hattie searley ♡ d10 ♡ fin

h a t t i e   ♡   s e a r l e y

Those Searley girls, they sure are something else. 

And they all get it from her, Henriette Martha Searley - they say she's a matriarch but she just preferred being called Gammy these days. A woman born in the 30's, she's a trademark of the frontier that was, a life started in settlement and seen through hell and high water. Easy just ain't in the cards for them southern folk, especially back when the roads weren't paved and the only street lights were miles between and oil based. They had their own ways of making it through, she and her siblin's in a time where gangrene was as common as a missin' tooth. 

One of her brothers died on a trail when she was 7, that was when Hattie learned the world wasn't gonna protect you. Now, she ain't ever been a woman in need of protectin' - in fact, she'd become the one wielding the shottie when a mountain lion or bear snuck onto their estate in search of a warm meal. Pappy'd always say shoot first, ask later; you can help them later, but they sure won't help you! He never was a patient man, but he'd never raise his voice, she'd give him that. Stern as a matador and quicker than all get out, hell if he ain't set her up for a good life though. 

When times were tough, he'd put she and her siblin's to work, teaching them the trades they'd need to be self sufficient. Hattie may not have been a mechanic of any sense, but she knew a thing or two on how to make it by. 

Livin' off the land was what she was made for, pioneer women in her blood. She was a shooter and a farmer, a hunter and a survivalist, always lost somewhere out in those backwoods. Now, this was before mutts started coming from outside the boundaries, this was when you could go out past the fence and snag you a buck or a coyote. These days you can't go out your own porch without some ungodly creature lurking past the distance. 

She met her husband at an outpost, big handsome sheriff he was and her a firecracker of a gal. 

Hal & Hattie, times weren't always perfect but they were good 'nough. They were a Bonnie & Clyde story in the making, the district theirs for the taking and boy did they do it up. He proposed to her with that of a wooden house, built by hand, plank by plank, and he never told her until it was finished. She'd never let her daughters in on it, but they'd conceived before they'd even gotten engaged, eager kids turned anxious expectants. Ramona sure was no accident, they was aware of what they were doin' and didn't regret a thing she'll tell you that. 

That house was their safety from the wilderness, raising three kids there over two decades. When something broke, Hal'd build and upgrade and tinker away in a way she never was able to understand - whatever it was, he was darn good at it. Good with his hands in more ways than one, he spoiled her by being such a fixer. She'd say she wants chicken and he'd build a coop that morning; had she ever wanted the moon, surely he'd become a rocket scientist. 

But she was always too humble to ask, so he'd build and build and build regardless, just to see the way she'd smile at what he'd done. 

When it went up in flames, she lost all of that. 

Losing that white steeple beat out the pain of losing a leg. It wasn't just a house, but thirty years of love and dedication, faith of a richer kind, the pantheon of what was between herself and Hal. He built it all for her and she lost it, slowly, panel by panel, a slow cracking, she wept for every ash that came from it until that was all she had left. Cinders, and tears, and a family displaced. Now, Hal was long gone at this point, taken by a liver infection neither had seen coming, and so she looked at the pyre of their life together while her kids looked to her for what to do next.

And she got it together. 

That's just what you do in 10, the sun rises in east and the tumbleweeds roll by regardless, there ain't time to sit around and be pathetic. She and her kids and her grandkids stayed in dog houses and west side motels for two weeks. A bit of her never moved on, laying down and dying with the roaches in just the most pitiful of ways. Her daughters thought she was dying of a broken heart, days would pass of Hattie sunken into spring mattresses and bed bugs, skipping meals and speaking in riddles. Losing that home hurt worse than anything she'd have gone through, it wasn't 'til the day her sister came a knocking that she found any life within herself. 

Hattie, she'd have said, now you know this isn't how we do things. Laying 'round feelin' sad for yourself, her sister opening the curtains for the first time in three days. She'd lost sight of the light, even! Save the woes for tomorrow, those grandbabies need to see what it takes to be strong, now don't ya think? The sunlight burned away at her skin, desiring nothing more than to stay in the dark - and good heavens if you don't do something with that hair, Hattie so help me. 

Only a catastrophe could keep her away from a good perm - that's how they knew she was a dyin'. Sure enough though, her sister spoke the life back into her and made her swear to stop being so sorry to herself. Just get up and go, her big sissy had told her, and so she did. 

Her and her three girls was all she needed, and they rebuilt that home, brick by painstaking brick, but sure enough it got done. The day they had a house again, she swore to God she'd never be that low again - sure enough, she wouldn't. 

She'd make darn sure of that.