The Darkest Child by Delores Phillips Read Free Book Online Page B

better, Pearl!” Mama exploded when Miss Pearl went back into the bedroom. “She ain’t coming in my house. That shriveled up, rheumy-eyed, snuff-dipping ol’ bitch. I’d rather die a hundred deaths than let her touch me.”
    I glanced at Wallace, who grinned and shook his head. “They sleeping through all this,” he said, indicating Laura and Edna who were lying on the kitchen floor. “I don’t know how they can sleep through this.”
    “It’s nice somebody can,” I said. “I think I’ll curl up in this chair and try to get a little sleep myself. It could be a long night.”
    I nudged Martha Jean and pointed to the other chair. She stood and stretched, and while she was doing so, Tarabelle strode across the hall, brushed past her, and slumped down in the unoccupied chair.
    “Po’ Mama,” Tarabelle said in a voice void of sympathy. “She done had her whites, her Indians, and her coloreds.This one must be Chinese or something ’cause it sho’ don’t wanna be born in this house.”
    “What they doing in there?” Wallace asked.
    “Nothing, ”Tarabelle answered.“Ain’t nothing they can do.”
    Martha Jean knelt on the floor beside the stove, and I said, “Martha Jean is scared. She doesn’t understand what’s going on.”
    “You the one scared, ”Tarabelle snapped. “Martha Jean know all about it, a lot more than you. I tol’ her about having babies—how it tears yo’ insides out. How you bleed like a hog, and pieces of yo’ body come rolling out on the bed, all slimy and smelly.”
    I could feel her watching me, but I kept my eyes averted and said nothing.
    “Tan, I bet you don’t even know how a baby is made, do you?” she whispered, and did not wait for a reply. “Takes a man and a woman to do it. You take off yo’ clothes and let him pee inside you. That’s all there is to it.”
    It was too disgusting to be believable, but Wallace, intrigued by Tarabelle’s nonsense, stepped closer toward her. “Is that true, Tara?” he asked.
    She nodded.
    “It is not, Wallace,” I said. “She’s making that up.”
    “Takes days to get all that pee out yo’ body, ”Tarabelle continued, enjoying herself. “That is, unless you know how to wash it out. One day, Tan, I’m gon’ tell you how to wash it out. Sometimes you can’t get it all, and some of it gets in yo’ belly and mixes wit’ food and makes a baby.”
    I began to laugh. It was a high-pitched, humorless laugh, bordering on hysteria. My mother was a clean woman. Never would she allow a man to do the number one in her. Tarabelle should have known better than to say such a thing, and anyway, babies did not grow in bellies; they grew in wombs.
    My laughter brought Miss Pearl back into the front room. She stood over me and shook my shoulders. “Child, ain’t nothing funny here,” she scolded.
    I struggled to regain my composure, to become once more the calm, sensible Tangy that she knew so well, but each time I opened my mouth to explain, shrill laughter erupted. My jaws ached, and my stomach cramped. I was so consumed by laughter and tears that Miss Pearl stepped back and just allowed me to ride it out.
    At first, I could not identify the sharp pain in my left arm. I thought it was just another symptom of my hysteria, like the aching jaws and the cramping stomach. But as the pain intensified, I tried to move my arm and found that I could not. Tarabelle had a grip on me. She was pinching the skin above my elbow so hard that she had bitten down on her bottom lip.
    “Stop it, Tara! ”Wallace shouted. “You hurting her.”
    It was an understatement. Tarabelle probably would have ripped the skin away from the bone of my arm if Miss Pearl had not intervened.
    “That’s enough of that,” she said, gripping Tarabelle’s wrist. “Let her go!”
    Tarabelle gave one last, long twist before releasing my arm. “It’s all yo’ fault I gotta go clean somebody’s house. Ain’t no telling what you went out there and said to them