God Still Don't Like Ugly by Mary Monroe Read Free Book Online Page A

living room.
    Then the house got ominously quiet. It was hours before I fell asleep.
    I had forgotten how hot Florida could be in the morning. Even with the plastic curtains covering the window in the bedroom that Lillimae had put me in, the sun’s rays woke me up that next morning around seven o’clock. I would have cracked open the window, but through the curtains I could see the outline of a huge grasshopper on it outside, peeping into the bedroom.
    I didn’t know what kind of money Lillimae made working for the post office or how much money Daddy got from his retirement fund. But I knew it had to be enough between them that they could have lived in a much nicer neighborhood. And I was sure that they could afford to put better furniture in the house. Every piece in the house was probably older than I was. The mattress on the bed I was in was so weak, it was practically on the floor. Even without me on it.
    It was a struggle for me to pull myself out of the deep valley in the middle. Like the other floors in the house, the linoleum on the bedroom floor had been waxed to a brilliant shine. My bare feet stuck to the floor as I made my way around the bed to retrieve my bathrobe from the back of a chair in front of a closet with a blanket for a door. An ironing board that Lillimae had used the evening before to clean the fish on had been propped up in a corner by a door that had no knob. I had to open and close it with a piece of wire hanging from the hole where a knob should have been. I didn’t know why I was feeling the way I was about people living in such squalor. Before Mr. Boatwright had ruined my life, Muh’Dear and I 38
    Mar y Monroe
    had lived in places not even this nice and I had been happy. I smiled and got dressed.
    If the sun hadn’t aroused me first, the aroma of the elaborate breakfast Lillimae was preparing would have. The smell of bacon was so strong it made my eyes water. I had all of my appetite back. I was comfortable enough to let myself relax. However, now Lillimae was the one with no appetite. She didn’t even sit at the kitchen table with Daddy and me. Instead, she paced around the kitchen nibbling on a piece of dry toast and swatting flies with a potholder.
    The subject of Lillimae’s mother’s death was not mentioned again until we read the newspaper that arrived the next day. It was then that we learned Lillimae’s mother had been involved in a fatal car crash on her way home from work just hours after she had treated Lillimae so rudely.
    “The funeral’s Saturday,” Lillimae informed me after a brief telephone conversation she had with somebody she did not identify. “It’s the last time I’ll get to see her so I have to go.”
    I didn’t know what Daddy was thinking about that white woman’s death, because other than a few grunts, he kept his comments to himself. Then he went to his room where he remained until I called him out to eat dinner.
    I had nothing against white people. My current closest female friend was a white woman. However, the last thing I wanted to do while I was in Florida was attend the funeral of the one who had stolen my daddy. There had been no love lost between that woman and me, but I already loved my half-sister. I had to go to the funeral because Lillimae needed my support.
    “You don’t have to go in the church with me, but I’d appreciate you sittin’ in the car waitin’ on me,” Lillimae said, as we cleared the breakfast table after we’d eaten. I had not seen her shed a single tear.
    However, her eyes were red and swollen and she had barely eaten since hearing the tragic news.
    “I’ll go in that church with you if you want me to,” I said, praying that Lillimae would decline my offer.
    Lillimae shook her head so hard, the hairpin she had pinned her hair up with fell to the floor along with a plate she had just washed.
    “Goodness gracious, no. I wouldn’t put you through that. You wouldn’t be welcome there. If they figure out who I am,