Red Hats by Damon Wayans Read Free Book Online Page B

myself. Now it’s time to give life for life. Be it heaven or hell, I must join your father wherever death takes me and beg for his forgiveness. It’s the only way to quiet the accuser yelling “Murderer!” in my mind. This is not a suicide note. Rather, it is a farewell to misery, bon voyage to pain, adios to grief statement. Don’t feel bad for me. I will be at peace. Yes, peace. That’s what I want right now.
    Todd, honey, I’m going to hold my tongue about your little “wet dog” and only hope she’s not standing next to you reading my business—serves her right if she is. Todd, thank you for turning out to be such a fine young man. You make your mother proud in every way. My Angel, baby, I don’t want to be any more of a weight around your neck than the ton of a husband you already got. Know Momma loves you more than this life. Jesse, you’ve got to give your life over to Christ and step up to be the great man I know you can still be. I’ve left you a tiny bit of money to help with lessons so you canstop sounding like a raggedy bugle boy. I’ll miss you all.
    Love,
    Momma
    P.S. Make sure they put a smile on my face and bury me next to your daddy, so that if he looks over, he’ll see that he’s the only one who makes me happy.
    Alma sealed the
envelope with the rest of her tears.
    She turned the radio up. She took a long hot bath, made up her face, and put on the red satin dress she bought for her birthday, determined to look and smell good when they found her. Alma pulled the petals from the pink roses and laid them out on a gold silk sheet she draped over the couch. She poured herself a glass of red wine after turning the gas oven on. She gulped the first, then poured a second full glass to sip on as she faded away. Alma took her favorite seat at the living-room window, humming along to the song that was playing on the radio. How ironic. It was Marvin Gaye’s “If I Should Die Tonight”! Alma laughed because she couldn’t cry anymore.
    Thank God it would soon be over. She saw the group of six or seven women in red hats passing along the opposite side of the street. One of them, a white woman, looked up and waved at her.
    Feeling the effects of the wine-and-gas concoction,Alma waved back. Her head was very light, and she decided it was time to go lie down on the couch. She stood up and immediately fell forward, hitting her head on the windowsill.
    Good-bye, you cold, cruel world,
Alma thought as she felt warm blood oozing from the top of her head.

chapter
six
    Delilah Samson hated hospitals as
much as she hated her name. It was an inside joke that her devout Christian parents thought was clever and cute. It was supposed to remind Delilah of her spiritual roots. What it really did was become a thorn in their daughter’s side for her entire childhood. The boys were afraid of her name’s biblical history and teased poor Delilah about being a betrayer of man. The girls in her suburban neighborhood labeled her a threat to their prepubescent boyfriends and literally ran from her whenever she came around. The only friends she had were the black family that lived on the edge of town that separated the “good” neighborhood from the “bad” one.
    Being a diabetic, it made her sick to see the nurse inject the IV needle into Alma’s arm. Needles were her life. Five times a day, she had to prick her finger to check her sugar levels. Then, before every meal, she had to inject herself in the stomach with 2.2 units of insulin. The worst part of the disease was having to give herself the needle. The doctor told her she would get used to it. That was seven years ago. Delilah was still waiting for acceptance.
    Alma opened her
eyes, expecting to see Jesus in such a bright white room. Instead, she saw an angel. Her daughter, Angel, was standing over her with a serious expression on her face.
    “Are you all right, Momma?”
    “My head hurts,” Alma replied weakly.
    “You had to get some stitches, and there’s