CHAPTER 2
“Auntie Momma, did you hear about Mrs. Leigh?” Bernice asked through a shaky voice. She spoke without hesitation; “Mrs. Leigh died last night, Momma. She died!I didn’t even know, did you, Momma?”
Mary stared into Bernice‘s face as if she had just witnessed a head-on crash. “Dear God,” she murmured without taking her wide-open eyes from Bernice’s face. “Dear God,” she repeated, almost trancelike. Her body sank back into the chair as if she had just lost a large portion of that part of her body that allowed her to sit up straight. “Who said that? Who told you that? How you know that true, babe?“
“Momma, it’s true! Everybody’s talking about it at the store. Everybody said they’re going over there to see what they can do for Mr. Leigh and the children. It’s true, Auntie Momma.
Mrs. Leigh is gone.” as tears clouded her eyes. “They said her tubes busted. She was pregnant in her tubes.”
“Lord help us! Babe, I didn’ know. I ain’t heard a thang ‘bout it. I ain’t seen her lately but I.... Lord, Lord.” Mary rocked back and forth in the old kitchen chair, still cradling Bernice’s hands in her lap; her face was rippled with shock, pain and confusion.
Mary thought back to earlier that morning when she was washing clothes. She remembered the phone ringing time and again but she didn’t stop to answer it. She never stopped her busy work to answer the phone. She needed to get those clothes on the line while the sun was bright and strong in the back yard. “Lord, Lord,” she whispered as she rose from the chair and walked slowly into the house and into her bedroom. She fell on her knees and began to pray. Bernice followed and kneeled beside her in silence.
Hours later, after Mary had prepared an early but not-so-thoughtful supper, the two ladies retreated to the front porch and sat in the old wooden swing, with Mary again clutching Bernice’s hands and calling on the Lord for dear strength. Time seemed to stand still for the ladies as they swung in their own sadness.
Later into the evening, the big orange sun crept behind the old poplar and oak trees that skirted the distance, but neither of the ladies acknowledged it. On most days, the two ladies could be found sitting in that swing, staring into the melting sun and rejoicing in the gift of another day well done; this was not one of those days.
After a long silence, Bernice spoke. “Auntie Momma, who’s going to take care of those little children up there?” Bernice held a soft spot in her heart for children and she had stated on many occasions that she wanted to have “a house full of little rascals” after she was married.
“Mr. Leigh can’t do it; he’s got to go to work every day. What’s going to happen to his children?” Bernice began to weep again, quieter this time. Her sleeveless dress had dried from her earlier run and hung limply from her shoulders. She shivered in the mid-summer evening’s air.
“I don’ know, babe; I don’ know what goin’ happ’n. We just gotta leave it to the Lord. All we can do is leave it in the Lord hand. He’ll make a way. The good Lord always make a way.”
Mary spoke as tears escaped her closed eyes. She knew she didn’t have the emotional strength to go to the Leigh' house that day. She resigned to go up on the hill the next day.