CHAPTER 3
The next morning, Fred Leigh, Sr. sat on his front porch, face caught between his weathered young hands, sobbing openly. He had been sitting out on that worn down porch since long before daybreak. He was dressed in work clothes, the same ones he'd worn since his dear Gertrude passed away.
“My wife dead, Lord! Help me, Lord. Please help me, Lord,” he prayed and mourned through every word. “I need ya, Lord. My li’l child’n need ya, Lord. We can’t do nothin’ ‘thout ya, Lord.” He carried on his one-man prayer meeting for hours, right on the rugged, wooden steps, his strength and pride long diminished, replaced with visible pain.
Nestled on both sides of Fred were the twins, seven-year-olds Mary Jane and Mary Jean, surrounded by his pain while feeling a fair share of their own. After all, they remembered their mother well, and they understood that she had passed on and that they would not see her again on this earth. Their appearance spoke loads. Their hair was tousled; the flower-patterned nightgowns their mother had sewn the year before were in dire need of soap and water; and their feet were bare and dirty. For sure, they were in need of serious care, and in more ways than the eyes could see.
Inside the house sat a sprinkling of relatives and neighbors who’d been contacted throughout the night and early morning of Gertrude’s passing. Word of her death spread like melting butter in a hot skillet. People from throughout that tiny Tennessee town and from across the country had been calling all morning, keeping the loud, red telephone ringing nonstop.
Of course, no one was surprised about the many callers and visitors, given the fine reputation that Gertrude had with everyone since she moved into that community with Fred nearly 14 years earlier. She had just graduated high school, and accepted Fred’s offer to marry and move in with him, against a few of her relatives’ objections.
Debbie, twenty-seven years old, was Gertrude’s younger sister. She lived within three miles of Leesville with her husband, Alfred, both of whom were elementary school teachers in a nearby town. Debbie had always been very close to Gert. And when Gert announced her engagement to Fred, Debbie was ecstatic. She knew that, although Fred had only a third- grade education, he was a good, hardworking man, and she knew he would take good care of her big sister. And he did take care of her until the day she died.