CHAPTER 22
“Bernice! Bernice!” Mary called from her bedroom. “Git up!” It was Monday morning. The only sign of life, other than creaking crickets, was the old lamp light shining bright in all four corners of Mary’s bedroom, and spilling out into the darkness through the small bedroom window.
Bernice bolted up in bed, startled by Mary’s voice and its urgency. Waking from a deep sleep, she wasn’t sure if she heard Mary calling or if she was responding to a dream.
She sat in her bed momentarily, silent, listening for the voice again. Before she could clear her head, Mary called out again.
“Bernice! Git up!” The urgency intensified. “I need ya in here!”
With that, Bernice jumped out of bed and rushed from the room, her heart pounding. She rushed toward Mary’s bedroom, her mind racing as she prayed under her breath. “What’s wrong, Auntie M....” Before she could finish, she was standing in Mary’s bedroom doorway, a look of utter confusion visible on her face.
Just inside the bedroom, Mary was leaning over a large cardboard box with both hands busy inside. She raised her head just long enough to look at Bernice without ever raising her body. Then she went back to her work inside the box. Around the room sat three more boxes, varying in sizes and all filled to capacity.
Bernice was looking at Mary as if she’d seen her for the very first time. As she walked into the room and over to where Mary was busy tending to the large box, Bernice stopped. “Auntie Momma, what are you doing?” she asked, visibly confused but hopeful that her eyes were not deceiving her.
Mary stood up from interlocking the flaps on the large box and looked at Bernice with a witty sense of annoyance. “What it look like I’m doin’? I’m gettin’ ready ta go up there an’ fix breakfast for them child’n ’fore they go off ta school, that’s what,” she quipped. “And I need ta git these boxes up there too so I ain’t got ta keep walkin’ up an’ down that hill every day.”
Mary walked around the room to the other boxes and started closing their flaps. “Fred ask me ta move in an’ help him raise them child’n an’ the good Lord told me last night ta go, so I’m goin’. Now go git dress’ so we can go,” she said, all in one breath. “I can’t carry these here boxes on my back, ya know.”
Bernice stood in the middle of the bedroom, stunned; she began to weep. “Auntie Momma, why didn‘t you tell me? I didn‘t know he asked you to move up there? When did he ask you?”
“It don’t matter now, do it?” Mary said. “I didn’t tell ya ‘cause ya talk too much an’ ya just confuse my thought sometime, that’s why.” Mary stopped and looked squarely at Bernice for the first time that morning. “This here was ‘tween me an’ the Lord. Just me an’ the Lord. An’ the Lord didn’ need yo help,” she chuckled.
Bernice let out a squeal. “Thank you, Lord!” she blurted much too loud for such a still, quiet and early morning. She was elated and felt unable to contain her excitement and disbelief.
The good news was a lot for Bernice to digest so early in the morning, and especially having received it without any noticeable warning. Her head was spinning and she didn’t know how to stop it. She sat down on Mary’s bed momentarily to regain some sense of composure.
“Thank you, Lord,” she said again, much softer now, as if the good news had all but drained her of any early morning energy that she might have had.
“Well, it time for you to live on yo own now, see what it like,” Mary said without looking up from the boxes. “You grown now. Ya don’ need me like ya used ta. Ya goin’ be just fine,” Mary said, as if consoling Bernice. As she glanced up, she noticed that Bernice had sat down. “Git up, gal,” she said as soon as she saw her perched on the edge of the bed.
“Ain’t no time ta be sittin’ down. I got ta git these boxes in the truck an’ git goin’ here.”
“Okay, Auntie Momma,” Bernice said as she rose from the bed and rushed toward the door. “I’ll be ready in two minutes!” Then she turned back toward Mary momentarily.
“Auntie Momma, I love you.” She dashed out without hearing Mary return the sentiment. She didn’t need it. She knew she was loved.