CHAPTER 24
When Junior heard the knock at the front door, he suspected it was Mary, even though she was earlier than usual. He was back in the kitchen making breakfast plates for the twins and himself. Fred had left breakfast on the stove for them before leaving for work, just as he had done since Gert passed. Even after Mary started going to the Leigh' house in the mornings, Fred still left a small amount of food on the stove for the children. And when Mary arrived, she would always cook more breakfast, saying that the children’s “bellies need ta be full so yall can pay ‘tention ta yo teachers at school.”
Junior opened the door to see Mary and Bernice standing there with boxes in their arms. He was taken aback as he looked from face to face while holding onto the big wooden door. “
‘Mornin’ Bernice,” he grinned, “What ya got?” He asked, without acknowledging Mary’s presence.
“ ‘Mornin’, Junior,” Mary interrupted abruptly as she leaned over Bernice‘s shoulder in an attempt to break Junior’s boyish grin.
“Oh, ‘Mornin’ Miz Mayree, daddy jus’ left. What ya got there?” He asked curiously, looking at the boxes the two women were holding.
Junior was smitten with Bernice and he wasn’t good at hiding it. Whenever he happened upon her, he always gave her the kind of grin that no one else was privy to.
Bernice knew he was smitten but she never acknowledged his “little boy feelings,” as she called it.
“Bernice so pretty,” Junior told his mother long before she passed away. “I wanna marry her when I grow up!” He beamed in the kitchen that afternoon as he watched his mother cook. Without discouraging his young thoughts, Gert said simply, “That’s nice, son, she sure is real pretty,” with a mother’s understanding smile.
And for sure Bernice was pretty. In fact, when she was born, many of the elderly feared she was “too pretty to live,” which was a superstitious belief of the elderly in that community. Many of them prayed extra prayers silently for the first year of Bernice’s young life in hopes she would live, and of course she did, and her beauty only magnified.
Bernice looked more like Mary than she did her own mother. They had the same fair skin and coal black wavy hair that reached far below their shoulders (although Mary had gotten into the habit of cutting her hair every since she turned fifty, but never above her shoulders, saying “long hair ain‘t fo’ ol’ folks!”). They had the swaying hips that signified undisturbed confidence. They had full red lips that resembled the meat of a watermelon. And they had the well-designed figure that caused men to stop and stare while women wished they were in their skin. Bernice stood just over five feet, three inches tall, which was the only resemblance she held to her mother.
“Well, if you’d move and let us in, you’d see what we ‘got’, Junior!” Bernice said mockingly as she pushed past him into the living room, dropping the largest box on the floor with a thud. “Get those other boxes on the porch,” she said over her shoulder just as Junior started to follow her back into the house. “They belong to Auntie Momma.”
By that time Mary had placed her smaller box on the floor and was headed back to the porch. “Auntie Momma, don’t go back out there. Junior is getting the other boxes for us,” Bernice told her. “Just sit down for a minute.” Bernice continued, “but you need to tell Junior what’s going on because he’s kind of confused right now, just like I was when I first got the good news,” she whispered between a giggle.
“I ain’t tellin’ him nothin’ ’til his daddy git here,” Mary said as she turned mid-floor and walked to the rocking chair and sat down. “He ain’t grown. Let him wait ‘til his daddy git home,” she continued. Then her voice fell silent as she began to rock in the well-worn chair. Junior carried in the last box from the porch and placed it near the other three. Then he stood there in his twelve-year-old excitement facing Bernice.
“Anythang else, Bernice?” Junior asked through shiny white teeth.
“Bernice, ya better get goin’,” Mary interrupted hurriedly before Bernice could respond to Junior. “Ya got ta go ta school jus’ like these child’n is. Go on back home, now,” she said as she rose from the rocking chair and shooed Bernice gently toward the door. “And you git outta here an’ stop lookin’ up in Bernice face!” Mary said as she pointed toward the kitchen while looking at Junior, who had made himself comfortable standing in the living room.
“Ok, Auntie Momma, I’m going. I’ll let you get to your work,” Bernice said as she stepped out onto the front porch. “Bye Junior! Bye girls! Be good to Auntie Mamma!“ She called back into the house, where Junior had joined the twins in the kitchen to finish breakfast.
Mary stood on the porch as Bernice climbed in her truck and backed away from the house.
Then she walked back inside the house and closed the door. She hesitated by the door, took a deep breath, then walked into the kitchen where the three older children were finishing their breakfast.