, she says, “Mmmmm. It’s still good. Well, I can’t believe it!” To me she says with confidence, “Licorice stored tightly in a tin keeps.” She finishes the piece and scans the container. “This must be… let’s see… Christmas of ’99. No, must have been 2001.” She laughs again. “I know I gave it to him.”
    I am not allergic to licorice, but it also is