Betsey Brown Read Free Page B

sauntered to the car like young lovers. The children raced out the screen door, slammin it each time. “See ya, Grandma,” “Bye-bye,” “Back after basketball,” “Love you, Grandma.”
    Only Betsey lingered on the porch next to the forsythia and azalea that Grandma loved so much. “Speak up, Ike, an’ ’spress yo’se’f.” The gentle old lady moved from her bluejays and robins toward her sweet child saying, “It’s a matter of faith, Betsey, alla matter of faith.” Betsey looked up at her grandma and took a deep breath, those southern eyes were sure of her. Her grandma’s silken hands twisted her bangs a bit to the left.
    â€œBetsey, if your grandpa could see you today I swear he’d be so proud. One of his own reciting from the great Mr. Dunbar. Yes, my Frank would certainly have loved to hear your very own rendition in that dialect of our times. I wisht you coulda seen him. I’ma pray for you, ya hear.”
    With that, Grandma grabbed up her apron and sat upon the porch glider to let the morning sun in her soul as she watched Betsey meander down the driveway with a sullen grace and a child’s pace. Then Betsey stood absolutely still, shouting at the top of her lungs, “SPEAK UP, IKE, I’S MIGHTY GLAD TO SEE YOU,” and off she ran.
    From the back porch Grandma could see only the carefully tended beds of tulips and the lengths of coral roses that Mr. Jeff looked after for the family. The small play yard that this ragamuffin loafer had erected for the children when they were little was now the gathering place for Betsey’s imaginary friends, her digs to China, and the ripest honeysuckle vines to be found north of Charleston, or so it seemed to Vida. The quiet of the breeze and the smells of roses, honey, and her fresh cornbread eased her soul. Whenever she thought on Jane and that Greer her heart would getta fluttering and she’d verge on shortness of breath. Caint live nobody’s life for em, but sometimes Vida wisht to the Heavens she could get inside her daughter’s skin and find out how she got in this predicament. The stories were gonna come on and she was gonna remember to tell Jane bout “Edge of Life,” or was it “Edge of Night”? Her memory wasn’t what it usedta be, couldn’t even crochet anymore cause she’d forget what she was making and for who. But it didn’t cause anybody any fretting, Grandma was the gem of the household, fulla more stories than a bunch of Will Rogers could ever have told.
    Mostly she talked on Frank, her long-passt-on husband, theValentino of Allendale and the hills there’bout. He was sucha gentle man and couldn’t nobody tell he was a Negro, not even when he opened his mouth. Fine diction, mighty fine articulation, Vida’d recall. His dark hair hangin like a drop of black honey cross his eye; that part as straight as a Cherokee’s aim. Yes, her Frank was a truly fine man. Not on the order of the modern men of color she’d come across in her daughter’s life. No, there was a gentleness bout Frank that they’d lost. Maybe it was the war. No, it couldn’t be, Frank had served in ’17 in Germany.
    â€œTake it easy and I’ll bring you something nice,” that’s what that Greer had said, as if presents could make up for how black and kinky-headed he was. Oh now, she mustn’t think like that. After all he’d done for Jane. What all he’d done to Jane. That was the plus and minus of it. He took Jane outta the Bronx and to this fine old house in St. Louis, but he’d filled her svelte body with more chirren than a she-heifer in heat should ever know. He kept her in nice clothes, took her to Paris and Savannah, no, Havana, that was it. Havana. And he was a hard-working soul, the Lord could attest to that. Why, he worked day and night just to keep all those chirren looking right, and Jane in