Free The Darkest Child by Delores Phillips Page A

him.
    “Wait a minute,” he said, placing a hand on my arm to detain me.“I got something for Martha Jean. It’s in my car.”
    “What is it?”
    “You’ll see.”
    I followed him to his car which was parked in the same spot as when I had first seen it a week ago. He opened the passenger door, reached into the back seat, and withdrew a large, brown paper bag.
    “Here, take a look,” he said, handing the package over to me.
    I opened the bag and was surprised to see a brand new, navy blue cloth coat. I stared at the dark fabric until Velman took it from my hands.
    He held the coat up by the shoulders and peered over the collar at me.“You think it’ll fit her?” he asked.
    “Velman, you can’t give that to Martha Jean,” I said.“Mama will have a fit.”
    “Trust me, little sister.Yo’ mama ain’t gon’ have no fit. I found that out before I went and spent my money.”
    I did not know how to respond to that. Before me stood a man who had seen my sister, to my knowledge, only once.He had never seen nor spoken to my mother, and yet he thought he knew them both. My jaw tightened and anger escaped from my nostrils in little whiffs of frost.
    “What have people been telling you about my mother?” I snapped.“And about my family?”
    “What you think they been telling me?”
    “Can’t you ever just answer a question?”
    “Depends on the question,” he said, taking the bag from my hands and placing the coat inside. “I guess I’ll have to find out where you live so I can take this coat to Martha Jean.”
    “She doesn’t want to see you,” I said quickly.“She doesn’t even like you. She thinks your hair is a mess, and you talk too much.”
    He laughed.“She told you all of that, did she? Well, she can tell it to me when she sees me this evening. I’m gonna take this coat to her just as soon as I get off work.”
    I snatched the package from his hands. “I think you already know where we live,” I said angrily.“You also know that our mother doesn’t take kindly to visitors.”
    “Yep. I know all that, but I also know yo’ mother ain’t there right now. I hear she’s in the hospital.”
    Velman Cooper had asked questions about my family, and he had gotten answers. Someone had warned him not to come to Penyon Road, though, or he would have done so by now. I was certain of that.
    With the package tucked under my arm, I stepped out onto the sidewalk, and heard him say, “Next time you come, you bring Martha Jean wit’ you.”
    As I spun around, I saw him leaning against his car with his hands shoved into the pockets of his gray uniform pants, and a grin on his face. “I’m not bringing my sister to see you,” I hissed. “You’re a grown man.You should find yourself a girl your own age.”
    “A girl my age is called a woman,” he countered, “and that’s just what Martha Jean is—a woman.”
    He stood there with that idiotic grin on his face, and I thought for just a second that I was bad enough to knock his teeth out.
    “I don’t like you,” I said, “and if I tell my brothers that you’re chasing after Martha Jean like some old dog, they’ll break your neck. Maybe I won’t even give her this coat. Maybe I’ll drop it in a ditch on my way home.”
    “Yeah. That oughta be easy for you to do since you got a nice warm coat,” he responded. “And by the way, there’s something in that bag for you. It’s a red scarf to tie around your beautiful hair.”
    I didn’t know what to say, so I rushed off down the sidewalk toward home.At the bend on Penyon Road, I reached into the bag and found the scarf at the bottom beneath the coat. I took it out and tied it into a bow around my ponytail.

ten
    H arvey and Sam had both put in a full day of work. They were dirty, tired, and hungry when they arrived home at a little before dark.When they were done eating, they stood side by side in the front room by the coal stove while Martha Jean cleaned the kitchen. It was their secretiveness,