But that one particular day in Eudora…

I am a boy of seven, an only child. I’m downtown with my mother on a summer afternoon.

Downtown consisted of the Purina feed and seed store, the First Bank, a few shops around the courthouse square, the Slide Inn Café, specializing in fresh seafood from the Gulf, and the Ben Franklin five-and-dime-about which my mother was fond of saying, “They sell everything you need and nothing you really want.”

July was wide-open summer in south Mississippi, featuring a sun that rose early and stayed at the top of the sky all afternoon. The air near the Gulf is so humid at all times of year that you have to put your shoes near the stove at night to keep them from turning white with mildew.

I was wearing short pants, but Mama was “dressed for town”-a lacy flowing dress that swept the ground, a sky blue shawl with dark blue fringe, and her ever-present wide-brimmed straw hat. A boy always thinks of his mother as pretty, but on that afternoon, I remember, she seemed to be shining.

Our chore that day was to pick up eighteen yards of blue velvet Mama had ordered from Sam Jenkins’ Mercantile for new dining room curtains.

“Mornin’, Sam.”

“Why, good morning, Miz Corbett,” he said. “Don’t you look nice today.”

“Thank you.”

For Mama, that was mighty few words to utter. I turned to look at her, but she seemed all right.

Sam Jenkins stood there peering at her too. “Is there something I can help you with, Miz Corbett?”

“Yeah,” she said, “Sham. Oh. Excuse me.”

Something was wrong. Why was my mother slurring her words?

“Did you come to pick up that fabric, Miz Corbett?” said Sam. Instead of answering, Mama squinted hard and rubbed the front of her head.

“Miz Corbett? You all right?”

Silence from my mother. Only a puzzled gaze.