Free Mama B - a Time to Love by Michelle Stimpson Page A

too.”
    “Thanks for listening, B.”
    I squeezed her hand. “Thanks for letting
me listen.”
    Eunice rinsed out the bowl and set it in
the dishwasher. We turned out the kitchen light and returned toward the
bedrooms. “Night, B.”
    “Night.”
    When I got back in my room, it hit me
that I hadn’t said one word to her about the Lord.  I didn’t feel bad
about it, though. Eunice the type don’t respond to somebody preachin’ about
love. She the kind that got to feel it before she’ll listen to words.
     
     
    Me
and Eunice made a trip to the Walmart and got some more groceries for the
house. Of course, folk was starin’ at her with all that riff-raff on her face.
Her eyes weren’t so bad anymore, but since she had taken the bandages off her
arms, anyone who got close could see the black string sewn into her skin.
    She rode around in the handicapped buggy,
throwing all kinds of foolishness into the basket. Good thing we had already
decided she should be well enough by the end of the week to move back to
wherever she wanted to go. In the meanwhile, she said she needed some “real”
food.
    That Eunice was something else. I didn’t
have a scale to prove it, but I know I’d put on a few pounds already, bein’ in
her company. She had cut loose in the kitchen a few times and managed to put
enough seasoning and honey just right on a chicken breast—make you wanna
holla! I had a mind to let her cook as often as she wanted to after that.
    She grabbed a few pairs of pull-on pants,
shirts, and a pair of flip-flops.
    “It’ll be getting cool soon. You might
want to get something a little warmer,” I suggested.
    “Yeah, you’re right. Some of those
shelters might as well be made out of paper for as cold as they get in the
winter,” she said, dropping a sweatshirt into our stash.
    I, personally, wasn’t looking forward to
dropping her off at some shelter, but I could see she was getting antsy. 
She was smokin’ outside more. Mumbling to herself. She wouldn’t agree to go to
the upcoming Wednesday night service. She apologized, said I didn’t have to
worry about her breaking my rules much longer.
    “B, go on and get what you want,” Eunice
prompted several times as we swept up and down the store’s center aisles.
    “We ain’t at the fruit and vegetable
section yet. That’s where I do most of my grocery shoppin’,” I said.
    “Well, whatever you want, just throw it
in the basket. I’m buying,” she insisted.
    Put together, our bill came to a little
over eighty dollars. Then she added cigarettes and that took it up to a
hundred. She pulled out a VISA card, swiped through the machine. Of course, I
didn’t pay no attention to what all she was doing as she conducted the
transaction.
    But when she was done, the girl gave her
cash. Eunice thrust it into my hand before I knew what she was doing. “Here you
go, B.”
    “Eunice, I ain’t asked you for no money.”
    “I know. I’m giving it to you.”
    The cashier chimed in, “Shoot, I’ll take
it if you don’t want it.”
    Well, I’m not one to insult someone who’s
trying to bless me. I stuffed the money into my pocketbook. “Thank you, Eunice.”
    Since Eunice had to walk to the car on
her cane, of course she trailed behind me. Good thing, too, ‘cause now I was
starting to wonder where Eunice gettin’ all this money from. I got to doin’ the
math up in my head. She said she gave the person who brought her to Peasner
fifty dollars, she gave me fifty dollars, she done spent a hundred dollars at
Walmart and another hundred-and-something she had just gave me. That’s goin’ on
four hundred dollars in less than a week, with no job to speak of. But she beggin’
for food from the food pantry and stayin’ in homeless shelters.
    At the rate she was goin’, she didn’t
need to follow nobody’s rules. She could afford to get her own place and take
care of herself.
    Somethin’ wasn’t addin’ up.
    Eunice wasn’t much help putting all