FROM THE FILES OF THE SOGGY BOTTOM COUNTY DISPATCH

Nobody agrees on the exact day things changed in Soggy Bottom County.

Some say it was the morning Birdie Sutton died.

Others say it was three days later, when ten cream-colored envelopes left the county post office addressed to ten women who had very little in common anymore except blood, history, and a woman named Birdie.

Mabel June Pickett maintains it started considerably earlier.

But Mabel June maintains a lot of things.

What everyone agrees on is this:

Ten envelopes went out.

Each one was addressed by hand.

Each carried the return address of an attorney on the courthouse square.

And inside every envelope was a single sheet of paper.

It read:

Birdie Sutton has left you something in Soggy Bottom County.
Your presence is required.

That was it.

No explanation.

No mention of money.

No indication of what Birdie had done.

Which was very much like Birdie.

MISS BIRDIE

Everybody in Soggy Bottom County knew Birdie Sutton.

Some knew her from the old mercantile on Main Street, where she had spent the better part of her life behind a wooden counter that had been there longer than anybody could remember.

Some knew her because she'd quietly extended credit when somebody's paycheck didn't quite make it to Friday.

Some knew her because she remembered every baby born in the county, every marriage that wasn't going to last, and precisely which families should never be seated together at a wedding.

Birdie rarely repeated gossip.

She didn't need to.

She generally already knew how it ended.

And then there were the girls.

Ten of them.

Cousins.

Delta Wilde. Dixie Knox. Magnolia James. Georgia Lane. Scarlett Sunday. Cherry Monroe. Sloane Mercer. Coco Valentine. Willow Sage. Eden Brooks.

Ten women who shared a family tree and very little else.

Birdie never seemed particularly concerned about that.

They had spent pieces of their childhood in and around her mercantile—running through the back room, sitting on the counter, getting into things they had specifically been told not to touch.

Then they grew up.

And scattered.

One chased adventure.

One chased success.

One chased quiet.

At least two were probably running from something, although Mabel June has been advised by counsel not to elaborate.

Years passed.

Visits became less frequent.

The old mercantile became quieter.

And Birdie waited.

Apparently, she had a plan.

THE RETURN

They did not arrive together.

That would have been too easy.

The first car pulled onto Main Street shortly before noon.

Another arrived twenty minutes later.

Then another.

By late afternoon, people had begun noticing.

Soggy Bottom County is the sort of place where three unfamiliar cars constitute an event.

Ten women returning within twenty-four hours constituted an investigation.

By supper, half the county knew Birdie's girls were back.

By breakfast, the other half knew why.

Or thought they did.

There was an inheritance.

There was an old building.

There was supposedly money.

Someone at the diner said one of the cousins had arrived from three states away.

Someone else said two of them weren't speaking.

A third person claimed a black SUV had been parked behind the mercantile after midnight.

This report has never been substantiated.

It has also never been forgotten.

TEN CHAIRS

At nine o'clock the following morning, the cousins entered Birdie's old mercantile.

The attorney was already there.

So were ten wooden chairs arranged in a crooked semicircle.

Nobody had assigned seats.

They took them anyway.

And somehow, according to the attorney, within four minutes three people had changed chairs, somebody had opened a window, somebody else had found coffee, and one cousin wanted to know exactly how long this was going to take.

The attorney opened Birdie's will.

The room became quiet.

Birdie Sutton had left the cousins the mercantile.

The land behind it.

The contents of a storage building nobody remembered her owning.

And enough money to keep the lights on while they figured out what to do with all of it.

There was, however, a condition.

Of course there was.

They couldn't simply sell it.

They couldn't divide it ten ways and leave.

For one year, Birdie required them to keep the property together.

What they did with it was their decision.

But for twelve months, the ten cousins had to come back to Soggy Bottom County and make something of what she'd left behind.

There was silence.

Then several objections.

One laugh.

A question about whether conditions in wills were actually enforceable.

And according to a source seated near the back of the room, somebody muttered:

“That woman waited until she was dead to start bossing us around again.”

The attorney continued reading.

There was one final handwritten note from Birdie.

Only four sentences.

You girls spent half your lives trying to become different from one another.

You succeeded.

Now let's see what happens when different is exactly what you need.

Don't embarrass me.

Nobody spoke for a while after that.

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT

What happened next depends entirely upon whom you ask.

The attorney says the meeting adjourned at 11:17 a.m.

The cousins say they went to lunch.

The diner says they occupied two booths for nearly three hours and argued about everything from paint colors to parking.

Mabel June Pickett says that was the exact moment Soggy Bottom Of The South began.

Not as a boutique.

Not yet.

It began as ten women sitting around a diner table trying to figure out what on earth Birdie Sutton expected them to do together.

Eventually, someone pulled out a notebook.

Ideas started appearing.

Clothes.

Stories.

Things they'd collected.

Things they'd loved.

Things they'd learned in all those years away.

Ten very different women.

Ten very different points of view.

And eventually—

ten Houses.

What Birdie left them wasn't really a store.

She left them a reason to come home.

What happened after that...

Well.

That's why there's a newspaper.

EDITOR'S NOTE

The Soggy Bottom County Dispatch has been asked to clarify persistent rumors concerning federal involvement surrounding the cousins' return.

At this time, we have found no credible evidence whatsoever that any member of the Sutton family has participated in the Federal Witness Protection Program.

We hope this statement finally puts the matter to rest.

It will not.

— Mabel June Pickett
Editor, Reporter & Apparently the Only Person Around Here Taking Notes