Read Online Shiloh and Other Stories by Bobbie Ann Mason - Free Book Online

you go to church anyway?” asked Betsy Lou. “You’re all dressed up.”
    “I just don’t have it in me,” said Lunetta. She was wearing a shell-tucked summer shantung dress and raffia T-strap sandals.
    “Ain’t you hot in that outfit?” asked my aunt. “We’re burning up.”
    “I guess so.” Lunetta seemed gloomy and distracted. I almost forgave her for upsetting me about the sympathizers, but then she launched into a complicated story about a baby-sitter who got double-crossed. “This woman baby-sat for her best friend, who was divorced and had two little babies. And come to find out, the friend was going out on dates with the woman’s own husband!”
    “If that don’t beat all,” said Mama, her eyes wide. She was drinking her second cup of coffee.
    “No telling how long that could have kept up,” said my aunt.
    “It made a big divorce case,” Lunetta said.
    “I never saw so many divorce cases,” said Mama.
    “Would you divorce somebody if you found out they were a Communist?” Lunetta asked.
    “I don’t know as I would,” said Aunt Mozelle. “Depends.”
    “
I
would,” said Mama.
    “I probably would,” said Lunetta. “How about you, Boone?”
    “If I found out Mozelle was a red?” Boone asked, grinning. “I’d probably string her up and tickle her feet till she hollered uncle.”
    “Oh, Boone,” Lunetta said with a laugh. “I know you’d stick up for Mozelle, no matter what.”
    They sat around that morning talking like this, good-naturedly. In the light of day, the reds were only jokes after all,like the comics. I had decided to eat a bowl of Pep cereal, and “Some Enchanted Evening” was playing on the radio. Suddenly everything changed, as if a black storm had appeared to break the heat wave. My mother gave out a loud whoop and clutched her stomach in pain.
    “Where does it hurt?” my aunt cried, grabbing at Mama.
    Mama was too much in pain to speak. Her face was distorted, her sharp-pointed lips stretched out like a slingshot. My aunt helped her to the bathroom, and a short while later, my aunt and uncle flew away with her in a taxi. Mama had straightened up enough to say that the pain had subsided, but she looked scared, and the blood had drained from her face. I said nothing to her, not even good-bye.
    Betsy Lou, left alone with me, said, “I hope she hasn’t got polio.”
    “Only children get polio,” I said, trembling. “She don’t have polio.”
    The telephone rang, and Betsy Lou chattered excitedly, telling one of her boyfriends what had happened. Alone and frightened, I sat on the porch, hugging a fat pile of newspapers and gazing at the street. I could see Sharon Belletieri, skating a block away with two other girls. She was wearing a blue playsuit. She and her friends reminded me of those privileged children in the Peanut Gallery on
Howdy Doody
.
    To keep from thinking, I began searching the newspaper for something to put in Aunt Mozelle’s scrapbook, but at first nothing seemed so horrible as what had just happened. Some babies had turned blue from a diaper dye, but that story didn’t impress me. Then I found an item about a haunted house, and my heart began to race. A priest claimed that mysterious disturbances in a house in Wisconsin were the work of an angelic spirit watching over an eight-year-old boy. Cryptic messages were found on bits of paper in the boy’s room. The spirit manifestation had occurred fifteen times. I found my aunt’s scissors and cut out the story.
    Within two hours, my aunt and uncle returned, with broad smiles on their faces, but I knew they were pretending.
    “She’s just fine,” said Aunt Mozelle. “We’ll take you to see herafterwhile, but right now they gave her something to make her sleep and take away the pain.”
    “She’ll get to come home in the morning,” said my uncle.
    He had brought ice cream, and while he went to the kitchen to dish it out, I showed my aunt the clipping I had found. I helped her put it in