Read Online Lay that Trumpet in Our Hands by Susan Carol McCarthy - Free Book Online

Armetta Cully, Luther’s wife, my friend Marvin’s grieving mother, stands at the top of our stepladder. White cloth and spray bottle in hand, she’s tackling the high glass shelves of the marmalade section, dressed in the white uniform and thick-soled shoes she used to wear at May Carol’s house in Opalakee. It’s the first time I’ve seen her, since Marvin and all, and I approach her, fearful of saying the wrong thing.
    “Hey, Armetta,” I call softly, shyness suddenly clogging my throat.
    “ReesaRoo,” she croons, setting aside her cloth and climbing quickly down. “Gotta getta a look at
you
!”
    I can’t help but smile, reminded that “Ol’ Gonna-Gotta-Getta” was one of Marvin’s pet names for her.
    “Girl! You weren’t no bigger than a minute when you was born . . . you a pretty half-hour now!” Armetta exclaims, a grin brightening her face, tiny gold tendrils curling around her teeth.
    Maybe it’s her smiling eyes, so like Marvin’s but not exactly, her teasing tone, or the gentleness with which she places her palm under my chin and lifts it to look at me; all of a sudden, an ocean of sorrow slams over me, stealing my breath away. Worse yet, the four terrible words that have bashed against my brain, beat like wild birds caged inside my chest, fly out my mouth. “Oh, Armetta,” I cry, before I can stop myself, “Marvin’s
dead, gone
forever!”
    All at once, I fall and am pulled sobbing into the wide, warm circle of her arms. Armetta’s twice the size of Mother. In the soft talcum-scented saddle between her breasts, I feel, rather than hear, the beat of her great heart.
    Behind us, crunching gravel, car doors open and slam, signaling the arrival of a carload of customers.
    Armetta walks me quickly into the cool quiet of my parents’ office, hidden in the crook of the L-shaped showroom.
    “Oh, child,” she says, stroking my hair, softly weeping. “Mah boy, he loved you like a sister.”
    “He was my best friend,” I sob. “He was the best friend in the whole world and, and . . .” I try to stop crying but I can’t. “
Everything
seems all upside down without him.”
    Armetta holds me, anchors me, as my head spins with the awful truth that the world I knew, bright and warm and fun, has spun and quaked and fallen
away
to reveal something infinitely less simple, more dangerous and complicated than I ever imagined.
    She holds me close, then, after a time, she pushes me just far enough away to see my face. Sternly, she says, “Reesa, lemme tell you somethin’. When Ah was ’bout your age, Ah lost someone, too. My old grandmamma told me somethin’ Ah’ve never forgot. God is the potter, she said, and we clay in his hands, soft and weak which don’t do at all. It’s our time in the fire, don’t y’see, that gives us strength and shows His purpose. Without that, we couldn’t hold water. Y’understand?”
    I bite my lip, unsure. God and I aren’t exactly on speaking terms these days.
    “God has His plans, honey, for all of us—you, Marvin, me, your mamma and daddy, everybody. And, He gotta prepare us. Time in the fire don’t burn us, y’see, it helps us be ready for whatever’s ahead.”
    “But Marvin’s gone for
ever
,” I wail in protest.
    “His work was done, Reesa. His time come.”
    “But why couldn’t he just die natural? Why’d it have to be so
aw
ful?” I want to know as the terrible memory of him groaning, bleeding in the truck bed flashes through my mind.
    “Oh, child, there’s no explainin’ the meanness in this world.” Armetta shakes her head, wipes wetness off her cheek, then cradles my hands in her palms. “But there’s goodness here, too. You can’t never lose sight of that, hold on to it. It’s the goodness that gets us through.”
    “Do you . . . really
believe
we’ll see Marvin again . . . up there, I mean?”
    “Ah do, child, Ah
do
,” she says gently. Her eyes seem lit from within, her great face shines with faith. “In the meantime . .