to wrench those earrings in, it was the things he’d say that were hardest to forget. Your mother is one of them throwaway women. Worthless. Just like you. He’d make me feel we were the lowest creatures on earth and then the next day there my mother would be, curled on his lap, smiling at me in a kind of bliss from across the room.
She left me all alone, caged, with her boyfriends. I’d forgiven her when I became a believer because that’s what a believer did. I’d forgiven. But not now.
We pulled up in front of Cherry’s and Daisy looked at me, dark under the eyes. Said, “I’m sorry all that happened, but it did and now here you are. Better make the best of it.”
Chapter 22
I didn’t make the best of it. I took my heart out of my chest and I watched old crows eat it on the fading yellow-green painted grass in front of Cherry’s. When I went inside, Stringy was a madman at the kitchen table, papers strewn around him, falling onto the floor.
“Thought I wouldn’t figure it out,” he said. “Thought I wouldn’t see all your other little church girls knocked up and put it together? That baby ain’t mine.”
“I saw my mother,” I said.
He shoved the papers at me. “You and that crazy granny try to pin anything on me, think again. I’ll call up the popo and tell them right now we’ve got America’s most wanted pastor right here in Peaches, at it again. You didn’t believe when I told you before. Now here’s proof.”
My eyes blurred over the writing and stuck to the photo instead, of a young man. The curls were gone, the robes gone. But his pointed chin was the same. His arched eyebrows and the cock of his head, the same.
“Don’t leave me now,” I said.
“This baby belong to that pastor? He line all you girlies up and have him a time?” Stringy shook his head in disgust. That’s when I saw Cherry creeping up behind him. She raised up a glass jug full of pennies. She smashed it hard over his head. It broke, and the pennies flew everywhere. He lay on the floor, knocked out cold.
“What?” she said, looking at me. “I didn’t like the way this rat boy was talking about my pastor,” she said, standing over him. “Now help me.”
We dragged him by the armpits into the craft room. I could feel his sweat on my hands.
“He’s dead,” I whispered.
“I’ve seen a dead man and that ain’t it.” She wedged a chair under the outside of the door.
“When he wakes up he’s gonna be angry,” I said.
“Rather have him angry under my nose than flying around spreading the worst of rumors.” She lit a match and burned the printed news articles, the ones accusing Vern of all manner of wrongs, in the kitchen sink. “Nothing was proved in this anyway, even if it is our pastor. He showed it to me all proud. But all I read was that nothing was ever proved. Just like the infidels to frame a holy man.”
“My mother wouldn’t come back.”
“Oh Lordy,” Cherry said. “That’s what you were up to.” She pulled me into her and I let myself give in. I cried and cried and my tears dampened the front of her dress, and she let me. I felt the warmth of her hand on my back and I felt how foolish I’d been, thinking there were a million other ways to live.
“Just like God to clear the path for you even when you’re hanging on to every weed. But he did. That Stringy ain’t no use to you now. The good God got rid of that boy to show you the way.”
I felt all pulled out. I’d tried everything. Maybe she was right. God had gone and cleared it all away.
“You’ve seen the other side, you’ve seen the darkest low of hell. Have you quenched your thirst for the world?”
I nodded.
“I’d say it’s time to buckle down while you can still be forgiven.” Her hand slid around and patted my belly. Artichoke turned violently inside me. “’Bout time to come back where God loves you the most.”
So I did.
I ATTENDED THE Bible study girls’ prayer meeting after the service. We were deep into preparation for the Birthing Day. We sat in a circle sewing birthing gowns for the blessed day in April, when the children within us would be ready to meet their earthly destiny and the