The GNARA Girl

Volume Two. THE GNARA GIRL. San Mateo, Texas. Spring, 2020. A middle-aged couple, a man and a woman wearing dark glasses, wait in her Mercedes in the moms-to-be ONLY reserved front row section of a hospital parking lot. Meanwhile, Preston Gerardi, Lynsey's 69-year-old never-married son tests wits with a blonde reporterette, probably a blogger. At home, the county she revisits events from Viet Nam in the 1970s, when he was just 19 years old, while his wife who has been self-quarantining because of fragile health, whispers, "Look at me, really look at me. I have lost thirty pounds, just since Christmas, in three months." She does not say, "Can you help me?" After daylight the next morning, carpenters, painters, a locksmith and a team of cleaning ladies prepare to x and repair Lynsey's broken and damaged house-when music breaks out. Across town two grief-stricken families plan COVID funerals for their sons. Weeks later, no more than ten or eleven people gather on a Saturday afternoon for an outdoor party. The celebrants are wearing masks, keeping their distance, not hugging, yet they stay connected, each holding one end of a bright ribbon, the

other end leading to the st of the honoree; some even dare to try a few two-step dance moves to the sounds of an old-time Cajun tune. And then it is the golden hour, the blue hour; it is that lamplight time when sin dies and goodwill and proper intent often seem to thrive.

Betty Pack, author of THE GNARA GIRL, lives with her family in San Antonio.

-The GNARA Girl BETTY PACK