Sugar by Bernice McFadden Read Free Book Online Page A

it, her hands reaching out to touch the steel cars that were now swiftly whisking past her. She called Jude’s name one last time and collapsed onto the platform.
    A year passed before Pearl smiled. Another year before her laugh, high and gay, was heard again.
    Not a day went by without her thinking of her daughter, but she kept the vision of her mutilated body buried deep in a section of her mind reserved for horrible things that scared and frightened her.
    Pearl reconstructed her life, bit by tiny painful bit and now a woman, just the profile of her Jude, was slowly fragmenting what she had spent fifteen years putting back together.

    Pearl balanced the sweet potato pie in one hand and knocked on the chipped and peeling screen door with the other. The window to the right was open and the curtains pulled aside revealing the misty gray-black within. She resisted the urge to tilt her head to peer inside. That’s what someone else would do, she told herself. She waited and then knocked again, the sound of her knuckles making rapid contact with the wood echoing loudly up and down the street.
    She shifted on her feet and looked at the rocking chair that moved gently back and forth in the warm spring breeze. Small clay pots filled with mint and jasmine lined the base of the partition that encircled the porch area. The plants were in full bloom and enveloped the house with their fragrant soothing aromas.
    Ivy crept silently along the side of the house and stretched over to run the length of the banister. Pearl was amused; she’d never noticed the ivy before. Not even when Old Mrs. Wilks was living there.
    Pearl knocked again. Still no answer. She sat down in the rocking chair and rested the warm pie on her lap. “I’ll just rest a bit,” she lied to herself. She was actually lying in wait. She rocked slowly back and forth, the yielding sounds of the chair and the smells of mint and jasmine easing away any apprehensions she may have arrived with.
    The previous owner, Beulah Wilks, had been dead and gone for more than ten years. She’d been a nice old woman, pint-sized and frail with dull brown eyes and hair like snow, soft and white. Pearl and Beulah had made small talk over the years; neighborly chit chat that unfolded their lives to each other.
    Beulah Wilks moved to Bigelow from Waco, Texas, with her husband and infant son. The husband died not too long after they settled in and she raised her son alone, supported by her deceased husband’s war pension and her tailoring skills. She never remarried and never mentioned to Pearl any desire to marry. “Men are like children. They need too much time and attention. I ain’t had the patience to go back to mothering two men instead of one, so’s I stayed alone and liked it.” Pearl was taken aback by the old woman’s candor—talk like that was nearly alien coming from a woman who was raised in a time when they believed a woman needed a man to survive and the man made the woman complete.
    Beulah watched Pearl’s sons, Joe Jr. and Seth, move from boys to men and then North. She was there when Jude was found, and sent casseroles of food over daily for three months.
    During that time Pearl had never met the son Beulah spoke constantly about. She glowed with delight whenever she said or heard his name mentioned: “Clemon.”
    He was her pride and joy and although she didn’t see him often, he faithfully sent her a letter with money the first of every month. “Had a little trouble ’round these parts some time ago,” Beulah confided. “He don’t feel safe comin’ ’round here no more.” The old woman never mentioned what type of trouble and Pearl didn’t ask.
    The one and only time Pearl had laid eyes on him was about ten years ago when Beulah passed away, fell down dead among the beloved flowers, fruits and vegetables she spent all her time tending.
    Pearl remembered he was a slight man, built like his mother, so small that a strong wind could come by and lift him