Read Online The Morning and the Evening by Joan Williams - Free Book Online

own breathing. He was alone and he knew that.
    Presently he ate the cake. His fingers dug into and out of the dark sticky chocolate, and he sucked them loudly, glad of his own noise. He had no hunger for more when he finished the piece and did not move from the table. He could feel that beyond him the house was dark, knew that, sitting in the doorway, he was watching the last of daylight. Occasionally, from a good distance away, he would catch the sound of a car horn. He thought of the dog and wished that it had not left him. He remembered the whole afternoon and was glad of the noise and the people as they had moved about him. He wished they had not gone away.
    When the kitchen had grown dark, he moved his chair out onto the old lean-to porch where there was still light enough to see a little ahead of himself. His hands hung down empty and still between his knees, and he wondered if it was time for him to go to bed.
    A flashlight suddenly shone on and off at the bottom of the steps like a giant mosquito. Then a voice said through the dark, “It’s Jurldeane, Mister Jake.” He heard her approach, and presently she was right by him and had turned the flashlight on underneath her chin. “See,” she said. “Jurldeane. Your momma’s wash girl.”
    She flashed the light around inside the kitchen. He watched it bounce ball-like from one wall to another; then it lit on the lamp. “Come on inside, Mister Jake, and let’s get us some light,” she said. He followed her and stood quietly while she lit it. In the dark he could smell on her clothes Clorox and a clean starchy smell; when she moved he smelled her body, warm with the effort of her walk; then, with the sudden yellow light making dark hollows in her face as she bent over to turn up the wick, he smelled kerosene. “You eat supper, I see,” she said, looking down at his used dishes. He followed her glance and looked down at them too. Then when she raised her eyes, he raised his and they looked at each other across the lamplight. “I knew they wouldn’t be here now,” she said. Her full bottom lip, opening, was shiny with snuff. “Here you are. Here I am. Where are they?” she said. “Leaving you all alone the first night they took her away.” Her mouth closed with a clamp, and she sat down heavily in the rickety kitchen chair. “Po’ thing,” she said, watching his face as he sat down opposite. Suddenly she leaned out and brought his plate across the table toward her. “What’s this? Choc’late cake? Whose, you reckon?” She licked her finger, then slid it across the plate where the cake had been and licked it again. “Not Miss Mary Margaret’s.” She considered, running her tongue all around her lips. “Don’t recognize that,” she said, finally. “Is they mo’?” she said.
    He followed her arm as it motioned the plate about. “Mo’?” she said.
    The plate rested on the table again and she tapped it with a large forefinger. “Cake?” He looked up and met the eyes that asked him something. The woman looked back at him for some seconds, her head cocked to one side. “Hmm-um,” she said, finally. “Po’ thing,” and put her hands on the table and pushed herself up. She looked behind the old curtain covering the shelves on one side of the room and then crossed over to the cupboard and opened that. She turned grinning at him, the cake plate in her hand. “Here it is,” she said, coming back to the table. “We going to have us some cake eatin’ now, Mister Jake. It going to be me and you.” She pushed his plate back to him and set one down in front of herself. She cut two large pieces and placed one on each plate; then she broke off a piece of hers with her fingers and ate it. Her tongue curled around each fingertip afterward, licking it. Jake watched, and when she said, “Eat that