“If we’re moving, then I’d better get some boxes tomorrow,” she’d said. “Start packing.”
“If you don’t want to do this, Clara, tell me.”
“No, it’s fine,” she’d said.
Looking at his father’s sleeping face, the worry lines smoothed out for the moment, Stan realized that it wasn’t fine, hadn’t been fine even before they left Warrenton. More and more, it was as if he and Dad and Lashanda were in a circle together and Mama was on the outside with her back to them.
A scrap of a verse he’d learned in Sunday school when he was younger than Lashanda came to him. Something about a person standing apart.
That image suddenly troubled him so much that he slipped out of the room as silently as he’d come. What did circles of love have to do with this anyhow? They loved Mama and Mama surely loved them.
Look at the way she took care of them, the way she cooked good food and kept the house so neat and clean. Not like Willie’s mom, who half the time sent him out for pizza or KFC and didn’t seem to care if dishes piled up in the kitchen or if people dropped clothes and toys and schoolbooks wherever they finished with them so that she couldn’t have vacuumed or dusted even if she’d wanted to.
Unbidden though came memories of the way Mrs. Parrish could throw back her head and roar with laughter over something Willie said, how Sister Jordan would reach out and suddenly crush her grandsons with big warm hugs for no reason at all, how old Brother Frank and Sister Hathy Smith still held hands when they walked across the churchyard despite their canes.
When did Mama quit laughing and hugging them? he wondered. Or holding Dad’s hand? Because she did use to.
Didn’t she?
He shook his head angrily, hating himself for these disloyal thoughts. Mama loves us, he told himself firmly, and we love her. She’s just busy doing good things for people. She sees that Sister Jordan’s grass is cut, sees that nobody at Balm of Gilead goes hungry, and even though she doesn’t like dealing with white people, she doesn’t let that stop her from driving over to Dobbs whenever some of the congregation need help signing up for benefits.
She makes sure all the shut-ins get their Meals on Wheels and that they have a ride to the clinic for their checkups.
And look how she loaned her car to Miss Rosa yesterday so Miss Rosa wouldn’t lose her job when her car broke down Friday.
Mama’s prayer partner was a cheerful person. Rough as she had it, she could always find things to laugh about when she came to visit, outrageous things white people did where she worked, things that made Mama shake her head and cluck her tongue.
Dad thought Miss Rosa was using her, but Mama just shrugged at that. “We’re here to
As Stan entered the kitchen, he could see his mother and Rosa Edwards through the open door that led out to a screened porch. The two women sat facing each other across a small wicker table. The Bible was open between them, but their hands were clasped, their heads were close together and Miss Rosa was speaking with low urgency.
Both of Clara Freeman’s children knew better than to interrupt a parent’s conversation, so Stan went to the doorway and waited quietly until one of the women should notice him.
Miss Rosa saw him first and sat back abruptly, as if startled.
“What is it, Stanley?” his mother asked sharply.
“May I have a glass of lemonade, Mama?”
“Yes, but be sure and wipe up the counter if you spill any. I don’t want ants in my kitchen again. Lemonade for you, Rosa?”
“I shouldn’t. In fact, I probably ought to go.” The other woman shifted in her chair, but didn’t get up. “I’ve hindered you too long already.”
“You never hinder me,” said his mother with a smile for her friend. She closed her Bible and put it aside. “Stanley?”
Without spilling a drop, he brought a brimming glass out to the porch and set it down in front of Miss Rosa.
“Thank you, honey,” she said.
“You’re welcome.”
As he returned to the kitchen, he heard Miss Rosa say, “You’re raising you a fine young man, Sister Clara.”
“We’re real proud of him,” his mother said.
As she always said.
* * *
Sunday dinner long over, the kitchen restored to order, the chattering nieces and nephews and their noisy children now departed, Cyl DeGraffenried’s grandmother rested drowsily in her old oak rocking chair. The chair had a split willow seat that her own mother had woven half a century earlier and Mrs. Mitchiner kept it protected with a dark blue cushion. No one else ever sat there and the child who dared put his skinny little bottom on that cushion without being invited risked getting that bottom smacked.
