“Wake up! Rebecca’s making breakfast,” Clarissa said and pulled the pillow out from under my head. “Mama went to get the spare tire fixed and says to be ready when she gets back. How can you sleep with all this racket going on anyway, Adie?”
Rebecca’s boys had the cartoons on the TV turned up so loud, I wondered that very same thing.
“I guess I stayed up too late reading,” I said. I pulled a pair of red pedal pushers out of the duffel bag and slipped my arms into the white blouse I’d packed for the ride home.
“You best git in here, Adie,” Rebecca yelled. “There won’t be nothing left.”
When I got to the kitchen, food had taken over the table. Biscuits, sausage and gravy, grits, scrambled eggs, bacon, fried potatoes, toast, applesauce, hotcakes, maple syrup, whipped butter, spoon bread, double thick slices of French toast, apple butter, Mama’s blueberry marmalade, and tomato-basil jam. Orange juice was in a glass pitcher on the sideboard, and hot steaming coffee was in a pot on the stove.
“Goodness to heaven. Who’s gonna eat all this?” I said. I no sooner said it when Riley Jr., Clayton, and Girard started grabbing the bowls and fighting over the platters.
“Clayton’s taking all the gravy agin, Ma!” Riley Jr. yelled.
“Am not,” Clayton said
“Liar!” Riley shot back. “Yer worser’n yer pa! He was a big liar, too!”
“Well yer pa was a skunk’s butt!” Clayton said.
“Hush up the both of yous,” Rebecca said. “Neither one of you got a pa to brag on.”
“Is Riley’s pa a skunk’s butt, Mama?” Girard said.
“No, honey, he’s a horse’s derriere,” Rebecca said. “Now eat!” She turned to me and pointed to the food.
“Adie, git yourself a plate. I swear you’re skin and bones, girl,” Rebecca said. “Don’t you cook there in Hog Gap or what?”
“Not like this,” I said. “You could feed the whole town, I reckon, with this spread.”
“Well, Delva and Marie’s coming,” she said. “And Mama’ll be back soon. Ronnie went with her.”
“Ronnie?” I said.
“Ya, Ronnie,” Rebecca said. “My mechanic fellow…guy that keeps my engine tuned.” She winked.
Delva and Marie knocked twice, then opened the screen door and walked right in.
“Morning y’all,” Delva called out.
“Move over, you little hogs,” Marie said and oinked at the boys. They giggled and snorted back at her.
“Don’t encourage them, Marie,” Rebecca said.
Marie covered her mouth and snorted behind her hand again. The boys followed suit.
“Marie!” Rebecca yelled.
“Okay, okay!” she said to Rebecca, then turned to the boys. “Be good pigs, now, and don’t oink at the table.”
Rebecca handed us girls plates, and we proceeded to pass around the platters.
“You boys finished?” Rebecca said.
“Uh-huh,” Girard said.
“Excuse me?”
“Yes ma’am,” he added. Rebecca eyeballed Riley and Clayton.
“Yes ma’am,” each said.
“Well then, go on outside and let us grown bodies eat in peace.” The boys went flying toward the back door.
“And rest your bellies ’fore you run wild in that yard, hear me?” Rebecca called after them.
The food was delicious, and the conversation a welcome relief from my troubles. If I was pregnant, morning sickness obviously wasn’t going to be a problem. I had second helpings and no trouble keeping it down. Rebecca put away the leftovers and plopped back down on a kitchen chair.
“I cooked,” she said. “You gals kin wash and dry.” She tossed the dishrag to me. “The towels are in that top drawer,” she motioned to Delva and Marie. “Don’t be shy.” I filled up the sink with hot sudsy water and started washing the plates.
“We had a bit of excitement at our place this weekend,” Marie said.
“You ought not be running your mouth, Marie,” Delva said. “Ma will box your ears in, girl, she finds out.”
“How’s she gonna find out?” Marie asked and popped her eyes open wide and stretched her neck in her direction. Delva shrugged her shoulders and gave her a suit-yourself-it’s-your-funeral look.
“We got this girl cousin,” Marie continued. “She come to town with her ma yesterday to spend the Easter weekend with us, our ma and her ma’s sisters. Well, seems she got herself in the family way again,” Marie said.
“Again?” Clarissa said. “How many times she done it?”
“Once before, when she was fifteen. And her pa went after the fellow what did it. He weren’t but a kid. Damn near beat him to death with a shovel before somebody stopped him.”
“This supposed to be a funny story?” Rebecca said.
“Sounds awful,” Clarissa said. “What happened to the kid who got beat in the head?”
“I was getting to that,” Marie said. She finished drying a glass, tossed me the dish towel, and continued the story.
“They take him to the hospital, and our uncle, he pays the bill, and then gives his ma a bunch a’ money to shush up—say it was an accident—and not call the law on him. Then he sends our cousin off to Atlanta to this unwed mother’s home and tells everybody she’s off at some fancy girl’s school, Woodruff Academy, I think. The funny thing is,” Marie said, “guess who the daddy is this time?”
“Who?” Clarissa says.
“Guess,” Marie said. Clarissa shrugged her shoulders. I finished drying the glasses and started in on the plates.
“Come on, guess,” Marie said.
“Same boy who done it last time,” Rebecca said.
“Nope,” Marie said, and grinned. “His younger brother!”
“That other kid weren’t never right in the head after that beating our uncle give him,” Delva said.
“That’s why he give his mama all that money,” Marie said.
“Mama says he’s still giving her money,” Delva piped in. “Bought her a fancy car, too.”
“That’s a terrible story,” I said, realizing there was something very familiar about it.
“And that ain’t the half of it,” Marie continued.
“Last night our cousin said she ain’t going away this time, that she’s keeping this baby. Says she loves the daddy, and she’s got it all planned out, they’re gonna get married. When she said that, our aunt dragged her around the house by her hair. About pulled every bit of it out by the roots, she did. Real pretty hair she got herself, too.”
“Golly,” Clarissa said. “Then what happened?”
“We got up this morning, and Ma is having a major breakdown. She’d rather be struck by lightning than git a long distance phone bill, and our cousin’s on the phone to her pa in Hog Gap and she won’t get off the line! She’s crying, carrying on, telling him all about the baby and who the daddy is and how much she loves him and they can’t git married for the time being ’cause he already is. And our aunt is having a heart attack when she hears our cousin on the phone, because the reason she come to us in the first place is she weren’t never gonna tell our uncle. Said this time he’d likely beat the one that did it to death.”
“Hog Gap?” I said. “Did you say Hog Gap?”
“Surely did.”
“Hog Gap, Georgia?”
“That very place,” Marie said.
“They own a store over there,” Delva said.
“They got a bunch a’ money,” Marie added.
“Adie lives in Hog Gap now!” Clarissa piped in.
“Well, I’ll be,” Marie said.
“Maybe you know her,” Delva said and turned to me. “Her name’s Imelda Jane. Imelda Jane Fletcher.”
The plate I was drying popped out of my hand and crashed to the floor.