Mama Rocks the Empty Cradle by Nora Deloach Read Free Book Online Page A

him.
    Mama’s stare was a big question mark.
    “Morgan—I saw Morgan less than an hour ago,” I told her.
    Mama’s eyes grew wide.
    “I swear—when I was going to Cousin Agatha’s house. On Highway Three, that winding road that dead-ends near the Cypress Creek road. Morgan was inside a blue Ford that some fool was driving.”
    I quickly explained what had happened to me on the highway. Then I told Mama, “That goon had such an angry look on his face, he made me sure that he would have tried something crazy if he could. Thank goodness those kids came by.”
    Mama studied my face. “Would you recognize the man if you saw him again? Or the car?”
    “Of course I would,” I said.
    We were both silent, but it was a packed, thoughtful silence. Then the doorbell rang. The expression on Mama’s face told me that she didn’t want visitors.
    After the third ring, I opened the door to Sarah Jenkins, Annie Mae Gregory, and Carrie Smalls.
    The three women brushed past me and walked directly into the family room. To my surprise, Mama greeted them happily. When everyone was seated, Carrie Smalls eyed Mama grimly. “You feeling better?”
    Mama smiled slightly. “Yes,” she answered. “I guess I didn’t realize how painful the removal of bunions could be.”
    Sarah Jenkins sniffed. “You should have asked me before you had it done, Candi. Couple years back I had a bunion, a callus,
and
a corn cut from
one
foot.”
    Mama said, “I’m sure that was some affliction.”
    “It’s a fact,” Sarah Jenkins said, proud of her ordeal. “Doctor had to break a bone in my foot just to set it straight again.”
    Mama nodded sympathetically, then she asked, “Did you ladies find out anything about Cricket’s murder this morning when we left you at the Cherry Ridge apartments?”
    Annie Mae Gregory’s thick jaws wobbled. “We found out that Cricket was in some kind of scam that forced quite a few men in Otis to pay her money each week to keep her quiet.”
    Carrie Smalls folded her arms across her chest, and pushed her breasts up like balloons as she proudly added to their astonishing report. “Mattie Snipes told me her husband was paying Cricket fifty dollars a week to keep some kind of a secret from the deacon board of his church. Mattie said she for one was glad the hussy was dead. Now that fifty dollars of her husband’s hard-earn money could go to her house, where it was suppose to be going all along.”
    “Heaven knows how many other men in Otis was dishing out money to that good-for-nothing Cricket Childs,” Annie Mae Gregory continued smugly.
    Mama gave the women a long, serious look, but she didn’t make any comment. If the news about Cricket being a blackmailer surprised her, nothing in her face showed it.
    Annie Mae Gregory continued. “The way I figure it, if Cricket had ten men whose secret she was keeping and each gave her fifty dollars a week, that’senough money for a heap of people to want to see that girl gone on to her reward, whatever torment as that may be.”
    Sarah Jenkins’s brow wrinkled. “If I had a husband, and a hussy like that was making him give her money every week, I’d likely kill her
myself
. Course, that ain’t no reason to steal her innocent baby. The Good Book did say, though, that your sins will go against your children. I suspect Abe will find that child Morgan out in somebody’s field butchered up just like her no-good heifer of a mama.”
    At first I wondered why Mama wasn’t responding to the news of Cricket’s little scam. Then I realized that she probably knew somebody else who would know more about it than these ladies. “Did you know Cricket’s mama or daddy?” Mama asked them.
    Sarah Jenkins coughed.
    “Sure did,” Carrie Smalls answered. “Cricket’s daddy’s name was Archie Childs from Sugar Hill.”
    “You probably went to school with Cricket’s mama, Barbara Williams,” Sarah said.
    Mama looked interested. Annie Mae Gregory shifted. Her body shook like