Heat Lightning

10941822_10155460344385721_8542003586243671269_n-1On a old porch, a small boy sat with his mother. Lightning flickered on the horizon off toward the Yazoo River. The boy, frightened, asked his mother if they’d be safe from the storm.

“It’s just heat lightning,” she said. Her hand shook as she spoke.

It was the first of many lies she would tell him. A storm was coming — and not just one from the sky. He was six and soon she was gone. His grandmother, a stern woman with short gray hair and a shorter temper, would raise him. He never saw his mother again.

Thirty years later

Lightning flickered across the sky. Watching the clouds, he thought of his mother and wondered what had become of her. He had wondered off and on about her for thirty years — mainly when there were incoming storms. “It’s just heat lightning,” he thought to himself. “Just heat lightning.”

No.

The air was thick. Humidity choked the Mississippi Delta — so thick that even the mosquitoes were swimming. He sat on the tailgate of his pickup truck. Lightning flashed again, illuminating the towering thunderhead. Next to him was a small boy.

“Dad, is that heat lightning?”

He looked down at his six-year-old son and said all he could say, “No. It’s an incoming storm. But I’ll be here to protect you. And I’ll always be here for you.”

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