Mama B - A Time to Mend (Book 4) Read Free Page B

them kind of places.”
    “Yeah,” Libby agreed. “Peter
and I have been thinking about it, too.”
    I huffed, “Really?”
    “Yeah,” she replied. “Not
now. Maybe in another couple of years, when he retires from the church.”
    I ain’t never heard of no
such thing as retiring from the Lord’s work except when you hit them pearly
gates. But I think white people do things different. They got parsonages and
stuff, so I didn’t say nothin’. Black folks, we use our ministers ‘til they
can’t hardly stand up straight no mo’. They be bent all over the podium, barely
breathing, and we put ‘em up to preach so long as they got a mind to. I don’t
know what’s better. Guess it don’t have to be one’s better than the other.
    “How’s it going in Frank’s
neighborhood?”
    I told her all about Jeffrey
and Julia’s incident. Told her how the Lord intervened on the boy’s behalf and
asked her to pray for Julia’s recovery. “With that broken leg, she gon’ have a
hard time keeping up with him now.”
    “My goodness. Why wasn’t he
in school anyway?”
    For the first time, I
wondered the same thing. “I don’t know. It was a weekday. Maybe she had him out
that day. Doctor’s appointment or something, ‘cause I doubt she would keep him
home with her if she didn’t have to.”
    “Hmm. I’ll put them on the
women’s prayer list,” Libby said.
    “’Preciate it.”
    “Now, have you decided what
to do about your house?”
    Libby kept her blue eyes pointed
straight ahead, probably because she knew I didn’t want to talk about this
again. Her white hair bounced around her ears as she picked up the pace for our
last block.
    “I still don’t know. Son and
Otha don’t want me to sell it, but the girls say they already have everything
they want from the house, so it doesn't matter to them.”
    “You could rent it,” Libby
suggested.
    “Ooh, chile, I ain’t got time
to be foolin’ with no tenants. Chasin’ ‘em down for late rent, puttin’ ‘em out
on the street months later, takin’ ‘em to court for damaging my property,
paying contractors to come do repairs between tenants. Rent houses ain’t
nothin’ but headaches, you ask me!”
    “Well, whatever you do, you
know Son’s always gonna be the protective one,” Libby warned. “He’s only tryin’
to make sure you always have a place to stay.”
    “I wish he was that noble,” I
said, “but Son just tryin’ to make sure I don't end up stayin’ with him .”
    Libby laughed. “B, what makes
you say that? Son is good to you.”
    “I know. He good to himself,
too. He ain’t foolin’ me. I can’t blame him, though. It’ hard living with your
parents. I couldn’t do it,” I admitted. “When my Grandmother got up in age, we
had to almost lock her in the back room to keep her from wandering away. She
forgot who we was, calling the police and sayin’ her family was intruders. She
got to where she was danger to herself and everybody else.”
    Libby slowed to a stop. We
wasn’t nowhere near the end point, though. “What you stop for?”
    She let out a desperate yowl
and covered her face with her hands. “Peter is losing his mind.”
    My Lord! I pivoted on my heels and
turned around to hug her. I’m sure we was a peculiar sight standin’ on the
sidewalk. “Libby, what’s happening?”
    “He…he put his shirt on
inside out. He put the ice cream in the pantry and it melted all over the
place. And Sunday, he got lost on the way back from church,” she cried into my
shoulder.
    My heart just broke right in
two ‘cause I didn’t want to believe what Libby told me. Peter always been
sharp. Read the paper every day. He the last one I ever thought would lose his
mind.
    “Jesus. Jesus. Jesus,” I
whispered His name. He didn’t call the Spirit the Comforter for nothin’. While
me and Libby was standin’ there sobbing, felt like He come and put His arms
around us both and wept with us. He understands.
    “Has he been takin’