Free The Improper Life of Bezillia Grove by Susan Gregg Gilmore Page B

labored, against my neck. She was desperate to comfort her baby girl.
    My little sister was lying on her side with her knees tucked against her chest. She wasn’t crying anymore. She was just staring at the wall.
    Maizelle said she had been shocked into silence, said she’d seen it before. She quickly dampened a cloth and washed Adelaide’s face. She gave her a couple of baby aspirin and then opened her top dresser drawer and pulled out Adelaide’s favorite pink pajamas. I sat down next to my little sister and put my arm around her shoulders. She was so thin and small I could feel her bones poking through her skin. I patted her back and told her not to worry about Baby Stella and the others. Nathaniel would find them. And Maizelle promised she would wash their faces and give them some baby aspirin too.
    Adelaide suddenly started crying with such force and conviction that I wasn’t sure she would ever be able to stop. “Baby Stella. Baby Stella,” she moaned, repeating this tearful, tiny plea as she rocked herself back and forth. She finally closed her eyes, and Maizelle and I held our breath, hoping she had fallen asleep. But then her body jerked forward, and she started sobbing again, repeating the same tearful refrain.
    Nathaniel opened the door just enough to push his head into the room. He winked at us and smiled, trying to reassure us that everything was going to be okay. Then he told Maizelle to stay with the children until she heard Dr. Grove come up the stairs. He said he’d be sitting on the front porch. My eyes must have widened with surprise, because he looked right at me and told me not to worry.
    “It’ll be all right, Miss Bezellia. I just need to have a few words with your daddy.” Then he closed the bedroom door, motioning for Maizelle to lock it behind him. Maizelle stood up and whispered something to Nathaniel and then locked the door. I knew right then she hated my mother as much as I did.
    From Adelaide’s bedroom window, I could see Nathaniel sitting perfectly still in the green wicker glider, gazing up at the stars, patiently waiting for my father to pull in the driveway. He sat there for what seemed like hours, with his hands resting on his thighs and his head slightly tilted toward the sky. I wondered what all he saw when he looked at those stars. Then Adelaide’s room suddenly filled with light as my father’s car eased its way to the house, the headlights boldly announcing his arrival. I ran to the window and hid behind the heavy floral draperies, carefully spying my father as he stepped out of his car.
    Nathaniel stood up and walked to the edge of the porch. “Good evening, Dr. Grove,” he said with a firm, direct voice, not even waiting for my father to make his way to the front steps.
    “Good evening, Nathaniel.” My father answered slowly and carefully, suddenly looking like a buck who had been grazing in the field at dusk. It was as if he could sense some sort of danger, hidden but surely there. He probably wanted to run for cover, but instead of scanning the horizon for a thicket of trees or some heavy brush, he just froze in place. “What are you doing here so late? Everything okay?”
    “No, sir, it’s not. Nothing here is okay. But you already know that,” Nathaniel said and then paused for what seemed like a very long time. I guess he was searching for the right words to say to the man he had once taken fishing down by the creek, steadying his fishing cane so he’d be certain to get a bite. But now, Nathaniel sounded more like a parent chastising a naughty child than an old friend or a colored man careful of his position. And even though my father would have had every right to make him stop, he did not.
    “I have known you for a long time, and maybe ’cause of that I feel I can say what’s in my heart. Or maybe I’m just plain afraid if I don’t, one of your girls is going to end up in that hospital you’re at all the time.
    “You know as well as I do that Mrs.