“Well, I was right about that. Like I said, turnips were more interesting. But somehow, years ago, she managed to capture a beau. His name was Trubald.”
“Trubald?” Sarah repeated.
Pearly bristled. “It’s a good name. His granddad Trubald was a soldier and that’s who he was named after. Anyway, he lost his leg.”
“Trubald’s grandfather lost his leg in a war?” Sarah asked.
“No, Trubald.”
“Oh, how tragic. That must have been hard for him to deal with. How did it happen?”
Pearly skooched half a cushion closer, and her voice lowered, as if she were telling some State secret. “Well, the way it was told to me was, he was out drinking one night, and just lost it. No one ever quite figured out how you just lose a leg, but somehow Trubald did it, and no one ever saw hide nor hair of it again.”
“He’s lucky he didn’t bleed to death,” Sarah said, trying to imagine being so drunk you could lose a leg and not know how.
“Now, why on earth would losing a prosthetic limb make you bleed to death?” Pearly lightly tapped Sarah’s forehead. “Keep up, girl. He’d had that peg leg since he was seventeen and lost his real leg in a fluke racin’ accident.”
Sarah wasn’t going to ask what a fluke racing accident was. She just wanted to get out of here, so she wasn’t going to ask.
She wasn’t.
But Pearly just sat there, obviously waiting for her to ask, and despite her best intentions she couldn’t disappoint Pearly. So she asked, “Fluke racing accident?”
Pearly beamed. “Yep. Trubald, he was racin’ his brother Truck—who, before you ask, was really named Truman, but seeing as he looked more like a truck than a Truman, well, Truck was the name he went by. And he was racin’ Trubald that day when Trubald lost his leg. Only it wasn’t a fair race. Truck was in an auto and Trubald wasn’t. Trubald, he slipped and Truck ran over his leg. So Trubald got that fake one, and years later got drunk one night and lost it.”
Pearly paused and sucked in a quick breath. Sarah was waiting for it, ready to jump and try to get out of this story, but years of telling long-winded stories had made Pearly an expert on breathing without giving up the floor. Before Sarah could get a word in edgewise, Pearly was back at it.
“Well, my cousin Lerlene said she wasn’t marrying no man who drank so much he lost a leg, and she broke off their engagement. A couple years later, Trubald, he laid off the drink, got a new leg and a new fiancée and Lerlene’s one chance at love limped off to a marriage that’s still strong today.”
You can find out more about A Day Late and a Bride Short or preorder it at Amazon.
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