SOPHIA
When Sophia ambled up to the farmhouse, Ma Deary’s Rambler was parked in its usual spot. The discovery of her mother’s death and the time away with Mrs. Gathers had lit something fierce inside Sophia. She wanted answers, and she wanted them now.
Shoving through the back door, she tramped toward the snores coming from Ma Deary’s bedroom and started tapping the woman’s arm until she awakened.
“What the—? Rusty.” Ma Deary looked surprised. “Girl.” She sighed. “The devil has gotten into you? You know better than to wake—”
But Sophia cut her off. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
“That I was adopted.”
Ma Deary fluttered her eyes several times and then sat up in bed. She felt around on the night table for her cigarettes. With one dangling from her lips, she said, “Girl, where are you getting this cockamamie shit from? Why would you say something like that?”
“?’Cause it’s the truth.” Sophia plucked the cigarette out of MaDeary’s mouth and threw it to the ground. “I’m old enough now. No more lies.”
Ma Deary glared in the way she used to scare her, but Sophia would not be moved. Not after the news she had received today.
“It’s always something with you, you know that?” Ma Deary picked up a fresh cigarette and pointed it at Sophia. “You better not touch this one, not if you want me to tell you anything.”
Sophia stood taller. “Talk.”
“Go put on some coffee for me, and I’ll meet you in the kitchen. Let me get my head together, please, and brush my damn teeth.”
Sophia relented. “Fine.”
Ten minutes later, Ma Deary scuffed out of the bedroom, wearing her bathrobe tied around her waist. Sophia placed the cup of Maxwell House on the dining room table and took the seat across from her.
Ma Deary blew on her cup and then took a sip. “When I was eleven years old, I had a fever so hot that it burned up my ovaries. ’Least that’s what the doctor told me. When I met Frank, I told him that I wanted to be a mother but couldn’t carry no babies.”
She shifted in her seat. “Then one day I was in the break room at work and came across an article in theAfro.It had photographs of all these pretty light-skinned orphans with that good hair. I knew I had to have me one. I followed the instructions on how to adopt the kids from Germany, and that’s how you got here. Satisfied?”
Sophia crossed her arms. “You should have told me.”
“Oh, girl, that’s all water under the bridge now. Get over it. What matters now is that you here, that you ours.”
“Get over it? I’m not some little pet, I’m a real person. With a heritage and family lineage that I deserve to know and understand. Sophia isn’t even my real name!” Her chest heaved.
“What are you talking about?”
“I found my birth mother,” Sophia roared.
Ma Deary’s eyes widened. “Well, I’ll be damned. How could—”
“She’s dead. She killed herself. She was sad because she gave me up. If you had told me, I could have located her before she did it. Maybe she would still be alive.”
“Why would you go stirring shit up? And after all we’ve done for you.”
“Done for me?” Sophia raised her voice, appalled. “You mean how you have exploited me, worked me to the bone like free labor.”
“Little girl, you gotta earn your keep.”
“I’ve done more than earn my keep.” Sophia slammed her hands down on the table, making the coffee cup rattle.
“You better watch it, Rusty. Don’t get too big for your britches or else.”
“Or else what?”
