“Mary, you always do that,” Nellie said, her voice rising. “Treat Jordan like a baby, even though she’s past forty. Saint Jordan could set the kitchen on fire and you’d be fine with it.”
“That’s true. Jordan’s so much nicer than you, Nellie.”
The three of us toiled side by side over the gas stove in the kitchen. When Jordan’s husband, Trayvone, showed up, my brother-in-law and their two girls got to work setting up tables and chairs. So by the time the battered bus from Victory Baptist rolled up the road in a cloud of exhaust, we were ready for them.
The gears of the old bus ground together before the engine rumbled a final time. After it fell silent, the doors opened and folks climbed out of the vehicle and fanned across my yard.
Some of them were the unhoused. In Union Springs, the homeless population consisted primarily of single men who took shelter at night in abandoned buildings. But there were also women, families, too. A lot of people came for a free meal. Members of the Baptist church arrived in their own cars, bearing dishes covered in aluminum foil, to fill out our table. And friends from town, some courthouse folks, dropped in, just to be social.
Jordan sailed into the yard, waving an arm. “Welcome, y’all! Who needs a cup of coffee or a cold drink?”
The last person to step off the church bus was the Reverend Curtis Erskine. He drove the vehicle, ferrying a busload of hungry people to my farm every Saturday morning.
He stepped up to my brother-in-law, Trayvone. As the men shook hands, Nellie sidled up to me at the screen door. She said, “The rest of us grow older. But the pastor never ages a day.”
Nellie was right. Erskine was several years older than I was. Didn’t look it. “Clean living, I reckon.”
“Maybe that’s it. Or it could be that way he has, the charisma. Our congregation keeps growing. Church membership has doubled since you used to attend on Sundays.”
“Good. He’s doing his job, then.” My voice was clipped. Nellie cut her eyes at me.
“You’ve never told me why you quit going.”
“That’s because it’s my own business.” I moved away, into the kitchen pantry, to get sugar for the oatmeal. Poured sugar from the bag into the sugar bowl and stuck a clean spoon inside.
Walked back to the kitchen door where Nellie stood, staring out into the yard through the screen.
Nellie made a humming noise in her throat. “Yes, ma’am, that’s one fine-looking man,” she said as she wiped her hands on the flour sack dish towel she’d tied around her waist. “His wife doesn’t deserve him. That Doreen Erskine is cold as a Popsicle. Just look at her! Acts like she’d rather be anywhere but here.”
Through the kitchen screen, I saw Doreen Erskine. She hadn’t arrived on the bus. And she was standing away from the crowd, listening stone-faced to a small cluster of the female pillars of the Baptist church.
My sister kept on talking about her. “Doreen’s a looker, can’t deny that. Keeps her figure. But someday, Pastor’s going to stray. Just to find communion with a warmhearted soul. I’d bet money on it. What do you think, Mary?”
“I don’t care what the man does. He’s not my business,” I said.
And I meant it.
CHAPTER
8
The preacher never made it to the kitchen door. He was stalled midway, brought to a halt by a young woman dressed in a tight pair of well-worn jeans. When the woman buttonholed Reverend Erskine, Nellie made a scornful noise.
She nudged me. “Mary, check her out. You see that one? Pastor would be wise to turn and run. Run for his life.”
I did look, just to see what Nellie was going on about. The woman smiled up at Erskine, talking a mile a minute. She was laser-focused on the preacher until a child toddled up and grabbed her around the leg.
Without looking down at the child, the woman whirled around and called out, “Nova!”
Beside me, Nellie made a disapproving click with her tongue. “I can tell you who she’s hollering for. Nova, that’s her oldest. I see the girl at school. I’ll have her in my math class next year. She’s finishing seventh grade.”
Nova ran up to her mother. The girl had a child in her arms, two more trailing behind her.
Nellie kept talking as she grabbed a gallon of milk from myrefrigerator and carried it back to the door. “That girl Nova looks a lot older than she is. You’d think the child was in high school, she’s so big. Really stands out. She’s taller than most of the boys.”
The revelation stirred memories. “I was a big girl. It’s not easy.” I still recalled exactly how it felt to tower over everyone, to be the first girl to wear a bra. What it was like to explain to the teacher that I desperately needed to run to the restroom in the middle of class.
My sister and I stood together, watching Nova peel her sibling away from her mother’s leg. Nellie said, “That mother’s still in her twenties. Has five children, no man at home. But she runs up to the church every time the pastor opens the door. What do you think about that?”
