when are you coming home so Esther will stop bossing me around?”
Rubbing my forehead and the headache that throbbed just behind my eyes, I said, “I don’t know.”
The silence was absolute.
Then Esther shrilled, “What do you mean you don’t know?”
My older sister, who was a tree-creature-in-hiding like Mud and me, was a holy terror. She was pregnant and growing leaves and having marital problems with her husband-by-the-church. Meaning she had never legally married him but was church-married, and in God’s Cloud of Glory Church women traditionally had no property, no money, no authority, and no say in anything. She had moved in with us a week past, following a spat with her husband. Daddy and Mama wouldn’t take her in, and my older sister Priss had told us, “Flat-out no,” so that left me, the rebel who had walked away and survived to tell the tale, as the one with a visitor. I had been willing—even eager—to help any of my sisters, and Esther’s watching Mud had sounded great. But Esther’s constant whining and snipping had burned me down to a low simmering anger.
I closed my eyes tight, took a steadying breath, firmed my resolve, drew on about half the church-speak I needed to make my point, and said into the silence, “You’uns both listen to me.” My heart went hard and my voice went harder. “Esther, there’s nothing I can do to help you with your messed-up marriage, the fact that you’re growing leaves, your relationship with the church, or your baby. Not a dang thing.”
Mud tittered at my cussing.
“You have to figure out your life and what you want and how you intend to get there. If you’re gonna fight, then fight, but pick adversaries and battles you think you can win and accept that you may lose. You fight the church, you fight your husband, I’ll be at your side to help, but I cannot fight for you. And. You need to remember this. If you argue and fight with me and Mud, in my home, on my land, then the only ally you have will turn her back on you. ’Cause I ain’t gonna live in misery and disharmony like what you’un and Jed live in.”
Over the connection I heard Esther take a shocked breath.
Well, truth was hard to take. Esther had problems, no one was denying that. But some of her problems had been made worse by her attitude. Feeling tired and resentful and worn to a frazzle, I pushed on. “Mud, you have to figure out how to get your sister help, or kick her out, or call Daddy and Mama and have her removed according to church practices. But whatever you do, you need to remember it has repercussions. You help her, you might be stuck with her. You kick her out, you got to live with the knowledge that you made your sister and her baby homeless. You bring in the church, that might get her burned at the stake because she’s got leaves. Lots of leaves, thanks to the baby hormones. That path will drag us all into the church spotlight. And it will prove to the church that womenfolk can’t live without the stern controlling man at the reins.”
Mud said, “But—”
“Hush,” I said. “I’m talking. According to the church, you’re a woman grown and capable of thinking and acting like one. Now, I know you’re just a kid, but you ain’t uneducated or stupid or foolish. You got a smart head on your shoulders. You both know how to have a dialogue. That’s one good thing the mamas taught all a us—how to talk through problems.”
They had fallen silent.
“I can’t be there to fix it for either one a y’all tonight,” I said. “However, Esther, understand this. That’s my house. The dog and cats live there. Inside unless they been skunked. Let them in. Now.
“Mud, stop picking at your sister. ’Cause I know you been picking and she can’t take it right now ’cause a the baby. When I get home, we three are going to have a come-to-Jesus meeting and it ain’t gonna be pretty.”
A come-to-Jesus meeting meant a meeting that would result in judgment to right the wrongs and change things. It wasn’t a meeting I demanded lightly and even Esther knew it. She said, “But—”
“No buts.” My voice went hard, cold, and intractable. “My house, my rules.” I hit the end button, wondering if I had just ignited a fuse or put out a fire. And knowing