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

cake up,” he began to eat. She smiled at him when he licked his fingers, and he opened his mouth wide showing his teeth. Once she stopped chewing and said, “Huh, oleo,” and then began to chew again. Jake finished first, and she cut him a thin sliver to eat on while she finished. He did not understand at first, and the woman said again, “Go ’head.” He ate, and when they had both finished, she put slices on their plates again. She got up once and went into the next room; he sat without chewing, thinking she had gone; then she reappeared, a pitcher of milk in her hand, and poured them glasses full. They sat back in their chairs, alternately eating and licking and drinking, with no other light in the house, and no other sound save that of the clock. Her face was shining and dark in the pale light, and he did not once take his eyes from it. Whenever she looked at him, she smiled or refilled his glass or his plate. She caught a lightning bug in her hand, then released it for him to see; they watched it flicker away into the dark of the house beyond them. “No noise. No light. Nuthin’,” Jurldeane said. She was quiet a moment, listening. Jake stopped chewing, watching her. “I use to pass by on the road upside this house some evenin’s,” she said. He watched as a sweat bead slid from her forehead down the side of her face, watched as she leaned over and lowered the wick of the lamp. “And we would wonder what goes on inside that house when night comes. What does he do. It always so quiet, so still like. Only sometime we see your momma passing up and down before the light, going from one room to another. Never did see you, Mister Jake. We would wonder—do he go to bed soon as dark comes, or do he set around and make some kind of talk with his momma so she have some company?” She was quiet a moment, thinking back; then she looked up at him, her eyes wide and wet. “Now I know,” she said. “Now I know.”
    She sat back, her arms crossed beneath her breasts. “We all got some kind of cross to bear,” she said. “Your momma had hers. But what I don’t see, though the Lord has His ways, is who else going to take it up now.”
    By the low light of the lamp her eyes looked deep in their bright, white sockets. He watched them, listening to the soft singsong of her voice. And suddenly she was saying, “Oh Lord, hush now. Hush, Lamb of God.”
    She came around the table and pressed his head against her skirt. Once again, and for the last time, he had the warm body smell of a woman’s lap for his head.
    She held him until he was spent, murmuring, “Po’ thing, po’ old man child,” and finally lifted his head and said, “Now blow your nose.” And he took the paper napkin she handed him and tried to do it.
    â€œI don’t know what you going to do, Mister Jake, I declare to my soul I don’t.” She stood looking down into the lamp as if it might hold an answer. Then she looked at him and said, “You know how to light this thing? Turn it down and blow it out?” He looked at her eagerly, silently, his mouth hung open. “You don’t any more know what I’m talking ’bout than the cat flies,” she said. “Here.” From the curtained shelves she took a box of old candle ends, lit one and let it drip into a saucer. Then she secured the candle in the hot tallow and put it on the table before him. “You know how to blow that out?” she said. He leaned forward and did it with a little puff of spit. “Now I’m going to light it again,” she said, “and when you get into bed, you be sure and blow it out, you hear? Can you nod your head if you hear?” He did that.
    â€œI got to go now,” she said. “It’s on about nine o’clock.” She collected the dishes from the table and rinsed them in a bucket of water sitting in the sink,