The Improper Life Of Bezellia Grove Part 7

A member of one of the city's most prominent families, Dr. Grove will best be remembered for his dedicated service to Methodist Memorial Medical Center, where he served as a doctor of internal medicine since 1950 and was recently named the hospital's chief of staff. In his newly appointed position, Dr. Grove was spearheading the development of the new pediatric ward, scheduled to open in the fall of 1970.

Dr. Grove was also a loyal and generous supporter of the Harpeth Hills Botanical Garden and the Nashville Museum of Art, the city's symphony and the Nashville Historical Society. Last month, he personally established the Bezellia Grove Scholarship, to be given to a Vanderbilt University student majoring in American history with a keen interest in researching Nashville's own rich past.

Visitation with the family will be held at the Grove Hill estate tomorrow. Funeral services will be held Sat.u.r.day at Broadway United Methodist Church. Pallbearers and flower ladies will be selected from friends.

Dr. Grove is survived by his wife, Elizabeth Mabel Morgan, and his two daughters, Bezellia Louise and Adelaide Elizabeth. He is also survived by his brother, Thaddeus Lee Grove, and one niece, Cornelia Dutton Grove.

The Nashville Register

final edition

AUGUST 13, 1968.

chapter eight.

Strangers had taken their places inside my house by the time Nathaniel and I got to Grove Hill. Ladies dressed in black were carrying ca.s.seroles from the kitchen to the dining room table, each one wearing a sweet but ingenuous smile that was intended to provide some unspoken comfort. Men, dressed in black, stood about the living room swapping stories, seemingly not as interested in their newly departed friend as they were in Orlando Cepeda's chances of leading the Cardinals to the World Series.

Maizelle and Adelaide were huddled in the kitchen, trying to occupy themselves by walking from the refrigerator to the stove and back again. Their shoulders were slumped forward, and their eyes were red and swollen. When I stepped into the room, they both rushed toward me, and we stood there in one another's arms, supporting our bodies as they heaved in sorrow.

"I'm sorry, Miss Bezellia. I didn't hear a thing. Down in that bas.e.m.e.nt I can't hear an elephant sneeze. I'm so sorry, child." Maizelle finally broke the silence, needing to confess something she couldn't have done anything about.

"Me too, I'm sorry too," Adelaide sobbed. "It was my fault. It was all my fault. If I'd been a good girl, then Father would still be here-"

"Adelaide, child," Maizelle interrupted. "Hush up. I want you to stop that now. This was not your fault." And then she turned to me. "Your mama had me give your sister one of those Contac pills before going to bed. Knocked her right out."

"Where is Mother?" I asked as I held Adelaide tightly in my arms, rea.s.suring her that this was certainly not her fault.

Nathaniel, who had been standing quietly by my side, suddenly interrupted and announced that Mrs. Grove was still in her room. "She won't come out. She knows what all of those people out there are saying about her. She won't show her face. Says she won't even go to the funeral."

"What? What are they saying about her?"

Adelaide turned to Maizelle and dropped into her arms as if she was burying herself in some deep, faraway hole. Nathaniel and Maizelle finally lifted their heads, both obviously wanting to say something but neither having the courage to say it.

"What? d.a.m.n it, Nathaniel, what are they saying?"

"Uh, well. I really shouldn't be the one telling you this."

"If you don't, n.o.body will. Now what is it? Tell me."

"Well, you see. Thing is, Miss Bezellia, your daddy came home late last night."

"So? So what? He always comes home late, for one reason or another. I'm sure some dying patient needed him desperately, or maybe Mrs. Hunt had him all tied up in her arms. Which was it this time?"

"Bezellia!" Maizelle said with a rush of surprise.

"I don't think now's the time to pretend Father was a loyal and devoted husband, Maizelle," I snapped, finding it much easier to be mad at Father for cheating than sad and brokenhearted that he had died. After all, my father wasn't the first married man to screw another woman. And my mother was like so many other upstanding, country-club-going women who had lived with infidelity. She acted as though she knew nothing about it. G.o.d, I thought to myself, if she had only listened to Loretta Lynn.

"Yes. That's right," Nathaniel continued. "We all know about Mrs. Hunt. Your mother does, that's for sure. And probably most of Nashville knows it by now. That's the truth. But see, Miss Bezellia, the police found a bottle of gin in your mother's bedroom. Apparently she done finished it off. I told them she hadn't been drinking lately. But they couldn't wake her when they came to p.r.o.nounce Mr. Grove ... Well, they couldn't wake her." Nathaniel paused, clearly afraid to finish what he had to say.

Maizelle stood by my side, patting my back in a smooth, simple rhythm. "Miss Bezellia, I think you better sit down."

"Why does everybody think sitting down is going to make any of this any better? d.a.m.n it. I am not sitting down, Nathaniel, so just go ahead and tell me what you have to say."

Nathaniel repositioned himself so he was standing directly in front of me. He adjusted his weight from one foot to the other and then back again, as if finding the perfect balance was going to ease what needed to be said. Maizelle gently nudged Adelaide toward the butler's pantry. She said she needed to find more linen napkins, but I knew she really wanted to keep Adelaide from hearing too much. I leaned against the kitchen counter, now wondering if I should have found a place to sit.

"Some people," Nathaniel continued, "knowing of your mother's lingering condition, are wondering if your mama had something more to do with your daddy's dying. Some people think she pushed him down the stairs. The police haven't come out and said that, and I don't think they ever will. At least that's what your uncle Thad said, and he spent several hours down at the police station talking to some old friends of his. But people around town, they're saying something different."

I reached behind me and gripped the counter till my knuckles turned white. I tried not to fall, to keep my knees locked in place. But I sank to the floor in silence. I couldn't scream. I couldn't cry. I couldn't make sense of anything Nathaniel was saying to me. He knelt down in front of me and took my hands in his.

"Everybody standing out there eating cheese thins and ca.s.seroles is going to think what they want, child. Some of them may want to believe your mama pushed him. Some of them may think she had a right to. But at the end of the day, n.o.body knows what really happened here last night. Only one left who knows for sure is your mama, and I'm not sure given the state she was in she'll ever really know what happened at the top of those stairs," Nathaniel said, squeezing my hands in his. "One thing I do know for certain, you had nothing to do with your daddy's dying, nothing at all, nor did your little sister," he added, staring toward the pantry as if he was looking for Adelaide. We were, he said, our father's bright, shining stars.

"Maizelle," Nathaniel called.

"Uh-huh," Maizelle answered from deep inside the pantry. She walked back into the kitchen with my sister's small hand still tightly clutched in hers.

"Why don't you help Miss Bezellia up to her room and get her all settled. She might want to rest a little bit. It's been a long morning, and it's not even noon yet."

Maizelle lifted me to my feet, and together we walked up the back staircase, careful to avoid the crowd of mournful-looking people who called my parents their friends. Those men and women looked as though they could just as easily have been going to a c.o.c.ktail party as to a funeral. And now, when they weren't busy talking behind my mother's back about her drinking and her unfaithful husband, they wanted to comfort her, hug her, tell her everything would be all right. I hated them all.

Maizelle was afraid my mother might not ever recover from losing Mr. Grove. She was afraid she would blame herself. She was afraid the guilt might spread through her body like some kind of cancer, that it might take her life as swiftly as Mr. Grove's had been taken from him. She said that happens sometimes.

My mother's door was closed. I walked into her room without knocking. The curtains were drawn, and not even a small slice of sunlight had found its way past the heavy fabrics. With my arms outstretched in front of me, I felt my way to her bed and then reached for the lamp by my mother's side. She covered her head with her blanket but didn't snap at me for blinding her like she had done when I was little and rushed in to show her a necklace I had made out of dried macaroni and yarn. That time, she'd grabbed the necklace out of my hands and thrown it across the room. Now I sat down on the edge of her bed and gently pulled the blanket back so that I could see my mother's eyes. They were more than swollen and red. They were empty and broken.

"Everybody thinks I killed your father," she said in a voice so weak and fragile that I had to put my ear next to her mouth just so I could understand what she was saying. "I guess they're right, Bezellia. I guess I did." She started to cry, and between deep, tearful sobs, she could barely catch her breath. She mumbled something more about my father, but I couldn't understand what she was saying. All I knew was that, in the midst of my mother's confession, she had called me Bezellia. Whether she had done so out of guilt or affection didn't really matter. I had never heard my mother speak my given name. And even though her voice was almost inaudible, and even though I knew my attention should be someplace else, I desperately wanted to hear her say my name one more time.

Father, she admitted, had come home late last night, smelling of alcohol. He sat next to her on the bed so that she could almost taste the remnants of the other woman on his skin. He leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. She didn't know why-maybe he was feeling guilty or lonely or simply unsatisfied. And she wasn't sure she really cared. She wanted to tell him that she missed him. She wanted to ask him to stay with her, to lie next to her, to love her. But instead she said nothing and rolled onto her side, turning her back to him as she must have done so many other nights since they married. He got up and walked out of the bedroom. She heard the back door open and close and understood that he had gone to be with someone else. She picked up the silver-framed wedding photo that sat on her dressing table and threw it across the room and searched for a bottle of gin she had hidden under the mattress.

Shards of broken gla.s.s scattered on the bedroom floor and an empty bottle of gin now sitting on my mother's dresser were both testaments to the truth of her account. And now a desperate, repentant soul was curled up in a tiny ball, weeping into her pillow. I crawled in bed next to her and wrapped my arms around her trembling body. She cried until she fell asleep, and even then I could tell that she was grieving. I stayed there for a while, rubbing her back and thinking of every time she had forced me to smile.

When my toe was broken and I had to go to the cotillion because Rawley Montgomery wanted to dance with me, Mother told me to smile. When Jan Hobdy invited me to her thirteenth birthday party but Mother made me go shopping with her instead, she told me to smile. When Megan Scott's mother asked me to spend the weekend with them at the lake but Mother said I wasn't wasting my time with a girl who couldn't talk, she told me to quit crying and smile. Tomorrow, I whispered in her ear, she would get dressed, fix her hair, come downstairs, and greet her friends, and she would do it all with the perfect smile.

My mother slept the rest of the day. I bathed and changed clothes, and even though my eyes were heavy and tired, I couldn't sleep. So I found myself back downstairs looking for a little something to eat and a little comfort in the kitchen. After Maizelle fed me, Nathaniel handed me a tray stacked with gla.s.ses of lemonade and told me to walk through the living room and see if anybody who had come to pay respects was feeling parched and thirsty. He said it's better to be moving around at a time like this than just standing there lost in your own dark thoughts. Maizelle and Adelaide kept their places in the kitchen, finding it easier to hide behind the stove and another chicken artichoke ca.s.serole.

Nana and Pop arrived shortly before dinner. Nana said Ruddy came by not long after I left. He said he was sorry for keeping me out so late, and he was really sorry to hear about my daddy. He wanted to drive his daddy's truck down here to see me, but Nana told him that my mother would not likely appreciate the concerns of a guitar-picking country boy who'd kept her daughter out till daybreak. I imagined I wouldn't hear from Ruddy again. Probably just as well.

Thankfully Uncle Thad stayed at the house until the last guest had left. He talked to my grandparents mostly, somehow knowing the longer he kept them on the front porch the easier it would be for my mother. He said he wanted to make sure his baby girls were okay and even offered to stay the night. Cornelia would be flying home from Boston tomorrow. She was worried sick about me, he said. She had already called the house twice this evening just to check on me.

Uncle Thad had insisted Cornelia go to college above the Mason-Dixon Line. He always said he wanted her to see how the other people lived. But I always figured what he really wanted was for Cornelia to come to know her mother, who had been living in New England since her daughter was two years old. Apparently the great New York painters were not very impressed with my cousin's mother. But she found the people in Boston loved her and her ability to paint one rugged seascape after another.

"You know, I was thinking on my way over here this morning, Beetle Bug, that it was a d.a.m.n good thing my brother insisted on calling you Bezellia," Uncle Thad told me as he rubbed my shoulder with his strong right hand. "Your mother really didn't care for the name. I guess you've figured that out by now," he said with a tender grin on his face. "But you know, I think you're probably the first Grove to wear that name well since the first Bezellia fought those Indians down at Fort Nashborough.

"Now I know you're not going to be fighting any Indians around these parts, but I'm afraid you may have an even tougher battle up ahead of you-although you surely know that by now too. People can be mighty cutting without knives in their hands. They can say all sorts of things that aren't true. d.a.m.n near make you bleed. h.e.l.l, sometimes I think they just make up some of this s.h.i.t so they have something to spread about town like manure on a vegetable crop. Look, Bee, your mother ain't no angel. But she's not all devil either. Sometimes life just forces the good right out of you so that n.o.body can see anything else but the bad. And your father, my brother, he wasn't perfect either. But be careful, sweetie, because when somebody dies, it's easy to start seeing them that way. Perfect, you know. And it's real easy to start blaming yourself and everybody else for everything that went wrong." Uncle Thad put his hand on the back of my head and drew me close to his body. I felt warm tears rolling down my cheeks.

"Your daddy wouldn't want you to hang your head in shame. No sir. He'd want you to be proud, proud of yourself, proud of your family, and especially proud of that big name he gave you," he told me, and then leaned down and kissed my forehead and whispered in my ear. "It will carry you through this, Bezellia. Don't you forget it."

The next morning, Mother came downstairs for her coffee. She was wearing a black silk suit with her diamond-encrusted G pinned to her lapel. Her hair was pulled neatly into a black barrette. She looked as beautiful as any new widow could hope to look. Maizelle rushed to pour her a cup of fresh, hot coffee, and Nathaniel helped her into one of the kitchen chairs. Her mother and father kept their distance on the far side of the table, not offering their daughter anything more than a weak "good morning." When the doorbell rang, I took my mother's hand and led her to the front door.

"Thank you for coming. We're holding up. Yes, it's very hard, but we'll make it. Oh, yes, the flowers are lovely. Thank you. Red roses were my father's favorite." And so on and so on. I must have repeated those same words at least a hundred times, each time sounding just as sincere as one of Mother's perfectly coiffed friends who was trying to pump me for information about my father's sudden and mysterious death. I wouldn't have known what to tell them even if I had wanted to share my family's latest and darkest secret.

And in the few hours since my father died, we had all become more at ease with what we needed to do. The etiquette of death had apparently given us something to hide behind as though we were performing some ancient burial ritual I had studied in school, not really understanding why or what we were doing but comforted by our faithful obedience to the task.

And again, after a day of serving lemonade and shaking hands, I found myself sitting at the kitchen table, staring into s.p.a.ce as I had seen my own mother do many times after an evening of entertaining. Nathaniel was picking up gla.s.ses and napkins left scattered about the living room. Nana and Pop had gone to bed. They said our friends were downright draining. Adelaide was balled up in front of the television with Baby Stella tucked underneath her arm. Mother was back in her room, soundly sleeping after one of Father's friends from the hospital had personally delivered a handful of Valium. Maizelle was buzzing back and forth from the dining room to the kitchen, wrapping Pyrex dishes in Saran Wrap and singing the same old song about the number of artichoke and chicken ca.s.seroles she would need to freeze ... or throw away. She stopped to pat my back and tell me that my father would have been proud of me today and then scooted into the laundry room with another armful of dirty linens.

I heard what she was saying, but I wasn't really listening. My thoughts were already drifting farther and farther away from Grove Hill, back beyond the house, somewhere on the other side of the creek, away from all the fake and phony people who claimed my parents were their dearest friends. And just when I thought I could escape for a moment, a faint and steady knock at the back door demanded my return. I dreaded the thought of having to make nice, polite conversation with one more person, but I dutifully pulled myself up and straightened my skirt. I even rubbed my hands across my head, making sure my hair was neatly in place.

But there on the other side of the gla.s.s stood Samuel, his warm, familiar smile begging me to open the door. My hands fumbled for the lock, and that old kitchen door suddenly seemed stubborn and heavy. Samuel smiled a little bigger as I struggled with the latch, his eyes encouraging me to try a little harder. And just when I was about to give up, the door flung open and I fell into his arms, sobbing so that I could barely hear him whispering in my ear, promising me that everything would be all right. People had told me that all day long, but when Samuel said it, I wanted to believe it was true.

"Good Lord, whatcha doing here, Samuel?" I heard Maizelle's voice asking from somewhere behind me. But instead of giving Samuel time to answer, I grabbed him by the hand and dragged him into the yard, slamming the door behind us both. We started walking in the dark, holding tightly on to each other's hands. We may have walked in circles for all I know. Neither one of us said a word about where we were going. We just kept walking, and after a while, we found ourselves standing at the edge of the creek, those grand cherrybark oaks inviting us to come and rest under their strong, graceful branches.

We sat down in the gra.s.s among a thousand chiggers and mosquitoes. But neither one of us cared about that either. Still, not a word spoken between us. Every movement of my body told Samuel exactly what he needed to know, and I didn't care if Nathaniel was mad at me for the rest of my life or if my mother rose up from her bed and slapped me across the face. I was where I needed to be.

"It's not fair," I finally said, my voice joining the choir of cicadas and crickets that seemed to have been singing a mournful, plaintive dirge. A long time pa.s.sed before Samuel answered. It was as if he was letting my pain float far into s.p.a.ce, among the stars and the moon.

"I'm real sorry, Bezellia. You're right. It's absolutely not fair for anybody to die like that, falling down the stairs in his own house," he said at last, wrapping his left arm tightly around my waist.

"He didn't fall, Samuel." I said it so matter-of-factly that it almost scared me.

"What do you mean? Somebody push him?"

"No. Lord, I don't know. Maybe. You know what Mrs. Holder told me today? She told me about some poor lawyer down in Williamson County that was just about my father's age that hanged himself last week. She said it must be terrible for a young girl like myself to lose my father at such a young age, although she imagined it was better that he fell down a flight of stairs than was found hanging from a pipe in the bas.e.m.e.nt. Thing is, she wasn't sorry. She was just fishing for information, examining my face for any twitch or tear that would prove her suspicions true.

"Of course, everybody else crowding into my house wanted to be sure I knew that all of this, someday, would make me stronger. Stronger for what? Funny, don't you think, that whatever killed my own father is somehow going to make me stronger. Truth of the matter is, Samuel, I don't really care about my father right now. I just don't care. Bet that sounds pretty awful. But if he had only loved her. Or she had loved him. h.e.l.l, I don't know. I just know things would be different."

Samuel kissed my lips, maybe only hoping to seal my mouth shut for a minute or two so I'd quit saying such hurtful things about a man who could no longer stand up and defend himself. He kept talking. I kept hearing words. But as I rubbed my finger across my lips, my thoughts started wandering away from my father and toward the boy sitting next to me, the boy who had once called me a princess, the boy who had just kissed me for the first time.

"I don't think there's any sin in thinking things, Bezellia. Can't hardly help what pa.s.ses through your mind," he said, taking my hand in his.

I dropped my head onto his shoulder and tried to focus my thoughts on my father. "Yeah. But maybe that's where things need to stay, locked up tight in your head."

"Maybe. But maybe it's better to set those thoughts free, instead of locking them up like some wild animal caught and thrown in a cage, pacing around and around till it loses its mind. Maybe that's kind of what happened to your mama and daddy. They weren't able to tell each other what they were thinking."

"I don't know. Maybe," I said, turning my body so I could look Samuel square in the eyes. "I never was meant to be here. I never wanted any of this. I just wanted to be in a normal family, any family that really loved each other. h.e.l.l, I'd even be in yours."

"Even mine?" Samuel said with a raised eyebrow.

"Even yours," I said, this time ignoring his insinuation, although I imagine I had insulted him without even trying. "In the past two days, I have done nothing but entertain all these people lurking about my house as if they were my best friends. d.a.m.n it, Samuel, I was good at it, being fake and genuine all at the same time. It almost felt like a gift, a strange G.o.d-given gift. And now I'm afraid, terrified really, that's what's in store for me-a lifetime of luncheons and parties and pretty suits and white cotton gloves. In the end, I probably will go crazy, like my dead daddy, my drunken mama, and my little sister, who's going to carry that d.a.m.n baby doll to the eighth grade.

"G.o.d, what is wrong with me? All I'm thinking about is me and what's going to happen to me."

"Bezellia, there's nothing wrong with thinking about yourself and what's going to happen to you at a time like this. It's only natural. But I can promise you that everything will, eventually, get better. Not tomorrow or the next day, but on down the road a ways. Like Daddy always tells me, you can't climb a mountain if it's smooth." His voice sounded so certain, so convincing, but I wasn't sure I'd ever find my way to the top of this rocky slope.

"Everybody who walked through that house today thinks my mother killed my father," I blurted into the darkness. "Maybe she did. Maybe we all did-Adelaide and me too. Little by little, maybe we all pushed him down those stairs."

Samuel lowered his head between his knees and rocked his body back and forth. "Lord, I don't know what it's like to be a Grove-nor do I want to, really. But I do know what it's like for people to make their minds up about you without knowing the truth. You can't let it shake you, Bezellia. You just can't."

"s.h.i.t, this is not about being black, Samuel. Not everything is about being black."

"Well, there you're wrong, Bezellia. Everything about me is about being black, just like everything about you is about being a Grove."

"Okay, then, what do you think I'm supposed to do? Go to a luncheon and play bridge? Hide behind a gin and tonic? Look for a boy who wears cashmere?"

"Cashmere?"

"Forget it."

Samuel took a deep breath, and I could tell he was trying to put his words together in an order that I could follow. "Bezellia, do you remember what you told me the first time we met?" I stared at him as if to say no. "You said I'd never forget you. And contrary to what you think, it's not because of that crazy name of yours. I'll never forget you because you are this incredible girl with this absolutely huge heart. Your family's kind of strange, that name of yours is definitely strange, but you're not."

Maizelle had promised me that someday I would be loved right, and now, sitting here next to Samuel, I was beginning to believe her. Yesterday I'd been hoping maybe Ruddy could give me some of that love, at least a tiny taste of it. But it wasn't like that with Samuel. He saw the very worst of me, the rotten part, the part I hated myself, and he still loved me. And I didn't think I was going to need a ring on my finger to prove how much I loved him either.

"Oh, G.o.d, I'm going to h.e.l.l for sure," I said, my voice sounding soft and weary.

"Now how do you figure that?"

"Because I want you, to be with you. My father's been dead barely two whole days, and I'm not wearing black and crying into a monogrammed handkerchief. I'm sitting by the creek in the pitch dark wanting nothing more than to be with you."

Samuel leaned across my body, and I fell to the ground beneath the weight of his chest. He kissed me on each cheek, and then on the mouth, and then we kissed again with our mouths open wide. He lifted himself up on his hands and looked down at my face, and I knew if I was going to h.e.l.l, then Samuel was going with me.

He pulled down his pants and pulled up my skirt and then wedged his body between my legs. He eased himself inside of me, carefully and slowly, stopping every so often to make sure I was okay. His body rocked back and forth as he kissed my face, gently at first. Then his movements became stronger and more deliberate. My body hurt with all of Samuel inside me, but I didn't want him to stop. He raised his head, and I could see that he was lost in a world of his own. And when we were done, exhausted and sweaty from the effort of loving each other so fully, I started to cry. Samuel wiped my tears with his rough, callused hands, and I fell asleep feeling loved and protected just like a little baby must feel all snugly wrapped in her mother's arms.

chapter nine.

Life goes on, so they say. And for everybody else in town, I guess it did. But after my father died, everything around me seemed to change. Maizelle changed for sure. Although she'd never say it, I think she felt like the Lord had let her down the day of the tragic event, the formal name that soon became synonymous with my father's death. Now she was always scared, scared that she'd trip down the stairs and break her own neck, or that Adelaide would suffocate under her bedcovers, or that I'd choke on a piece of chicken. Maizelle said bad things always come in threes, and we were just one-third of the way there. Nathaniel told her she was acting childish, but that didn't stop her from fretting over everybody and everything. She said little prayers all day long, hopeful the Lord was listening better this time.

Nathaniel changed too. He wasn't scared or anything. He was just quiet. He never talked to Mother's impatiens anymore or whistled old hymns while sweeping the front porch. He never sat on the back steps at the end of the day, sipping a cold gla.s.s of lemonade and teasing Maizelle as she finished cooking our dinner. He talked to me some, mostly to see how I was doing. But he talked to the horses more. I think he was convinced that they better understood his loneliness. As the days pa.s.sed, Nathaniel acted more and more like his old self, but there was a sadness covering his eyes that never seemed to go away.

Mother, well, she changed the most. She missed her precious Charles terribly. And just like Uncle Thad had warned might happen, she talked about my dead father as if he had been the most loyal and devoted husband in all of Nashville, a saint really, the patron saint of marital bliss. And now, with him gone, she cried a river of tears and wore black for weeks. And after going to the funeral, she just kept going, to church that is. Before long, she had traded her bottle of gin for a Bible and was attending church more often than she had bridge parties at the country club. She was now stoic and sober and overflowing with the Holy Spirit.

Nathaniel said we had G.o.d almighty to thank for this miraculous transformation, but I was not so sure. I had, quite truthfully, spent many tearful nights praying for a new mother, but the one that had been delivered was not exactly what I had hoped for. This one walked around the house quoting Scripture and praising Jesus and seemed to actually care about other people more than herself. I even heard her tell Maizelle that she finally understood what it must be like to be colored, to be a slave to the evil in the world. Maizelle just rolled her eyes. I think she might have even spit in Mother's coffee just for good measure.