Songs My Mother Taught Me; A Collection Of Short Stories

Leon

I woke before sunrise again today.

I don't like it when that happens, I ain't never had a good day when I wake before birdsong.

Missy is gon be in trouble again. I tried to rouse her but she just laid there starin' at the wall and crying for her babe. The child been gone 3 months already and I tell her ever'day that she ought to think of him as dead and she tell me that she wishes he was. I don't know what to say to that. She ain't the only one of us who misses that happy little babe, but she's his ma and the depths of a mothers heart are hard found.

Missy ain't eaten in days and when Clara told her off, Missy tell her to let her be and keep close watch on her own babby instead. Clara left soon after that, dabbing her eyes and telling Missy how she can be awful cruel when the mood takes her. Clara been terrified since the birth of her new babe. Her eldest daughter Constance is ten year old and growing too pretty to be any good to anyone. Since Missy lost her own babe she needles Clara all the time telling her to keep a watch on her babies. Misery loves company I guess, but I tell Missy she ain't gotta be so cruel. She tells me to leave her be.

I turn to walk away from her 'cause I ain't gon get any sense outta her when she's in this mood. When I turn back, I notice she clutching the little blanket her boy was wrapped in every night and all my anger blurs away like rain on the mud.

"I don' wanna live like this. Sometime the pain is so great I think it gon kill me, Leon." She sounds broken and wounded and she remind me of a little bird I found last summer with a snapped wing.

"Hush now, Missy." I break some of the bread I made las' night and lay it down next to her. She turns her face away and I can't help but plead with her. "You gon' get us all in trouble bad. Ain't nothin gon bring your baby back, you jus' gotta keep goin'."

"Why?" She says. I can't think of an answer that will satisfy her so I shake my head and leave her alone with her little blanket and her sad heart.

Constance is waiting for me already, scuffing the heel of her shoe against the dust on the road and although I scold her like I'm suppose too, I can't help a smile because she really is the sweetest child I ever saw with her little check dress an' bonnet. We're both early today and I'm grateful for the time to walk along in the sun.

"Whatchu thinkin' about, Leon?" She asks as she skips over the stones on the path.

"All the time you askin' 'whatchu thinkin' Leon?' 'whatchu thinkin' Leon?', it's enough to drive a man to insanity." I chide. She glances at me to check if I'm real angry. I try to keep a mean face but I never was good at make believe.

"Well, I'm jus' askin'."

"You're the most impertinent child I ever did meet." I can' help but laugh when she pokes out her tongue. "Alright, I tell you what I was thinkin'. I was rememberin' almost eleven year gon', your mama calls across to me, 'say Leon, come look at my babby, born last night. She's the prettiest thing you ever saw.' so I goes over to her cabin and right there at the foot of the bed is a crib and inside is the ugliest, scrawniest lil creature-"

"I was not!"

"Yes-m you was." I can't help a laugh at the look of outrage on her face. "And if I'd 'a known you was gon' spend the next ten years pestering me I woulda walked straigh' out that cabin without picking you up and holding you-"

"Well, if I had of known how mean you was gon' be I wouldn't have let you pick me up. I woulda screamed and screamed until you put me back down."

"And then who would you have to listen to all your chatter fo' the next ten years?"

Constance pokes her tongue out again then returns to her skipping. I glance up at the big house and the field after field of cotton behind it and my heart feels like it sinks somewhere near my feet. I remember when I was a child tellin mama I thought the cotton was pieces of cloud that had scraped against the earth and got caught there and she laughed and said, they ain't pieces of heaven child, you fine that out soon enough.