Magnolia

In the months before they left, they had purchased a used green truck to drive across the wide and lonesome prairie forever. Ben took Theresa and Alex down the windy dusty green back roads where he had shot his last film as a southerner; his sleeves rolled up past his elbows, a tan creasing lines in his handsome face. He told tales of where he was those long nights while Theresa sat on the back deck, looking out at the yard choked with kudzu, waiting for him to get home so she could finally fall asleep without medical aid.
They drove and drove down these roads, honeysuckle pushing its unmistakable aura into the truck. Theresa told them both about when she would suck on honeysuckle blooms in her front yard as a child, picking the little stamens out of her teeth and going for more. She loved the wild blooms of the South; just a few days prior to the ride she had walked on her afternoon break at the library to the federal courthouse square, simply to be in the presence of its giant magnolias. The perfume that permeated the sticky-thick humid air was a knockout. She almost laid right down on the cast iron bench she was sitting on, feeling like she was in the presence of a sensual, sentient being. But the judges in their black robes were making their slow descent down for lunch from the courts so she remained upright, her legs crossed.