Mama Stalks the Past Read Online Free Page B

pressure.
    I took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “What’s wrong?”
    “Mrs. Zwig wants to throw out everything we’ve pulled together, start from scratch.”
    “Because of the baby?” I asked, meaning the baby Mr. Zwig had fathered with his just-out-of-high-school secretary.
    Cliff cleared his throat. “That’s what she says.”
    I began playing with the fringes on the handmade crocheted bedspread I had gotten Mama from Nassau when Cliff had talked me into making a wonderful impromptu trip several months earlier. “You sound doubtful.”
    “I don’t know,” he replied, his speech slow and deliberate. “I’ve got mixed feelings about a woman who talks about a child like it’s a piece of property.”
    I sat up in the bed. “What’s your next move?”
    “I’m talking to Mr. Zwig this afternoon,” he said.
    “So, we won’t get to spend
any
time together? Our whole five days go down the drain?”
    “I’ll let you know how things are shaping up, Simone. I’d like to be back in Atlanta tomorrow. Maybe we can spend Wednesday together. What do you think?”
    “Don’t ask me what’s going on in my mind,” I said. “Ask me how
bad
I want to see you!”
    Half an hour later, I put the phone back on its receiver and joined Mama in the kitchen. Although the succulent aroma of stew and baked bread was delightful, food wouldn’t take care of my need to be with Cliff.

    Mama’s kitchen is shaped like an
L
, the working space on the long side, the stove, oven, and grill on the short. Mama was standing over her pot, dipping a wooden spoon inside and drawing up a taste. I couldn’t help but think how much magic seems to go into her cooking. I wondered why the gift hadn’t been passed on to me.
    “Where’s Daddy?” I asked. Mama looked up, then walked over to the sink and turned on the hot water.
    “He changed clothes, grabbed a sandwich, then left, as he said, to take care of business,” she answered, dunking the long wooden spoon under the faucet.
    “You nor I can keep up with our men today.”
    Mama laughed softly. “You know where Cliff is. And I know where James is heading.”
    “What good is it to know where they are when they’re not here!”
    Mama turned to face me. “When do you expect Cliff back in Atlanta?”
    “He’s going to try to come home tomorrow.”
    Mama’s eyebrow raised. “Oh,” she said.
    “I’m going back to Atlanta first thing tomorrow morning.” At least Cliff and I might have one day together, I thought, trying to shake my bad mood. “Is that stew ready?”
    Mama smiled. “Get bowls while I get the bread from the oven.”
    We were almost five minutes into eating when I noticed Mama’s attention had drifted away from the story I was telling her about how the police had caught the minister’s son hiding out in his basement. “What are you thinking?” I asked.
    “I was hoping that big-mouthed Nat keeps his promise. I’d hate to think of what Sarah Jenkins, Carrie Smalls, and Annie Mae Gregory will do with the news about Hannah’s land.”
    I held my fork in midair and grinned. Despite Mama’s using these three women whenever she needed information about other people in the area, she never liked that they knew everything about everybody. “You’re not begrudging your sources, are you?” I teased.
    “When those three get to talking, they don’t care whether what they say is a lie or the truth!”
    “You
listen
to them,” I pointed out.
    “Simone, I take what they say with a grain of salt, you know that!” Her tone was unexpectedly sharp.
    “You talked with those ladies lately?” I asked.
    “I ran into them at Winn Dixie on Friday afternoon before you got here,” she said.
    “What news did they bear?” I knew Mama would have made good use of her encounter with Otis’s best source of local information. Sarah Jenkins, Carrie Smalls, and Annie Mae Gregoryknew everything about everyone in Otis. Or pretended to.
    “Annie Mae Gregory did mention