“Tomorrow morning when you get up, me and you leaving here, hear?”
“Where we going?” I ask.
“We going to Gran’mon,” Mama says.
“We leaving us house?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says.
“Daddy leaving too?”
“No,” she says. “Just me and you.”
“Daddy don’t want leave?”
“I don’t know what your daddy wants,” Mama says. “But for sure he don’t want me. We leaving, hear?”
“Uh-huh,” I say.
“I’m tired of it,” Mama says.
“Hanh?”
“You won’t understand, honey,” Mama says. “You too young still.”
“I’m getting cold, Mama,” I say.
“All right,” she says. She goes and put the lamp up, and comes back and sit on the bed ’side me. “Let me take your socks off,” she says.
“I can take them off,” I say.
Mama takes my coat off and I take my socks off. I get back in bed and Mama pulls the cover up over me. She leans over and kiss me on the jaw, and then she goes back to her bed. Mama’s bed is over by the window. My bed is by the fireplace. I hear Mama get in the bed. I hear the spring, then I don’t hear nothing because Mama’s quiet. Then I hear Mama crying.
“Mama?” I call.
She don’t answer me.
“Mama?” I call her.
“Go to sleep, baby,” she says.
“You crying?” I ask.
“Go to sleep,” Mama says.
“I don’t want you to cry,” I say.
“Mama’s not crying,” she says.
Then I don’t hear nothing and I lay quiet, but I don’t turn over because my spring’ll make noise and I don’t want make no noise because I want hear if my mama go’n cry again. I don’t hear Mama no more and I feel warm in the bed, and I pull the cover over my head and I feel good. I don’t hear nothing no more and I feel myself going back to sleep.
Billy Joe Martin’s got the tire and he’s rolling it in the road, and I run to the gate to look at him. I want go out in the road, but Mama don’t want me to play out there like Billy Joe Martin and the other children. . . . Lucy’s playing ’side the house. She’s jumping rope with—I don’t know who that is. I go ’side the house and play with Lucy. Lucy beats me jumping rope. The rope keeps on hitting me on the leg. But it don’t hit Lucy on the leg. Lucy jumps too high for it.... Me and Billy Joe Martin shoots marbles and I beat him shooting.... Mama’s sweeping the gallery and knocking the dust out of the broom on the side of the house. Mama keeps on knocking the broom against the wall. Must be got plenty dust in the broom.
Somebody’s beating on the door. Mama, somebody’s beating on the door. Somebody’s beating on the door, Mama.
“Amy, please let me in,” I hear.
Somebody’s beating on the door, Mama. Mama, somebody’s beating on the door.
“Amy, honey; honey, please let me in.”
I push the cover back and I listen. I hear Daddy beating on the door.
“Mama?” I say. “Mama, Daddy’s knocking on the door. He want come in.”
“Go back to sleep, Sonny,” Mama says.
“Daddy’s out there,” I say. “He want come in.”
“Go back to sleep, I told you,” Mama says.
I lay back on my pillow and listen.
“Amy,” Daddy says, “I know you woke. Open the door.”
Mama don’t answer him.
“Amy, honey,” Daddy says. “My sweet dumpling, let me in. It’s freezing out here.”
Mama still won’t answer Daddy.
“Mama?” I say.
“Go back to sleep, Sonny,” she says.
“Mama, Daddy want come in,” I say.
“Let him crawl through the key hole,” Mama says.
It gets quiet after this, and it stays quiet a little while, and then Daddy says, “Sonny?”
“Hanh?”
“Come open the door for your daddy.”
“Mama go’n whip me if I get up,” I say.
“I won’t let her whip you,” Daddy says. “Come and open the door like a good boy.”
I push the cover back and I sit up in the bed and look over at Mama’s bed. Mama’s under the cover and she’s quiet like she’s asleep. I get on the floor and get my socks out of my shoes. I get back in the bed and slip them on, and then I go and unlatch the door for Daddy. Daddy comes in and rubs my head with his hand. His hand is hard and cold.
“Look what I brought you and your mama,” he says.
“What?” I ask.
Daddy takes a paper bag out of his jumper pocket.
“Candy?” I say.
“Uh-huh.”
Daddy opens the bag and I stick my hand in there and take a whole handful. Daddy wraps the bag up again and sticks it in his pocket.
“Get back in that bed, Sonny,” Mama says.
“I’m eating candy,” I say.
“Get back in that bed like I told you,” Mama says.
“Daddy’s up with me,” I say.
“You heard me, boy?”
“You can take your candy with you,” Daddy says. “Get back in the bed.”
He follows me to the bed and tucks the cover under me. I lay in the bed and eat my candy. The candy is hard, and I sound just like Paul eating corn. I bet you little old Paul is some cold out there in that back yard. I hope he ain’t laying in that water like he always do.
