The Seventh Mother

by Sherri Wood Emmons

  I took a long breath and said as calmly as I could, “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you first. I didn’t know you’d be so upset. I just thought the money would be helpful with Christmas coming up. We can use it to get Jenny some nice things, maybe a new coat. Her old one is getting too small for her.”

  He stared at me for a long minute, his face red. Then he, too, took a long, deep breath and seemed to deflate.

  “Oh, Emma,” he said finally, “that’s sweet, honey, that you want to buy stuff for Jenny. I’m sorry I lost it, babe. Really, I’m so sorry.”

  He drew me into a hug and held me until both of us were breathing normally again.

  “Why would you get so mad about me working?” I asked, easing away. “I worked when we were in Idaho. I’ve always worked. I like working. I like pulling my own weight.”

  He took my hands and was quiet for a minute. Then he said, “Last year, I met a woman named Jackie. You probably already knew that, right?”

  I nodded, still holding his hands. “She lived with you,” I whispered.

  “Yeah, she did. And I thought it was going to work out. We got along great; we had fun. She seemed to love Jenny. I thought maybe she was the one, that maybe we’d even get married.”

  “So what happened?”

  “She took a job at a gas station in the town where we were. Said she wanted to make some extra money. And then, boom, she decides she’s in love with the guy she works for. He owned the station. A real loser, if you ask me. But she left me, she left without even telling Jenny good-bye.”

  He sat down at the table and dropped his head into his hands. “I was pretty hurt, but Jenny . . . God, Jenny was just devastated to lose her. They’d gotten really close.”

  I sat down across from him and put my hands on his. “That’s not going to happen to us,” I said firmly. “I promise you, Brannon, I’m not going to leave you for anyone else.”

  He raised his head and I saw a tear slide down his cheek. My heart nearly broke.

  “I love you, Brannon,” I said, brushing away that tear. “I love you and I love Jenny, and I’m not going anywhere without you.”

  He rose and pulled me to my feet, then wrapped me in a tight embrace.

  “I love you, too, babe.” He kissed my forehead, my cheek, my nose. He drew me into a long, deep kiss.

  “Ewww!”

  Jenny stood in the doorway, Lashaundra beside her. Both girls looked pretty much horrified.

  I stepped back, feeling my cheeks redden. We didn’t kiss like that in front of Jenny.

  “Can Lashaundra sleep here tonight?”

  “I have to work tonight, honey,” Brannon said. “So I guess it’s up to Emma.”

  He looked down at me and smiled. “Is that okay with you?”

  “Sure,” I said, returning his smile. “That’s fine with me.”

  After Brannon left for work, Jenny and Lashaundra ran to the Johnsons’ to get her overnight things. A short time later, I heard a knock at the door.

  “Come on in, silly!” I was washing dishes in the sink.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Oh!” I said, turning toward the door. “I’m sorry . . . I thought you were Jenny.”

  Mrs. Johnson stood in the doorway, hands on her hips, frowning at me.

  “She’s at our place,” she said. “I wanted to talk to you before I let Lashaundra spend the night here.”

  “Okay.” I wiped my hands on a dish towel. “Have a seat.” We sat at the table.

  “Can I get you some tea?”

  “No, thank you. I just . . . I want to be upfront about some things before my little girl stays here with you.”

  She cleared her throat and looked directly into my eyes.

  “It’s pretty obvious you’re a racist,” she said. “And that’s your problem, it’s not mine. But you’d better be damned certain that you are not going to do anything or say anything to hurt my child. You got that?”

  I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. Her words took my breath away. I stared at her, feeling her anger wash over me like a cold wave. Her dark eyes never even blinked as she stared back at me. At last, I found my voice.

  “Look, I’m not . . . I mean, I don’t think I’m a racist. I don’t want to be, anyway.”

  She said nothing, simply watching me.

  “Where I was raised, we were taught some pretty weird things. Awful things, actually. And . . .”

  “I know what it’s like to be raised to hate,” she said softly.

  I stared at her, my mouth hanging open.

  “What, you think white folks are the only ones who can hate? My daddy hated white people. He grew up in the South under Jim Crow. He took a whole lot of crap from the police, got beat up, even went to jail once. And it made him hate anyone who wasn’t like him. He disowned me when I married Michael.”

  She must have seen my confusion.

  “Michael’s mother is white,” she explained. “My daddy couldn’t handle that. So, I know about being raised that way. But that doesn’t mean I have to be that way. And it doesn’t excuse you, either.”

  “But I’m not . . .”

  “I saw you the day we got here,” she continued. “I saw your face when you looked at my daughter. And I could hear the word screaming in your head. Nigger. That’s what you thought when you saw my Lashaundra. That’s what you thought when you saw Malcolm. I know the look when I see it.”

  I felt my cheeks beginning to burn. “I . . . I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I didn’t mean to look like that. I didn’t mean to even think it.”

  “But you did.”

  The words hung between us, heavy in the air. I rose and began pacing the aisle of the trailer. My head was aching from too many thoughts. Finally, I sat back down and took a deep breath, trying to exhale all the fear and vitriol and garbage from my head.

  “I grew up in the FLDS,” I said. I hadn’t told anyone that in a long time. I hadn’t even told Brannon yet.

  She simply looked at me.

  “Fundamentalist Mormon,” I said. “The kind you see on that television show, Big Love.”

  “You mean the one with that man and all his wives?”

  Now it was her turn to stare at me with her mouth open.

  I nodded.

  “Where I was raised, we were completely cut off from the rest of the world. We were told that everyone outside our church was going to hell, and that people with dark skin were the children of the devil. I know it sounds crazy, but that’s what I was taught when I was a little girl. And you and Lashaundra . . . well, you’re the first black people I’ve ever actually talked to. There were no blacks where I came from. After I was four, we didn’t even have a television. The prophet, I mean the guy in charge of the whole town, he made us get rid of our TV. He said it was full of evil influences. So the only thing I knew about blacks was what I was taught in school. And the school was run by the church, so I got a pretty biased education.”

  I rose and poured water into the teakettle. I needed something to do.

  “Are you for real?” She sounded skeptical.

  “Honest to God, that’s the truth.”

  I put the kettle on the stove and lit the flame. Then I sat back down across from her, a black woman at my kitchen table. My mother would have died!

  “I ran away when I was seventeen. I left and I never looked back. And I set out to learn everything I could about the outside world. But even after I left, I didn’t meet any black people. There just aren’t very many out there.

  “When I lived in Utah, a friend of mine took me to see The Pursuit of Happyness. Did you see that movie? It starred Will Smith, and my God, it blew my mind! I mean, here he was, this good guy, this good father who was trying so hard to make a better life for his son. After I saw it, I went home and cried for at least an hour, because I realized I had spent so much of my life being afraid of black people and thinking they were evil, when they really are just like us. I am . . . I’m sorry, I mean that you are j
ust like me.”

  The teakettle began whistling, so I got up and poured water into two cups.

  “Herbal okay?”

  She nodded, still staring at me like I was from Mars.

  I put the cups on the table between us and sat back down.

  “After that, I watched lots of reruns of The Cosby Show. It was on at eleven every night. And I always ended up crying, thinking how I’d been so stupid. I mean, my family was a nightmare. Really, just a nightmare. But oh, they put on a show like they were just the best family in the world. And here was this black family with a great mom and dad, and the kids were all happy and got along. I felt like I’d been lied to my whole life. I was lied to my whole life.”

  I stirred sugar into my tea and sipped it.

  “So, yeah . . . I don’t know how to be around black people. And I hate that I still have all that stuff in my head. But I’m trying, I’m really trying, Mrs. Johnson. I’m trying to learn it all over, or to unlearn it, or . . . whatever.”

  I looked at her and tried to smile. “Does that make sense?”

  She nodded and smiled back. It was the first time she’d really smiled at me, and it was a beautiful smile.

  “It’s Angel,” she said. “Mrs. Johnson is my mother-in-law.”

  We both sipped our tea quietly for a minute. Then I said, “I promise you, Angel, that I will never say or do anything on purpose to hurt your daughter. I’m really glad that Jenny has a friend. I hope you believe me.”

  She nodded again. “I believe you, Emma.”

  “Thank you.”

  We drank our tea in silence. When her cup was empty, Angel rose and said, “Well, you’ve signed on for some chaos tonight. I hope you know that.”

  I smiled at her, so grateful that I almost cried.

  “Thank you,” I said again. “I think we’ll be fine.”

  11

  Jenny

  That Thanksgiving in Campbellsville was the best I can remember in all my life. Emma roasted a turkey breast in the oven and made real mashed potatoes, not the instant kind, and green beans cooked with bacon.

  In the morning, before the turkey went into the oven, she baked two pecan pies, and I proudly carried one of them to the Johnsons’, still warm from the oven.

  “Come on in.” Mr. Johnson held the door open for me, smiling broadly. “It’s cold out there.”

  “Hi, Jenny!” Lashaundra grinned at me from her bunk bed, laying aside the book she was reading. “Can you eat dinner with us?”

  “No,” I said. “Emma’s cooking and I’m helping. She wanted me to bring you a pie.”

  I set the pie on the table beside a huge bowl filled with chopped sweet potatoes and a bag of brown sugar.

  “Well, isn’t that sweet of her.”

  Mrs. Johnson turned from the oven and smiled at me.

  “And I guess it’s true that great minds think alike, because I’ve got one for you-all, too.”

  She handed me a pumpkin pie from the counter, whipped cream piled in the center.

  “Thanks, Mrs. Johnson!”

  I carried the pie back to our trailer and put it on the table.

  “Look what Mrs. Johnson sent.”

  “Hell yeah!” Daddy said. “Now my Thanksgiving is complete. Pumpkin and pecan pie for dessert. Is there anything better?”

  I looked at Emma, who was staring at the pie, her cheeks reddening.

  Oh no, I thought. Please, Emma, don’t send the pie back just because it was made by a black woman. Please don’t hurt Mrs. Johnson’s feelings.

  Then I saw a tear roll down her cheek, and she smiled.

  “It really is nice,” she said softly.

  Daddy wrapped his arms around her from behind.

  “They’re good people,” he said.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “They’re the best.”

  We sat down to a full table that day. It smelled heavenly. I picked up my fork and reached for a roll.

  “Shouldn’t we say . . . something before we eat?” Emma asked.

  “You mean like a prayer?” Daddy’s forehead wrinkled. We’d never said a prayer together. Daddy said prayers were for ignorant, superstitious people.

  “No, just . . . I don’t know, just something.” Emma shook her head and smiled. “Never mind, I guess I’m being silly.”

  “No,” Daddy said. “It’s okay. We can say . . . something.”

  Then we sat a moment in silence, and I wondered what to say.

  Eventually, Daddy said, “How about we each just say what we’re thankful for this year? Will that work?”

  “That would be nice.” Emma smiled and took his hand.

  “Well, I know what I’m thankful for,” Daddy said. “I’m thankful for the two of you, my best girls.” He winked at me. “And I’m thankful for a job and a place to live.”

  “I’m thankful that Lashaundra is back,” I said. “And for you guys. I’m thankful for both of you,” I added.

  Daddy and I both looked at Emma then, waiting. She sat quietly for a long time, then took a deep breath, reached for my hand, and squeezed it tightly.

  “I am so grateful that I finally have a family,” she said, her voice soft, her eyes filling with tears.

  Daddy leaned over and hugged her, then opened an arm for me. We all hugged and Emma cried some more and I thought to myself, Please, God, if you’re really there, let that be true. Please let us really be a family.

  So one of us did say a prayer that day, after all.

  And then we ate, and we ate some more. And then, we ate some more.

  After we’d eaten as much as we could possibly eat, Emma rose and began clearing the dishes from the table. I watched as she stacked and began washing them in the sink, Daddy standing next to her with a towel, drying as she washed. I just sat watching them and letting myself feel happy and a little bit hopeful for the first time in a long time. Daddy was happy. Emma was happy. Maybe this time it would last. Please, God . . . I began again.

  A knock at the door startled all of us. I ran to open it and found Lashaundra standing on the step, her coat wrapped tightly around her. A bitterly cold wind whipped at her braids.

  “Come in, Lashaundra,” Emma called. “And close the door! Good Lord almighty, it’s cold out there!”

  “This from the woman who lived year-round in Idaho,” Daddy said, flicking her bottom with a dish towel.

  “That’s a different kind of cold,” she said, smiling at him. “It’s cold, yeah. But the cold doesn’t seep into your bones like it does here.”

  “That’s the humidity,” Daddy said. “Dry cold is better than wet cold, just like dry heat is better than wet.”

  “Your pie was really good,” Lashaundra said, rubbing her belly and beaming at Emma. “Daddy said it’s the best pecan pie he ever ate.”

  “Well, your mom’s pie was amazing!” Emma smiled back at her. “I think Brannon ate half of it in one sitting.”

  “Do you want to spend the night?” Lashaundra turned to me. “Mama’s gonna make spiced cider.”

  I licked my lips, remembering Mrs. Johnson’s cider.

  “Can I, Daddy?”

  “Sure,” he said, leaning back in his seat.

  “She said you-all should come, too,” Lashaundra said.

  “Not to spend the night,” she added quickly. “Just for cider.”

  “That sounds like a plan,” Daddy said.

  And so we all spent the evening together, eating the last of the pie and sipping Mrs. Johnson’s spiced cider.

  By the time we climbed into Lashaundra’s bunk, my tummy was aching from so much food.

  “Guess what,” she whispered.

  “What?”

  “Daddy says we might be staying here for good.”

  “Really?” I stared at her. “How come?”

  “There’s talk at the warehouse about some of the temp workers staying on. If Daddy gets asked to stay, we’ll sell the RV and move into a real apartment.”

  “Wow.” I thought about it for
a minute. “Do you think my dad will get asked, too?”

  “I don’t know.” Lashaundra sighed. “I hope so. Wouldn’t it be great if we both stayed? Then we could go to school together and everything.”

  I nodded. It would be great to stay in one place and to have a real friend.

  “Mama said we should pray real hard about it.”

  I nodded again. Would that work? If I prayed, would that help Daddy get a real job, so we could live in a real house and I could go to a real school?

  I thought about what Daddy always said about people who prayed. Then I thought about Emma wanting to say something at lunch. She didn’t seem ignorant or superstitious. Neither did Mrs. Johnson, and she prayed all the time.

  I shut my eyes tight and held Lashaundra’s hand.

  “Dear Lord,” she said softly, “please let Daddy get a permanent job. And let Mr. Bohner get one, too, so Jenny and I can be friends forever. Amen.”

  “Amen,” I said.

  Long after Lashaundra was asleep, I lay awake listening to the sounds in the RV and wondering about praying. Finally, just before I fell asleep, I whispered, “Dear God, if you’re there, can you please help my dad get a real job? If you do, I’ll be really good for the rest of my life. I promise.”

  I waited a minute more, but couldn’t think of anything else to say. So I just said, “Amen.”

  12

  Emma

  “Order’s up!” Harlan called from the kitchen. I picked up the plates and carried them to a table, managing to set the right order before the right customer.

  My first couple shifts at the diner had been pretty bad. I messed up so many orders, I thought Harlan was going to fire me on the spot. But then I started getting the hang of it. And Resa was fun to work with.

  “Ya’ll got room for some dessert?” Resa asked the table behind me.

  “I’ll have the apple pie with ice cream,” the man said loudly.

  “How ’bout you, Shirley?” Resa smiled at the woman sitting in the booth.

  “It all looks good,” she said softly.

  “Well, your fat ass sure as hell don’t need no dessert.” The man’s voice boomed through the restaurant. Other people stared at their plates. I felt my cheeks redden.