Free This Bitter Earth by Bernice McFadden Page A

she was there in the chair by the window. Already gone.”
    Sugar stuck to her story and never looked in May’s or Ruby’s eyes when she told it.

    May passed away four months later, just as spring was approaching and the scent of magnolia rolled in from the mountains.
    It wasn’t a surprise to anyone when she stopped sweeping the kitchen floor, put the broom to rest in its corner, climbed the stairs, changed into her nightdress and took to her bed.
    The grief she suffered after losing Sara weighed heavily on her and she constantly fretted about the last moments she’d had with her sister.
    “I was so angry, so damn angry at her!” She would interject her regret into any piece of conversation that happened to be taking place, whether it had to do with Sara or not. “I shouldn’t have been, though. That was just Sara.”
    “Yes, Sister, that’s just how she was. But she okay now, she with her maker and everything is okay,” Ruby would say and pat May’s hand.
    “I shouldn’t have slapped her,” May would mumble and then go off to be alone.
    On the fifth day after May took to her bed, she stopped eating solid food.
    “Just bring me another Mason jar,” she would say whenever Sugar or Ruby came to her bedroom with a tray of food.
    “Sister, you need to eat. Got to keep your strength up.” Ruby smiled when she spoke, but Sugar heard the fear in her words, saw the concern in her eyes.
    “Just bring it to me.”
    And Ruby did.
    May dried up as fast as the thyme and rosemary Ruby hung upside down along the inside of the kitchen’s window ledge; wasted away until Sugar and Ruby had to step all the way into the room to see for sure that May was somewhere in the mess of sheets and quilts on the bed.

    “Bring me Papa’s pipe.”
    Sugar was sitting by May’s bed staring at the flames that danced in the fireplace, thinking about Bigelow.
    “What you say, May?”
    “I said, bring me Papa’s pipe.”
    “Uh-huh,” Sugar mumbled and dismissed May’s request as incoherent babbling.
    “Bring it here, Sugar, now!”
    Sugar jumped at the strength of May’s voice. “What, May, what?” May had Sugar’s undivided attention now. “What you want?”
    “Papa’s pipe,” May repeated herself; her words came out heavy and thick.
    Sugar just blinked at her. “Pipe? What pipe? Where?”
    “On top of the mantel.”
    Sugar moved her eyes over the mantel and didn’t see anything there but a small handmade wooden crucifix, two books, a wooden box and a small silver oval-shaped picture frame.
    “Ain’t no pipe up there, May.” Sugar got up and was about to head downstairs to get Ruby when she decided to check the contents of the box.
    Inside was indeed a pipe as well as a small velvet bag filled with tobacco and a gold lighter with the initials I.T. carved on its front.
    She picked up the box and carried it over to the bed. May was wheezing and her eyes watered as she stared up at the ceiling. “Fill it up and light it for me.”
    Sugar hesitated. “I don’t think you should be smoking. I mean, in your condition.” Sugar stepped back a pace or two. “I think maybe I should check with Ruby and see—”
    “Who more grown here, me or you? I say fill it up and light it.”
    “Ruby!” Sugar yelled over her shoulder as she sat down on the bed and hurriedly began to empty the tobacco into the pipe. “Ruby!” Her hands were shaking as she packed the tobacco into the bowl of the pipe before placing the curved end between her teeth.
    “Light it, light it.” May spoke as her head twisted back and forth in the pillow. Her eyes were watering badly now and every breath she took was followed by a sound that reminded Sugar of dry leaves dancing at the mouth of a cave.
    “I’m trying, May. Ruby!”
    Sugar had the pipe between her teeth and had to speak from the side of her mouth. Her hands were shaking uncontrollably now as her attention was torn between May’s twisting head and the lighter. She flicked it, once,