Mammy died two hours before I arrived. They say waiting on me to come kept her living so long. She was about sixty years old. Now I'm near to thirty and she'd be the age of the century when the war came. Sixty-five. 1865. I'm just writing sums because I don't know what to write and I don't want to think.
She expected me up to the end. She died sitting in a chair facing the door. She was rocking, watching the door when it opened. She croaked my name and didn't even bother to draw her last breath. She died with a look of triumph on her face and a sweet ham in her oven. She thought it was me. But it was just Miss Priss, wearing one of Other's cast-off dresses. Why she wanted to put it on, I don't know. The visiting colored preacher pronounced Mammy dead and took the ham home to his children. No one in the old house wanted to eat it.
I need to put down this pen and stop writing for me. I need to put down this pen and send a letter to R. before Other does. I want him to hear the news from me. Every time Mammy wrote to me, someone heard my news first. She had to tell somebody, and they had to write it down. I always hoped it was them that left out the words I wanted to hear. Them and not her. I want to lay down with the body. Drape me over the mass of her.
It's a long road from where I live to Cotton Farm. And every one I have driven it with is dead. Dead, with one remaining to be buried. I want to sop up the heat from her body.