Free The Future Has a Past by J. California Cooper

her love had come. “I’m thinkin bout goin with him to see about it. I ain never been to no big city. Picture shows, big stores, pretty parks and things. I can even get a better kinda job.” She smiled a combination of sad and happy. “We gonna be married and buy a house up there. Just think, Aunty, I’ll have a husband. And a whole new life!”
    Corrine felt like crying for her friend. “Oh, Luella, sweetheart, ask yourself a few things. You have a good life here. Someday some man will come along who will really love you. He’ll help you keep what you have and help you build on it. You are a nice-looking woman. You are plump, but you are built real nice. You are going to be loved for yourself.” Luella turned her face away again and Corrine knew she did not want to hear about some other day. She kept talking anyway.
    “Luella, you talk about love. Let me tell you . . . You know all those plants in your yard? Your trees? Well, the seed came first, long, long before the leaf or the fruit. Learn a little about what it is to love. First the seed, then the soil, then the rain, then the sun, then the care, and even after all that, it still has to ripen so when you put it in your mouth to chew, the taste is not bitter, does not make you want to spit it out. Kindness, honesty, truth all go into making love. You don’t know the first thing about Silki after he leaves your yard. Have you been, ever, to his house? Has he ever handed you a dime and thanked you for doing what you do for him, by doing some of it for you? He could take you out to dinner.”
    Luella hastened to say, “Oh, he don’t like that cafe food.”
    Corrine hastened to say, “Well, let him take you and let you see if you like it! Instead of you always in that kitchen, no matter how hot or cold, cooking your food, bought with your money, cooked on your stove in your pots served on your plates which are later washed with your hands. What does he do for you?”
    “He . . . loves me.”
    Corrine didn’t want to hurt her friend, but the truth is the light. “I bet you if you don’t do any of all the things I just said to you, you givin him, I bet he won’t come back.”
    Luella didn’t want to hurt Aunt Corrine. She wanted to tell her to get out of her house, but couldn’t, so she cried. Aunty took her into her arms. “Oh, baby, I didn’t mean to hurt you. But it’s some things you just have to think about. If Mr. Silki so sharp and smart and hot, what’s he doing in this little town? Why isn’t he in some big city already? Why you have to feed him? I bet he has to use your money to even get to the big city.”
    Luella spoke into Aunty’s shoulder, she didn’t want to move from the warmth of Corrine’s love. “Married people do that.”
    Aunt Corrine lost some more of her patience. “Fools do it too! And you are not married to him yet! All you got from him is talk! He gets good food and you even wash his clothes. He bathes in your tub and sleeps during the day. What he do at night, Luella? All night?”
    Luella didn’t want to think about that. This was love walked into her dead and dreary life. LOVE, and she was going to hold on to it if it was the last thing she did! She straightened herself out of Aunty’s arms and made up her mind to go see that Preacher Watchem and get her money . . . before Silki decided to up and leave without her.
    And that’s what she did . . . the next Sunday. She sat through the sermon and when church was out and Preacher Watchem was standing in the wide-open doorway, shaking hands with his parishioners, Luella was in line and when it came her turn, the crowd was still milling around.
    Luella frowned and said, “Preacher Watchem, I have waited all these months for you to bring me my money my poor dead mother left with you for me. You promised her, and you promised me, my five hundred dollars! I need my money! I am all alone now. I’m washing clothes to live, just like my mother did. I need my