How to Knock a Bravebird from Her Perch : The First Novel in the Morrow Girls Series (9780985751616) Read Free

off the grass around his grave. Muggy and damn near stifling the heat was. I got all pitted before we even got to the graveyard. Ricky was good. He held my hand through it all. Saying how he knew what I was feeling because he lost his mama that year too.
    “Hold on, Pecan.” He said. “Just hold on, baby. It’s almost over.”  
    The sun beamed down on top of that tiny little hill. Me and Ricky, the preacher, and half the town. The preacher read from his book and some of the pages flew out, heading toward the Mississippi. He ran after the missing pages, his little bitty legs leaping up in the air to catch them like they were really worth something. Ricky had to fight back a smile. He tried to hide it but I saw. I just ain’t care. They lowered my daddy down that dark rectangle of a hole and I thought I was dying. Ricky said I was talking and swearing but I don’t remember all that. I remember washing the dirt and grass stains outta my stockings and skirt and from under my nails. I remember crying to him, “I’m all alone now.”  
    “N’all you ain’t.” He said in a husky whisper. “I’m a take care of you. You hear me, Pecan? You gone be just fine.”
    We were married before the end of the week.

Married Woman, Regular Man

    W E WERE MARRIED ABOUT a week before Ricky let me in on his plan. Mississippi wasn’t where it was happening with his boxing and he knew exactly where he wanted to go. Chicago. There was this famous boxing gym there where some guy had trained up under some other guy that used to be somebody. He said it was where he was supposed to be and I was his wife so that meant I was supposed to be there too. Not in the house I’d grown up in, where I’d lived with my daddy. So I packed up my things and off we went.
    We lived in this rundown apartment that wasn’t anything more than a bed and a sink. Was right next to the train tracks. Not the kind on the ground, the ones that run around on tall metal stilts. I hadn’t seen anything like it until we moved to Chicago. The windows shook every time the train would run past. The hot water was always stingy, giving up only a few drops at a time. And there was a smell like dead cats from the minute you opened the door. I couldn’t get rid of it no matter how many times I scrubbed the floors. We had a ragged old TV that only had two channels and the weather man kept saying a tornado was coming. Said it every day the first week we were here. And he was right, but I ain’t see it. Couldn’t see it. Couldn’t see anything, not really. Was too busy missing my daddy. Ricky said it’d make me feel better if we were close like a man and wife supposed to be. I ain’t think so but he was sure and he was my husband so...I let him love me. And he loved me every day sometimes twice a day. Loved me so much he gave me a fever. I took to the bed for a few weeks and by the time I got up I realized I’d missed something.  
    Nikki was born nine months later, ten months to the day my daddy died. The exact date. The thirteenth. Ricky ain’t even notice what date it was. Was too busy being happy—proud even. Said something was wrong with me because I wasn’t celebrating. That I ain’t love our baby. Wasn’t that. I loved her, I did! I did. But he ain’t let up about it. Just kept right on picking at me like a day old scab. Until one day when I started acting happy. Started smiling real big. I was somebody’s wife, somebody’s mama. So what if I wasn’t nobody’s daughter no more. Right? It ain’t matter. The past was gone, no use crying over it. Right?  
    It ain’t happen right away, me realizing all the lies I’d told myself. Took me a while to see them but the signs were always there. We’d been living in Chicago about three years when things finally came clear to me. Ricky got up at the crack of dawn, as usual, and I got up to fix him and Nikki something to eat and make sure his clothes were ironed and ready. He kissed me goodbye and asked me if I