Crimson Footprints by Shewanda Pugh Read Free Book Online

Rhonda. The woman was an oasis of sanity in the Hammond desert
of madness. The youngest of Emma and Eddie Hammond’s children, she
fled the Hammond household three months shy of her eighteenth
birthday to pursue a nursing degree at the University of Florida.
Now she worked in the maternity ward at Jackson
Memorial.
    “ Not everybody can go to
college, Rhonda,” Caroline said with a roll of her eyes. “Like I
said, he’s got his ways. But my grandson Curtis don’t never go
hungry.”
    “ Mhm,” Rhonda said, lifting
Coca-Cola to her lips. “But shouldn’t you thank the taxpayers for
that?”
    Deena giggled.
    “ And what the hell are you
laughing at?” Keisha snapped.
    “ Nothing.” Deena lowered
her gaze. “Nothing at all.”
    “ Right answer.” Keisha
snapped.
    The smell of weed met Deena
from across the table. When she looked up, her eyes met Keisha’s,
darker and flitting with scorn. Never had she been able to figure
out what she’d done to earn Keisha’s wrath, but she’d owned it from
the start. Memories of an eleven-year-old Keisha flaunting Deena’s
wardrobe at school each day still ate away at her. The last gift of
a once doting father, Keisha had taken Deena’s clothes with glee,
relishing both them and the shock on her classmates faces each time
she recanted the story of how Deena’s father’s had died.
    “ Bet if the church was
payin’ ya, you’d have time for the hall,” Keisha smiled.
    She plopped a sliver of
cornbread into her waiting mouth and grinned.
    “ Mhm,” her mother Caroline
agreed.
    Emma grabbed a few thick
pieces of fried chicken from the tray and dropped them on her plate
before turning a critical eye on Deena’s food. Collard greens,
stewed okra with tomatoes and onions, butter beans and cornbread.
No meat. Not a single piece.
    “ Chile what in the world
wrong with your plate? “ Emma demanded.
    Keisha and Caroline
snickered.
    Deena glanced down.
“Nothing. I thought I’d try to eat a little healthier.” That, and
she was saving room for dinner with Tak.
    “ Child, gimme that
plate.”
    Emma produced a large,
demanding hand. “You gone starve yourself listening to these white
folks bout what you gots to eat. You gots black blood in ya. You
needs to eat black folks’ food. Simple as that.”
    Deena handed the plate over
and watched in dismay as she dumped an assortment of chicken and
catfish on it. Her gym’s treadmill didn’t have a setting high
enough to run off all that fat.
    Emma dropped the plate in
front of Deena with a scowl. After succumbing to her stare, Deena
reluctantly poked at a crispy piece of chicken thigh.
    “ Eat!” Emma
snapped.
    And with a sigh, she dug
in.
    “ So,” Aunt Rhonda said
brightly. “What are you working on these days,
princess?”
    Deena was the only one she
called princess, and the only one whose job necessitated
variation.
    “ Renovations for a
parochial school. I’m making it handicap accessible.”
    She tasted the collard
greens. They were salty.
    “ So, basically you putting
a wheelchair ramp in,” Keisha said.
    “ Well, not exactly. There’s
a complete re-envisioning taking place. We’re turning over every
stone to make the place not just handicap accessible but handicap
friendly, as well. Hallways are being widened, walls knocked down.
We’re even putting Braille—”
    “ It’s a lot of crackers
that work with you, huh?” Keisha said.
    Deena froze.
“What?”
    “ Crackers. White folks,”
Keisha rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Never mind.”
    Her mother laughed. “She
ain’t notice them, girl. She one of them.”
    Keisha’s laughed reminded
her of a siren.
    “ I’m black,” Deena snapped.
“Just as much black as I’m white.”
    But her aunt laughed. “Well,
I can’t tell.”
    “ She right, Deena, whether
you like it or not. You ain’t got nothing from your daddy. It’s
like that white woman just spit you out.” Grandma Emma said. “White
as snow, don’t ‘cha know. White as