bitter, below-zero.
made-you-wish-you’d-been-born-inside-a-fur-coat
cold.
heavy sky, early dark, lamps already lit.
esther playing in the kitchen with her clothespin dolls,
and mr. hirsh still at the shoe store. that’s
when leanora sutter, half frozen,
showed up on my porch.
she wore no coat, her head was bare, no rubbers on her feet,
nothing but worn-thin school clothes standing between her
and the teeth of winter.
i brought her in.
sat her on a chair by the stove.
put a mug
the chipped one
of warm broth in her hands.
esther dragged my best quilt into the kitchen and
worked it up over leanora’s shoulders.
only esther would go lugging out the company best
for a colored girl.
i left leanora there with esther,
ran the half mile to iris weaver’s restaurant
with the coffee flowing and the politics raging around me
phoned doc flitt and constable johnson,
let them know i had leanora and she wasn’t in any too good shape,
and they’d better hurry along.
constable johnson said he’d go after the girl’s father.
make sure wright got his child home safe and sound
to that little place they rent from lizzie stockwell
out the west end of town.
constable said he didn’t want happening to leanora,
what happened to the mother.
when i got back to the house,
esther sat at leanora’s feet,
little round esther leaning against
that slender brown girl, with her long head and longer limbs.
gave me some turn
seeing those two motherless children
in my kitchen
before the stove,
esther’s hair draped across leanora’s lap,
leanora’s dark hand stroking esther’s silk face.
after wright sutter drove away with leanora,
i looked at the empty chair by the stove,
the quilt still slung over it, spilling onto the floor.
i never had a colored girl in my kitchen before.