A Long Time Comin'

by Robin W. Pearson

  I wonder what you’re going to say if somebody calls on you to say a few words over me, to break that silence. Will you say, ‘She was a good mama. She taught me to depend on nobody but myself. She showed me how to work hard and to be tough. My mama taught me that love ain’t about reading you good-night stories or giving you ice cream after dinner. It’s about doing what’s hard and showing you how to do it, too. Love is about sticking around, even when you want to run off to the woods somewhere’?”

  Milton sprang to his feet, out from under the shelter of Nancy’s arm. At that moment, his wife’s embrace was a too-painful reminder of the many times he’d needed a woman’s touch—his mama’s touch—when he was a child. But she couldn’t be found even though she was hardly more than two feet from him in their small house. Milton wanted to rant, to rage, to throw down the pages and grind the words to shreds under his feet. Instead, he read them out loud.

  “Will you even say, ‘I love you, Mama’? You probably won’t. But I know you do, Milton. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t call me even if you talk just two minutes. You wouldn’t send me those cards. And you wouldn’t keep sending me money even though I send it back. I know you love me and you don’t really want to, but I’m your mama. And I love you, Milton, even if I tried not to, because you’re my boy. My baby boy.

  Milton, I just wish you some peace in this life, the same as I wish all y’all. Not everybody finds that. God knows it’s taking me a lifetime to get it. And as far as answers go, yes, Milton, Henton’s your daddy. I tried to give you something—Someone—better than that who was daddy, mama, sister, and brother to you, but I just think you need to know that, too. I’m not saying that because I think I owe you nothing. You can ask Thomas about that. I just don’t plan to take that man’s name on my cold lips when I finally rest for good. Get your peace, boy. I’m on my way to mine.”

  “Signed, ‘Your mama.’” Milton’s laugh was devoid of humor. “My mama, who wishes me peace of all things. Peace? That’s not yours to give.”

  ——————

  Beatrice watched Milton hold back the pain, much as she had when it had split her insides in the car. She did shift her feet then; for a split second, she thought to touch him, but his wife moved much more quickly. Nancy grabbed his hand and turned him to face her, and they stood there with their foreheads touching. Beatrice watched them until the streaks of red and orange faded into the deep expanse of midnight blue. Until one twinkling star became countless.

  Finally Milton, his face haggard, stroked his wife’s hair, once, twice. Then at last he looked at Beatrice, and she got to feast her eyes on more than just his profile or his forehead. He smiled wryly. “You got the last word, didn’t you?”

  Beatrice opened her mouth, but then she shut it, figuring they’d both said enough. She and Evelyn watched Milton push open the screen and step out, followed by Nancy. Soon, they were but shadows in the backyard.

  As far as Beatrice was concerned, it was time to go. She’d done what she came to do. She grasped the chain anchoring the swing to the ceiling and hauled herself to a standing position, her arm trembling with the effort of lifting so heavy a heart. I s’pose I am gon’ take this with me to heaven, Beatrice thought. She looked back at Evelyn.

  ——————

  Evelyn wasn’t ready to go. Not yet. She squatted to retrieve the second set of pages that had fallen to the floor. A rough hand wrapped around her forearm and pulled her to her feet. She faced her grandmother, prepared to arm wrestle her if she had to.

  But she didn’t have to. Sighing, Granny B let go of Evelyn’s arm and plopped her ninety-five-pound load back into the swing. It twisted and shimmied side to side and back and forth. Evelyn slowly unfolded the second letter and read it to herself.

  Milton,

  Boy, it ben a long time. Too long. If you ran into me on the street you wuldnt know I was yo pap. But Id know you by that Agnew nose and forhed. And you got that same mark on yo behind I got. My pap got it too. You even got my mama’s name. She was a Milton fo she marryed my pap. B fawt me bout that name but I made sho she rote it down. That the least she culd do.

  We the same. B dont want it that way but aint nuthin she can do even if she burn off that mark like she threten to do wen she seen it. I hated to leave you son. That nite I stared down at you layin in that box on the flo. I thot bout takin you with me but I dint hav no way of razin you. I dint have nowere to sleep and I sho dint hav no way of takin care of no babe. But I spose you mite do better sleepin in allyways like me than sleepin in that wolfs den I lef you in. All I ben doin is thinkin bout you, wondrin how B treatin you. She gotta feed you cuz the other chillun will see somthin rong. I dont know wat she ben tellin you but I luv you Milton. I aint ben ther to raze you but I luv you jus the same.

  I hope you dont thank too hard of me. It nearly kilt me to go. I wulda stayd jus for you. But I had to go for you. B wuldnta let me or you have no kinda life if I stayd. She razed cane the hole time she carryed you and it dint get no better after you com out. You was even born in a thunnerstorm. That rain jus pored off the house and that thunner shook the windas. I had to run git Miss Boyd to hep yo mam. It was jus us and Lisbet and Thomas. Corse B dint wont me noware near her. But I was thar by the do. You culd screem and you screemd up to the day I lef. You put somthin on that woman, you heer me? I jus hope them storm clowds broke wen I lef.

  Im lookin to see you won day. I liv in Jasper at 23 Reedy Creek. This woman lookt kindly on me and giv me work to do. I almost dint take this job cuz I bout had it with all her kind but Im runnin the sto for her. Thats how I had this munny to giv you. Now dont spind it all at Fultons. Dont giv it to yo mam nether. Look me up if you got the mind to. I be the won with the gray hat on and the big smile. And you can just chek my behind to make sho. I be lookin fo you.

  Daddy

  A tear wound a crooked path down Evelyn’s cheek as she studied the two yellowed, faded one-dollar bills. She wondered who’d paid the higher price.

  PART THREEThe First and the Last

  Chapter Nineteen

  AFTER GRANNY B’S LETTERS SCATTERED to the seven Agnew-scented winds, calls poured in like the rain that pelted the windowpane on summer afternoons. Lis tried to reassure her brothers and sisters that everything that could be done was being done, but they blew into town anyway, huffing and puffing against the brick fortress that was Granny B.

  “She wouldn’t even let me pray for her. I couldn’t believe it. She wouldn’t even let me step in the door and pray for her. And then I hear Little Ed is staying there!” Ruthena stood on the bottom step.

  Evelyn watched her mama’s shoulders lift in a sigh that seemed to start in her toes. Then she glanced at her uncle sitting beside her on a kitchen stool and smiled when he winked. Since her uncle had been released from prison and found a new lease on life, he’d become Edmond—to all but Ruthena, who clung to the past like it was her shelter from the cold.

  Lis led the way. “Come on in, Matthew. Ruthena, why don’t you take it up with Edmond yourself?”

  “What! Little Ed’s here?” Ruthena pushed past Lis.

  Lis patted Matthew’s back as he followed his wife. He planted a kiss on his niece’s cheek and then enveloped his brother-in-law in a bear hug. “Hey there, brother. When did you get out?”

  “A few weeks ago. Big Sis over here sent me money for a bus ticket so I could see Mama.”

  Evelyn knew that even though Ruthena made the most noise, her aunts and uncles all looked up to their oldest sister. She’d always been their emotional go-between with Granny B, the family’s second-in-command even when Henton was around.

  Matthew left a hand on Edmond’s shoulder. “How’ve you be—?”

  “Why do you get to stay with Mama when the rest of us can’t even see her?” Ruthena skipped all the social niceties.

  “I see her, Ruthena,” Lis responded smoothly as she opened the freezer and retrieved the decaffeinated coffee. “And so does Evelyn.”

  Ruthena
pursed her lips and rolled her eyes heavenward, but Evelyn didn’t get the feeling her next words were heaven inspired. “But the rest of us don’t! Mama needs prayer, a laying on of hands . . .”

  “I touch her every chance I get, Aunt Ruthena.” Evelyn sipped her orange juice. She rubbed her stomach, feeling the baby kick.

  Ruthena grimaced.

  “And I pray with her, even when she’s not looking.” Edmond grinned.

  Ruthena’s mouth dropped open, and she aimed an index finger at her brother. “You? I’m sorry, Little Ed, but what do you know about petitioning the Lord, interceding on someone’s behalf? You probably can’t remember the last time you put a foot in church.”

  “What—the prison chapel don’t count?” He laughed, but then he seemed to realize Ruthena wasn’t in the mood for his old playfulness. Edmond snapped his fingers and pointed at his sister. “Okay, what about the apostle Paul? He carried the Church with him—in and out of prison. And I’m talking about the capital C church and not the little c you sit in every Sunday, Ruthena. He wrote Ephesians, Philippians, Philemon, Colossians . . . all from prison,” he said, counting the books off on his fingers, “and I’m sure we can agree that my fellow former inmate was filled with the Holy Spirit and prayed . . . his . . . butt . . . off.” Edmond slowly rotated back and forth on his stool, never breaking eye contact with Ruthena.

  It was she who looked away first. To Lis. She aimed a thumb back at her brother and huffed, “Is he sitting here comparing himself to Paul?” When Ruthena faced him again, the incredulity in her eyes battled with the twinkling in his. “No offense, Little Ed, but you went to jail because you are a thief, not an apostle.”

  “Aunt Ruthena!” Evelyn couldn’t help herself. Her stomach jostled her cup when she nearly hopped from her stool.

  “Slow your roll, mamacita,” Edmond said to Evelyn as he pressed her back into her seat. He grabbed a dishcloth and swabbed up the mess. Throughout the exchange, he’d kept his cool. If anything, his voice dropped a degree as he focused on Ruthena. “No, Sister, I was a thief. And Paul was a murderer of the very people Jesus came to save. That don’t change the fact that Mama don’t want to see you.”

  Matthew took his wife’s hand as she stood there spluttering in the middle of the kitchen. “I don’t believe it’s where you are when the Lord calls you. It’s knowing whose you are once He does.”

  Crackle, crackle, crackle . . . Lis lifted the top of the grinder. “Coffee?”

  The kitchen was silent for a moment except for the clink of cups and saucers hitting the granite.

  Ruthena finally spoke. “So, Evelyn, what’s your part in all this?”

  Evelyn took a deep breath. “I don’t have a part, Aunt Ruthena.”

  “You most certainly do!”

  “Ruthe—”

  “Matthew, she does. She’s the one who wrote those letters and then had the nerve to hand deliver mine!”

  “Aunt Ruthena, I didn’t write them. Well, I did, but not really. Just think of me as the typewriter, the instrument—and I guess, your messenger. Those letters came from Granny B. I really had nothing to do with it.” Evelyn avoided her aunt’s disbelieving look by stepping down from the stool to pour another cup of juice.

  Aunt Ruthena’s tsk filled the kitchen. “Lis? What do you think about Mama’s death wish?”

  Mama added eight heaping tablespoons of grounds to a filter and then poured cold water into the machine before replacing the glass pot. She seemed to use the same spoon from the coffee grounds to carefully measure her words. “Is that what you call it, a death wish?”

  “Well, what do you call it?”

  “Her own business. That’s what I call it.”

  “Her own business! She’s committing suicide! Slowly but surely, she’s committing suicide. And you and this girl here are just going to sit by and let her do it.” Aunt Ruthena stared at Mama incredulously.

  “Well, what do you expect them to do, Ruthena? Drag her to the doctor? Hold her down while they pump her with a bunch of useless drugs and chemicals?” It sounded like Edmond had already gotten an earful from Granny B.

  Aunt Ruthena perched on the barstool Evelyn had vacated and turned her back on her brother. “Well, doing something might not help her physical body, but what about her spiritual body, Lis?”

  “What are you talking about now, Ruth?”

  “I worry about her faith, or the lack of it, and how it’s affecting her health. Does she just not believe in the healing power of Jesus? In heaven? She’ll never get well that way.”

  Mama shook her head in disbelief. “Now I see why she didn’t let you in the house. If I’d had any sense, I wouldn’t have let you in either. Matthew, help me out here.”

  Uncle Matthew filled each cup. “Well—”

  “Well, it’s not any of your business, Matthew. She’s my mama—”

  “She’s our mama, too, and I didn’t spend twenty hours on a Greyhound to hear all this foolishness for the next two days. First of all, her faith ain’t the issue. And secondly, she’s not going to hell for not choosing chemotherapy. Hell is for the unbeliever, not the stubborn.”

  “Y’all are just running from the truth. But not me. We’re calling Thomas, and we’re going to ask him to draw up some kind of papers to control—”

  “Don’t say ‘we,’ Ruthena. I told you before we left the house I don’t support this.”

  “But, Matthew, God won’t—”

  “This doesn’t have anything to do with God but with you and your inability to accept the fact that your mama is dying. He’s in control, not you. Now Granny B has always done things her way, so leave her be. You keep talking crazy like this, and Lis and Edmond will declare you incompetent.”

  Evelyn slurped down such a huge mouthful of hot coffee she scalded her tongue, but she held it, leaving her aunt to stew in impotent silence.

  ——————

  “Did she say she was gon’ brang down the hand of God on me right then and there?”

  “Oh, Granny B, you need to stop. I hope it’s God’s will to heal you, too—it’s certainly within His power.”

  Beatrice heard the wistfulness, the heavenly appeal in her tone, but she didn’t have time for sadness today. “No, it’s Ruthena that need to stop, and you need to shake that rug one mo’ time.”

  Snap! “Granny B, she—”

  “And if you tell me she loves me, I’m gon’ take that rug and pop you upside the head with it.”

  Evelyn vigorously shook the rug.

  Beatrice took a long draw from her cup. “That girl always threat’nin’ to pray fo’ me. Been doin’ so since she was ’bout this high.” She indicated the general area around her hips. “Holdin’ them prayers over folks’ head like a thundercloud. But I don’t thank she know God too well if she thank He just gon’ jump to do her biddin’. He God all by Hisself and don’t need no Ruthena to let Him know what He doin’ wrong or right.” She flicked her fingers. “Brang that here. Let me show you how to beat a rug.”

  “Uh-uh. You sit. Just keep on swigging that noxious stuff—”

  “Not a what?” Beatrice’s brows furrowed.

  She nodded toward the mug. “That. What is that?”

  Granny B grimaced. “Oh, this onion syrup. Mam used to make us drank it when we was little. It fixed whatever ailed you.”

  “You mean scared it away, don’t you?”

  “You chillun today, with your fancy doctors and medicines. Runnin’ here and there lookin’ for miracles, when all they got to do is use what God gave ’em in they own backyards.” Granny B pointed to a weed growing near the street. “That catnip there can make you a good tea.” She held her cup aloft. “And this onion syrup? Just boil you some onion good and slow and add some honey and sugar. Better than anythang you can buy.”

  “According to you.”

  “Well, if this don’t suit your taste, I can fix you up some castor oil and brandy. Thata knock them germs right out. You shoulda seent my brother Henry wh
en Mam made him drank a spoonful—and that’s all it took, a spoonful. She’d warn him, ‘Open yo’ mouth and hold yo’ nose!’ He’d take one lick off that spoon . . . !” She laughed.

  Evelyn waved her hand in front of her face. “No thanks. I’m laying off the hard stuff for the next nineteen weeks or so.” She draped the rug over her arm and mounted the front porch steps.

  “You stayin’ away from your husband for the next nineteen weeks, too?”

  Evelyn froze.

  “Well? You told him ’bout that baby yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Speak up, chile. Any reason why you waitin’?”

  Evelyn melted a bit, allowing her lips and feet to move. “It’s not really something you tell over the phone.”

  Beatrice raised her cup and an eyebrow. “So you plannin’ to hand him the baby and say, ‘Well, here she is’?”

  Evelyn stopped beside her grandmother’s chair. “She?”

  Granny B rolled her eyes. “He, she, whatever. They gon’ cause you the same heap-a trouble, don’t make no never mind.”

  “Is that why you didn’t let Aunt Ruthena in last week, because you thought she was causing trouble?”

  “I didn’t let Ruthena in ’cause I didn’t wont to, and Edmond in ’cause I did. And I know you changed the subject ’cause you wonted to.” She relieved Evelyn of the worn-out welcome mat. It slapped the ground. “But that’s okay ’cause I’m gon’ lay down. Take the broom over the sidewalk.”

  Before she could escape, Evelyn’s words snagged her.

  “How have you been lately, Granny B?”

  “The same.”

  “And how is that?” Evelyn seemed to drop the pretense as she dropped the broom.

  “Not different.” Beatrice resented the invasion and the help she’d had to seek lately.