A Long Time Comin'
Page 31
“Everythang. I could’ve told Mr. Baker that I was sent there to get my brother, but that wouldn’t have been right. I didn’t lie. I did go to check on Billy, and Mr. Baker surely would’ve been eaten alive if somethin’ bad had come of my baby brother. But it wouldn’t have helped nobody to make him get off that bus. My mama had to let go sometime, and Billy did too.” Ruby readjusted the dial on the stove as Vivienne walked back to the island. She lifted a finger to her lips and shook her head at Maxine.
She wiggled her eyebrows and nodded in response as her grandmother, the sous-chef, continued.
“That truth you’ve been carryin’ around all these years? When to tell it is just as important as what to tell and who to tell. That decision will affect a lot of lives, like the one I had to make. Only God knows what the right decision is, although you’ll have to deal with the consequences, painful as they may be. But it’s for you to determine the what, when, who, and how, Maxine. Not me. Not your mama.” Ruby shrugged. Then she reached into her apron pocket and withdrew a pad of paper and a Sharpie. She marked off an item on her list.
“I just don’t know what the right decision is! If I tell Theodore, I have to tell—”
“Hey, y’all! Ooh, pretty . . .”
Ruby’s green marker clattered to the floor.
Maxine’s whole body froze. She turned incrementally, like the second hand on a clock. It seemed like a full minute passed before she faced the high-pitched voice coming from the mudroom that connected the kitchen to the storeroom. “Celeste . . .”
The thirteen-year-old girl clad in a denim miniskirt, pink-and-orange long-sleeved tee, and pink leggings was nestled between the two doors leading outside. She pulled the storm door closed and backed into the glass-paned wooden door, pushing it to. “Oh, Maxine, your flowers came!”
Celeste bounded into the kitchen, her low-top blue Chuck Taylors squeaking happily on the hardwood floor. She leaned over and kissed Vivienne’s cheek. “Mmm-mwah. It smells good in here, Mama. What’s going on?”
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