Free Ada's Rules by Alice Randall Page B

you remember.
    Ada had become some of what she was born to be. Accordingto Bird’s reckoning, a preacher’s wife was not a complete coming off the stage, wasn’t exactly the opposite of being the lead singer’s wife, but it was a move in the right direction. It was a far walk from the cotton fields where Ada was born the last weekend Bird ever sang at a Mississippi Delta country club. “Used to be I was Ada’s mama,” Bird said out loud to herself.
    She could smell the aroma of greens boiling on the stove, and she hoped the cleaning lady had put in some side meat.
    Next week she might put that diary in the cleaning lady’s purse. As Bird went to put the book back where she had hid it, she began to sing, just above a whisper.
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine … Won’t hide it under no bushel now! I’m gonna let it shine … All the time all the time.
Even tired and stoned, Bird knew that she and Preach were bushels, and Ada was a little light. “This Little Light of Mine.” It was the very first song she had taught Ada, and it stayed her baby girl’s favorite song for a long, long time. And Bird knew she had to take just a little bit more Benadryl, and she wouldn’t know it again.
    Sonny looked up from his cards, “Come over here, Miss Lady, and take a hit off this, get your mind back quiet.” Bird floated over to the bed.
    â€œDeal me in.”
    After the lake Ada headed to KidPlay. After KidPlay she headed home. Almost home, she made a quick stop. Queenie’s.
    Preach’s mama, Queenie, lived just the other side of Belmont Boulevard from Ada and Preach, in a spotless old house she rarely left.
    After she retired from daywork, the week she turned sixty-twoand could apply for Social Security, Queenie was home if she could be home. A lifetime of following her enlisted-man husband from army base to army base and supplementing the family income by cleaning the homes of officers left her rooted to her own couch in her own home.
    She didn’t even go to church on Sunday. When asked about that, Queenie would laugh and say, “I share my son with Ada and the twins—I ain’t sharing him with them other women.” Not going to church on Sunday was about the only thing the preacher’s mama had in common with the preacher’s mama-in-law.
    If Queenie was sorry Sarge had died before they got to live in a house they owned, not a house assigned to them by the army, or the cheap apartment they rented while getting their down payment together, she didn’t say.
    Queenie moved on. She’d done it for decades with Sarge, then she did it for decades without him. After moving to Nashville, she did it leaning on Ada and Preach as her sturdy stick.
    Soon as Queenie heard Ada’s car pull into the drive, she would start making her way to the front door. She tried to be a convenient woman. Queenie would be holding the door wide open by the time Ada was halfway up her front walk. They would start talking before Ada got to the steps. Ada was always rushing, and Queenie knew it.
    â€œCome give me some sugar, baby.”
    â€œHey, Queenie.”
    Ada plopped a big kiss on Queenie’s cheek. Her mother-in-law smacked her one right on the lips.
    â€œCome on in here, chile, I got some charlotte russe in therefrigerator, and some stuffed crabs in the oven, and baby I got some gumbo on the stove. Fix yo’self a plate.”
    â€œQueenie, I’m starting a diet.”
    â€œWhat fo’?”
    â€œLook at me!”
    â€œI am looking at you. Straight at you. You looking good, chile.”
    â€œI weigh over two hundred pounds.”
    â€œChile, I weighed two-eighty-five last time I got on a scale. Probably over three hundred now. Don’t have diabetes. Don’t have but a touch of pressure, and what I got is under control.”
    â€œHow would you know? You don’t go to the