Babylon Sisters Read Free Page B

looking for maids still expected to come to the black community to find them, and Auburn Avenue was about as black as you could get.
    “Well, you’ve made me a very happy man, Ms. Sanderson. I’ll look forward to seeing you on Monday.”
    “I’ll be there,” I said. “Please give my best to
Miss
Mandeville.”
    “I’ll do that,” he said, pleased that I had remembered about that
Ms.
“Good night.”
    “Good night.”
    I hung up the phone and immediately grabbed a handful of cards to see if I could find one that would give me a little more information about Sam Hall and his boss. I wondered what kind of project they were talking about and how many of the stories I’d heard about the reclusive Miss Mandeville were true. She had a reputation for being strong and ruthless, which could probably be said of most successful businesspeople, but in a woman it still seemed extraordinary, and to some people, slightly inappropriate. That’s fine with me. I’ve never been a stickler for
appropriate.
What I need to know is, what’s the going rate for being an answer to somebody’s prayers?
    I was so engrossed in my search and my speculation that I didn’t know Phoebe was standing in my office doorway until I looked up and saw her watching me intently. She still had the big blanket sort of gathered around her shoulders, and just looking at it made me feel sweaty.
    “Hey, sweetie,” I said, pleased to see her up and about. “Feeling better?”
    “Mom,” she said. “We have to talk.”

3
    It was too late for more coffee, so I poured myself a glass of merlot and went to join my daughter in the living room. She had politely declined my offer of juice or another cup of Sleepytime tea. I settled into my favorite rocking chair, loving the gentle sway of it that was as familiar as my own heartbeat. I bought it the day I decided to keep Phoebe, because good mothers are supposed to nurse their babies in rocking chairs. Even then, before I had a clue about how hard it is to actually raise a sane and loving child in a brutally insane, often unlovely world, I knew that was my goal. I wanted to be a good hands-on mother. A rocker was the first step, and I sat in twelve chairs before I found the right one. It had a tall back, a cane bottom, and carved arms that encircled me like a hug. It was perfect. I couldn’t wait for Rich’s department store to deliver it, so I made them tie it to the top of my car and drove home with the radio up loud and my chair up top, and it was a moment of perfect certainty that I was doing the right thing.
    When I look back at it, I am always amused that I thought everything would be as easy as finding the perfect rocker. What planet could I have been from to think being a good mother has anything to do with certainty? After seventeen years with Phoebe, I now understand that a strong hunch is usually the best you can hope for. That, and a poker face. An unintentionally bemused smile can derail an honest mother-daughter exchange faster than the ring of a cell phone. Just because you know she’ll laugh about it all someday doesn’t mean
this
is the day.
    Phoebe curled up on the side of the couch where she always sits when we watch TV and tucked that damn blanket around her bare feet. Over our heads, the ceiling fan whirred softly. I took a sip of my wine and smiled at my miserable-looking child.
    “What’s going on?”
    Relieved of my earlier fears that I might be a grandmother before I turned forty, and having stated my position on the not-going-back-to-school question, I felt confident that I could handle whatever was knitting my baby’s brow in such consternation.
    Phoebe took a deep breath. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Mom, but I think this whole thing is your fault.”
    “What whole thing is that?”
    “This whole thing with Bradley.”
    She had told me she would never speak her faithless boyfriend’s name again and that she would appreciate it if I didn’t either. It was, she