Free Mama Ruby by Mary Monroe

dog-eared magazine with a lurid cover, an empty jar with plum-colored lipstick on its rim, and crumbs from the chocolate cake that Simone had baked for Othella’s party. A large plaid chair, its seat stained with various liquids including menstrual blood and gravy, sat next to the footstool that Othella occupied at the foot of the bed.
    “I knew somethin’ was fishy by the way this girl’s been stumblin’ around ever since she got here. I seen her run into a wall a little while ago, but I just figured she was a little drunk,” Simone told Othella in a nervous voice. “What’s wrong with you, Othella? Why is Ruby here in the shape she’s in? What if that fall in the kitchen had killed her? We don’t need another peacemaker snoopin’ around here askin’ a bunch of nosy questions. And I don’t want another dead body in my house like that other time.” Last December, one of Simone’s elderly men friends had suffered a massive heart attack and died in the middle of making love to her. It had been an embarrassment and a major inconvenience for Simone. Dead bodies were too disruptive, especially in her bed. She didn’t want to go through that again anytime soon. She glared at Othella. “I ought to whup your behind for lettin’ this gal come here tonight in her condition!”
    “Mama, I swear I didn’t know till now that Ruby was pregnant,” Othella defended. “Honest to God, I—”
    “Shet up!” Simone interrupted. “Do you mean to tell me that you and Ruby Jean been runnin’ around together every day all this time, and you didn’t know she was pregnant? You blind, stupid, or both?”
    Othella blinked and looked at Ruby sprawled on the bed. Then she looked back to her mother and shook her head. “I didn’t know. She was already big. I just thought she was a little bit bigger than she normally was, because she’s been drinkin’ so much more beer lately than she used to. Look at her, Mama. She don’t really look like you did all them times you was pregnant, now does she? Her stomach ain’t even pokin’ out that far.”
    Before Simone could respond, somebody pounded on the door. “Mama, can we eat the rest of them ribs in the kitchen?” O’Henry, Othella’s twin brother, yelled as he jiggled the doorknob.
    “Get away from my door, boy!” Simone screamed, covering Ruby’s mouth with her hand to keep her from screaming.
    The door creaked open but before the boy could enter, Othella sprang up off the footstool and ran to the door and slammed it shut.
    “What y’all doin? Is Ruby Jean in there?” O’Henry asked.
    “Get back to that party, knucklehead!” Othella shouted. “Go change the record on the Victrola.”
    There was a moment of silence before O’Henry spoke again. This time in a nervous voice: “Mama, there’s some nasty lookin’ bloody stuff on the floor. All the way from the kitchen to . . . uh . . . right here outside your door,” he announced. “Y’all know how blood makes my skin crawl.”
    “Blood? Uh, it’s mine. My monthly snuck up on me,” Othella offered.
    “Again? Already? Wasn’t you all crampy and laid up last week? I thought y’all females only went through that nasty mess once a month!”
    “It did come last week, but these things don’t always follow no time line. Now you get back to that party and change the record on the Victrola like I told you, boy. I’ll be back out there directly. I’ll mop up that blood before I go to bed,” Othella told her brother.
    Instead of leaving, O’Henry remained at the door, shuffling his feet and wondering what his sister and their mother were up to. “Is Ruby Jean in there? I want her to teach me that jitterbug dance.”
    “Yeah, she is in here! Uh—she’s helpin’ me pick out another frock. I got some blood on the britches I had on when my monthly came,” Othella said, becoming more agitated by the second.
    “Ruby Jean is helpin’ you pick out another frock . . . in Mama’s room?” O’Henry asked with a