Free The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat by Edward Kelsey Moore Page B

stocking up on ammunition for her ongoing battle with God.
    Barbara Jean removed her shoes before she left the library so the sound of her steps wouldn’t create a racket as she crossed the herringbone parquet floor of the grand foyer. She climbed the stairs slowly and carefully, recalling one of her mother’s warnings about the missteps that could prevent Barbara Jean from accessing the better, more respectable life that Loretta had been cheated out of. Loretta had said that if a woman fell down the stairs, people would always gossip that either she was a drunk or her man beat her. And you couldn’t have them saying either thing about you if you wanted to get chummy with the type of folks who could actually do something for you. That was the way Loretta had divided up the world, into those who could or could not do something for her. And she spent most of her life designing plots to wrest the things she wanted from the people who she believed possessed them. In the end, it did her no good.
    In her stocking feet, Barbara Jean crept along the second-floor hallway of her house. She tiptoed past the bedroom she shared with Lester. Then she passed by the guest rooms. The door to Adam’s room drew her to it as surely as if it had stretched out a pair of arms and pulled her into its embrace. She opened the door and stared intothe room at the familiar low shelves crammed with out-of-date toys, the small desk strewn with faded crayon drawings, the miniature chair with a pale green sweater slung over it as if its owner might dash into the room at any second to retrieve it. Everywhere she looked there were things that she had sworn to her friends she had thrown away or given away decades earlier. She knew she shouldn’t go into this room; it did her no good. But she still had a stagger in her step from the vodka. And she comforted herself with the knowledge that, in the morning, she probably wouldn’t recall experiencing the ache in her soul and the fire in her brain that always led her to this same place.
    Barbara Jean stepped inside and shut the door. She curled up on the short bed, atop cowboys and Indians on horseback engaged in endless pursuit of each other across the comforter. She closed her eyes—not to sleep, she told herself—just to rest and gather her thoughts before going to one of the guest rooms for the few remaining hours of the night. Moments later, Barbara Jean was on that dirt road again, clutching her husband’s arm while her shimmering mother floated above their heads whispering, “He’s waiting.”

Chapter 8
    Big Earl’s funeral was held at Clarice’s church, Calvary Baptist. He wasn’t much of a churchgoer himself, but his daughter-in-law’s family had worshipped at Calvary for almost as many generations as Clarice’s people. It seemed like the perfect choice until the place started to fill up and it became clear that the university’s football stadium was the only building in town that could have comfortably accommodated everyone.
    Each pew of the church was packed with mourners. Hundreds of folks who couldn’t get seats crowded the outer aisles, leaning against the white plaster walls. Small clusters of people who weren’t able to squeeze inside the church stuck their heads into the opened side doors of the sanctuary, amen-ing Reverend Peterson’s homily and bobbing their heads to the music along with those of us on the inside.
    Denise, Jimmy, and Eric sat in the row behind their father and me. Without having to be asked, all three of our kids had arrived that morning to comfort James and to pay their respects to the man who was the only grandfather they’d ever really known, since my father passed when they were still little. They’d traveled to Plainview from their homes in Illinois, California, and Washington to be with us, and I was happy and proud that they’d come.
    Although the Calvary Baptist approach to faith was a bit hard-assed for my taste, I was glad the service was there.