Romantic Fever Fiction by Lee Smith • Illustrations by Matthew Shipley
T
he house I grew up in was one of a row of houses strung along a narrow river bottom like a string of beads. We were not allowed to play in the river because they washed coal in it, upstream. Its water ran deep and black between the mountains, which rose like walls on either side of us, rocky and thick with trees. My mother came from the flat exotic eastern shore of Virginia, and swore that the mountains gave her migraine headaches. Mama was always lying down on the sofa, all dressed up. But there was no question that she loved my father, a mountain man she had chosen over the well-bred Arthur Banks of Richmond, “a fellow who went to the University of Virginia and never got over
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it,” according to Daddy. Mama suffered from ideas of aristocracy herself. Every night she would fix a nice supper for Daddy and me, then bathe and put on a fresh dress and high heels and her bright red lipstick, named “Fire and Ice,” and then sit in anxious dismay while the hour grew later and later, until Daddy finally left his dime-store and came home. By that time the food had dried out to something crunchy and unrecognizable, so Mama would cry when she opened the oven door, but then Daddy would eat it all anyway, swearing it was the most delicious food he’d ever put in his mouth, staring hard at Mama all the while. Frequently my parents would then leave the table abruptly, feigning huge yawns and leaving me to turn The Art & Soul of Greensboro
