I almost never hear from Cotton Farm. More and more rarely someone will stop by my kitchen window and call, "Homefolks say hey." They can't write, and I don't expect them to. So when the letter came, I was afraid of tearing its seal.
Mammy is dying and she want me to come home before she go. I ain't saying yes, and I ain't saying no. I'm saying, I ain't stood on Cotton Farm since I was still saying ain't, and I don't know if I want to go back there.
Mammy is dying surrounded by homefolks. I got no feet to take me there. Mammy is dying and I don't want to go home. No more than she ever wanted to come see me under this fine roof. Mammy is dying and I want to touch her but I don't want her to touch me.
I'm going to die one day; this is telling me that. When I was a girl, I say to myself, "I won't hold you when your hair turn gray and your skin turn gray, when your eyes glaze over blue like old folks' eyes do. I won't make a pillow for your head. I seen rheumy eyes like hardboiled eggs, deep green circles glazed over white, and I think those will be your eyes one day. I won't hold you and I will never eat eggs again." Like a prayer of protection I said those things, and now it is not the threat I meant it to be. It's just a prescient prophecy, just a curse on me.
Mammy, Mama, I have no more idea how to hold you old than you had how to hold me young. All I got is ambition to love you more than you loved me.