Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

SEPTEMBER 18, 1928

When Ruth had gone home that summer to marry, Frank Bennett and her mother had been at the station to meet her. Ruth had forgotten how handsome he was and how happy it had made her mother that she had made such an important catch.

Almost immediately, the parties started, and she tried to shut out any thoughts of Whistle Stop. But sometimes, in the middle of a crowd or alone at night, she never knew when it was going to happen, Idgie would suddenly come to mind, and she would want to see her so bad that the pain of longing for her sometimes took her breath away.

Whenever it happened, she would pray to God and beg Him to take such thoughts out of her head. She knew that she must be where she should be and doing the right thing. She would get over missing Idgie. Surely, He would help her … surely, this feeling would pass in time … with His help, she would make it pass.

She had gone to her wedding bed determined to be a good, loving wife, no matter what, holding nothing back. That’s why it had been such a shock when he had taken her with so much violence—almost as if he were punishing her. After he was finished, she lay there in her own blood and he got up and went into the other room to sleep. He never came back to her bed unless he wanted sex; and then, nine times out of ten, it had been because he was too drunk or too lazy to go into town.

Ruth couldn’t help but think that something inside of her had caused him to hate her; that somehow, no matter how hard she tried to suppress it, Frank felt the love inside she had for Idgie. It had slipped out somehow, in her voice, her touch; she didn’t know how, but she believed he must have known and that’s why he despised her. So she had lived with that guilt and taken the beatings and the insults because she thought she deserved them.

The doctor came out of her mother’s room. “Mrs. Bennett, she’s started to talk a little, you might want to go in for a while.”

Ruth went in and sat down.

Her mother, who hadn’t spoken in a week, opened her eyes and saw her daughter. She whispered, “You get away from him.… Ruth, promise me. He’s the devil. I’ve seen God, and he’s the devil. I hear things, Ruth … you get away … promise me …”

It was the first time this shy woman had ever said anything about Frank. Ruth nodded and held her hand. That afternoon, the doctor closed her mother’s eyes for good.

Ruth cried for her mother and, an hour later, went upstairs, washed her face, and addressed the envelope to Idgie.

After she sealed it, she went over to the window and looked up at the blue sky. She took a deep breath of fresh air and felt her heart rising like a kite that some child had just released to the heavens.