Heavy Cream

WE HAD JUST sat down to our cornbread and sweet milk when we heard the buzzing. Daddy headed out the door, and Momma followed with my brothers and me on her heels. We bent our heads to the sky, squinting in the direction of the sound.

Of course, in those days, we had all heard about Charles Lindbergh and his flight over the ocean. My best friend, Cleo, carried a picture of him that she had swiped from her daddy’s collection of news clippings. The fifth-grade girls would pass it around, sighing and giggling during the lunch recess, and Cleo would try out the things she might say if she ever met the famous aviator.

The whirring, oversized bird had us all in a spell as it passed over our farm. We stared until the plane was out of sight, and I thought  my eyes might never stop burning. I reached up and grabbed my daddy’s hand, needing something to bring me back