How to Knock a Bravebird from Her Perch : The First Novel in the Morrow Girls Series (9780985751616) by D. Bryant Simmons Read Free Book Online Page B

back to the chick-en coop. He said they were introduced now so there wasn’t gone be no problems. Know what happened?”
    “They attacked him.”
    “Yeah. Damn near put his eye out. My brotha wasn’t too bright. And he sure was hard-headed.”  
    “He went back again?”
    “Mama had to finally tell him, she say...Bobby Lee, you got to know when enough’s enough. He couldn’t ever tell when enough was enough. Did everything too much. Drank too much. Ate too much. Had too many women. Sung too damn loud. And he never hit the right keys!”
    “Too bad Ricky never knew him.”
    “Who said he ain’t never knew him?” She shook her head just once and flicked the stub of her cigarette into an empty soda can. “They ain’t lived nothing but a few blocks from each other his whole life! Ricky mama and Bobby Lee was sweet on each other something terrible. Since they were real little. Hell, all of Biloxi knew that! Bobby Lee just ain’t wanna sit still, if you know what I mean.”
    “Oh.”
    “He my brotha, the only one I got so you know I ain’t gonna lie on him. He was the first one of us to...go on. Mama and daddy ain’t know what to do. Ain’t no parent supposed to bury their child.”
    “Guess not. Wish I could’ve met him.”
    “Yeah...” Clara gave me a firm kinda smile. “He would’ve liked you. You’d probably liked him. Wasn’t many people that ain’t like Bobby Lee.”
    “Ricky like that.”
    “N’all he not.” Clara shook her head twice for good measure then went back to the beans. “They ain’t nothing alike—Ricky and his daddy. For all his faults Bobby Lee was sweet.”
    Nikki stood on her tippy toes, demanding that I watch her be a ballerina. That’s what they were teaching her in preschool. How to be a ballerina.
    “Ricky’s sweet, Auntie.” Then as if to test my point Mya ran stumbling into the kitchen. My heart nearly stopped.  
    “Pecan girl, you okay? What is it? Is it the baby?”
    “No, no, Auntie, I’m fine. I’m fine.” I reminded myself that Ricky had changed. He hadn’t even yelled at me in months. Things were good, perfect even.  

    “M MMM , P ECAN , YOU FEELING real good, baby.” Ricky whispered in my ear. He told me that so much now that I was starting to feel it myself. “You hear me, baby?”
    “Mmhmm.” I sorta mumbled, afraid that Aunt Clara would wake up to the sounds of us making love.
    Ricky ain’t care. He’d do it with the door wide open. He’d get into bed butt-ass naked and wrap his leg over my hip. I’d seen two stray dogs do that once. If I was asleep he’d start off real slow and gentle like, moaning and groaning in my ear. Wanting me to remind him how he was my first and only. Sometimes he’d have me bend over the edge of the bed and he’d really go to town. At first I was worried about Jackie but the doctor said it shouldn’t be a problem. I was kinda glad of that since I was starting to enjoy doing it a bit more. Paula said that was crazy, that she couldn’t stand for her husband to touch her when she was pregnant. I agreed for the first two but something had changed. He was crazy about me, couldn’t get enough, and I loved it. When we would finish he’d hold me close—squeezing my tit in one hand, the other hand planted firmly against my stomach.
    “I been thinking. It’s time for you to gimme a boy. You hear me, Pecan?”
    “A boy?”
    “Yeah, every man want himself a boy to carry on the family name. I think this one’s my boy.”  
    I hated to break it to him that I had my heart set in the other direction. That I had even named her already. “If it ain’t...a boy, we could have one more. That one would most likely be a boy.”
    “N’all I want this one. This one right here is my boy.”

New Woman

    I WISH EVERY MAMA could know what it feels like to give life to somebody and watch them turn into the person you wanna be. That’s what it was like for me with Jackie. I was never very outgoing or funny but she had it