Free Hush by Jacqueline Woodson Page A

the true one and that they’re the chosen people. Well, that’s what I wanted—the truth. Who were we really? And why? Why had this had to happen to us? Why couldn’t someone else’s daddy have witnessed the murder?
    “What about babies?” I asked, wanting to change the subject. “With this Armageddon thing, the end of things that you always talk about, will babies get destroyed, too—because they can’t walk, so they can’t go out in field service and pray and stuff?”
    Mama frowned at me, checking my face to see if I was messing with her. I wasn’t. We could start at the beginning—the basics. Who was this god of hers, anyway? Why would He want to destroy babies—and families?
    “Jehovah can see into people’s hearts,” Mama said. “He knows who’s who and who’s going to be who.”
    “How come He didn’t give Hitler a disease or something?” Anna asked. “To keep him from killing all those Jews? Or what about the people who killed Martin Luther King Jr. and the Kennedys? And Malcolm X? What about those guys? Or like when—”
    “Or what about us?” I yelled. “What about us? What did we do to deserve this?!”
    Mama shook her head. “The Lord works in mysterious ways. He has His plans and it’s not for us to understand. There’s a reason why we’re here. We just don’t know it yet.”
    She bit her bottom lip, her eyes glazing over. After a moment she blinked and looked from me to Anna. In that split second, I saw her again—the lady I used to know in Denver. My mother.
    “You’re strong,” she said. “You’re both so strong.” She bit her lip again. “My strong, strong daughters . . .” Her voice trailed off.
    “I don’t want to be strong!” Anna said. “I just want . . . I just want to be who I am! Who I always was!”
    Mama smiled. It was a small smile, but I saw it. I remembered it. From a long time ago.
    “No one can take that away,” she said, her voice no more than a whisper. A moment passed before she added my sister’s name. “Cameron.”
    Anna and I looked at her, our mouths open. How long had it been since I’d heard that name coming from her mouth? I blinked slowly. When I looked at Mama again, her eyes were far off and she was our new mother again. But Anna was smiling.
    Mama’s Bible was sitting beside her plate. She picked it up and begin reading. “ ‘Even though I walk in the valley of deep shadow, I fear nothing. . . .’ ”
    “I need new running sneakers,” I said.
    Mama ignored me and kept reading. “ ‘Surely goodness and loving-kindness will pursue me all the days of my life.’ ”
    “I think God will see it loving and kind of you to let me get a good day’s sleep. So I should be able to get right back to bed now instead of—”
    “You’re coming today, Anna,” Mama said. “You just got new sneakers, Evie.”
    I bit the inside of my lip. It felt like the moment when she said Anna’s old name had never happened.
    “They’re too heavy.”
    “Too heavy for what?”
    “They make my knees hurt,” I said quickly. This wasn’t a total lie. What I had were cross-trainers, and even a nonprofessional like me knew real runners had real running shoes, not cross-trainers. Cross-trainers would definitely mess up your knees if you ran too much in them.
    Anna frowned at me. A “Yeah, right” frown. A “What are you up to now?” frown.
    “And plus,” I added, “they feel too tight now.”
    “We’ll get you new sneakers, then,” my father said from the window.
    “I need new sneakers, too,” Anna said.
    “You can have mine. I hardly wore them.”
    “Yuck!” Anna took a tiny bit of bacon and glared at me. “I don’t want your skanky sneakers.”
    “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you two,” Mama said. “Just eat and hush.” But there was a small, proud smile at the edge of her mouth.
    I watched our father staring up at the overcast sky as if some big answer was about to drop out of it into the empty bowl on his lap.