Esther flinched. Being called lazy was the worst insult a churchwoman could be called.
I went on. “You have to bewillingto learn how to live outside the church. Being willing means learning a new way to work, a new way to live, a new way to be.”
Esther held out her hands and whispered, “If’n I stay at the church, someone will try to drive the devil outta me for growing leaves. Someone will take me and punish me again.” Our mama had been punished, which was why I had a half-brother who wasn’t Daddy’s. Esther had suffered the same kind of punishment, which likely triggered her leaves. “Someone will kill my baby for being a devil child. The older ones will call for me and my baby to be burned at the stake.”
“Like a witch,” I said, “but we aren’t witches.”
“That’s what you’un say,” she said, holding up a leafy hand.
“We’re genetic mutants, likely from being interbred for so many generations.”
“That’s disgusting,” Esther said, but without the anger she had expressed the first time I explained about us.
“I’ve told you about trauma, especially sexual trauma, as it relates to stimulating the secondary genetic mutations of plant-people.” Esther had been punished by a churchman, had been raped. We had talked about it, quietly, in the dark of night, after Mud went to bed. “The more violence, and the more we stay in contact with the earth, the more plant-people we become. It’s likely that pregnancy hormones have the same effect, because that’s so hard on the body.”
Esther raised her eyes from her hands on her belly to me. “You’un got your’nself a plan for me?”
“I’m not telling you what to do. But I have advice.”
“I’m listening.”
“The next step after a man has demanded divorce? The wife can demand counseling by the elders. They don’t tell us that, but it’s in the church constitution.”
Her chin tucked in surprise. “We’uns have aconstitution?” She sounded incensed. “Like with rules even the menfolk has to follow?”
“Yeah. Not that anyone follows it. Sister Erasmus slid a copyinto my wine delivery a month or so past and I spent a weekend reading it. It’s interesting.”
“Well, I’ll be a dinosaur on Noah’s ark.”
I chuckled quietly. “To request counseling and a hiatus in divorce proceedings, we need to be willing to tell the truth about your condition.” She looked confused, so I pointed at her hands. “The leaves. The real reason he’s declared divorce.”
“So who would I talk to? What elders will keep that kinda secret?”
I smiled, and it was my PsyLED smile. Not a sweet one at all. “An elder who had a devil dog in his lineage. Because they come from the same kind of inbreeding as plant-people.”
Esther’s gaze turned inward. “Oh,” she said. “Them devil dogs... I never thought...” Silence stretched between us, and I waited, letting her think things through. Slowly, her shoulders went back. Her eyes dried. Her chin lifted. “I knew one. Lemme think on this a while. You’un made coffee? I smell it.” When I nodded, she said, “Let’s take a coffee break and eat the pumpkin bread Mama Grace baked.”
A coffee break is what the mamas used to do midafternoon, after a long day in the garden, or preparing and canning vegetables, or bending over a sewing machine, a loom, a quilting frame. It wasn’t a break in the work load, but more a time to do something less active in the heat of the day, like snap peas, hem a dress, sew on buttons, darn socks. It had often been a time of laughter and problem solving while the young’uns were napping. It was tradition. The good kind.
“That sounds like a good idea,” I said. “Anyone planning on going to war with the church should start with a strong cup of caffeine. Or in your case, a strong cup of decaf coffee or herbal tea.”
“You’un take the fun outta everything,” she grumbled. But Esther followed me down the stairs, listening to my suggestions and options for her future. Before Mud came in, my elder sister and I drank our way through a pot of herbal tea and half a pot of coffee, and ate half the loaf of spicy bread, while discussing potential plans of action. Esther never lost a narrow-eyed look of deep deliberation. I had a feeling that a corner had been turned, hopefully in a positive way, though the look in her eyes was sternand calculating. Under the table, I crossed my fingers for luck, though the church said that was a sin.
***
Mud came in the door with Cherry at her heels, chattering about the health of the greenhouse seedlings and more mature plants in the uncovered winter garden. “We’uns is got—we haveturnip greens and collards and varicolored baby beets and four kinds of winter squash in the outside garden. We also got bunches of little rooted rosemary in pretty shapes like one a them bonsai trees. I think I can tie ’em up with bows and sell them at Sister Erasmus’ little shop during Christmas break.” She told Cherry to “down” on her pallet and poured herself a cup of coffee, liberally doused with cream and sugar, talking about scheduling a round of fall canning with the Nicholson women. She joined us at the table, stopped, and looked suspiciously back and forth between us. “You’uns is mighty quiet. Why’s that?”
“She’s having coffee and I’m having steamed weeds,” Esther said.
“We’re planning on going to war with the church,” I said.
“That ain’t no surprise. I’m in. As long as she ain’t living with us.” Mud pointed to Esther.
“She’ll be here a while,” I said placidly, sipping my coffee.
Mud slammed her cup onto the table and said, “I don’t want her living here. You and me get along jist fine. She’s all, ‘Do this, and do that, and it’s my way or nothin’.’”
I said, “Esther?”
