Free A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash Page B

say?”
    â€œâ€˜Mama,’” she said. “He called out for me, and he said it. He said, ‘Mama.’”
    I lay my head back on the seat and felt my skin get cold and numb like all the blood had been drained out of my body. I closed my eyes because I was afraid I might throw up if I even opened them to look around. My hand wasn’t even throbbing anymore, and it was like I’d already forgotten about that splinter. None of us made a sound, and all I could hear was the hum of the tires against the road.
    â€œAre you sure it was him?” I asked her.
    â€œI know it was,” she said. “I know it was because other folks heard him too. They were laying their hands on him, and you know how much he doesn’t like that, and I guess it just got to be too much for him and that’s when he hollered out for me. It was so loud in there with the music going and all that praying, and they were on him, and I swear if it hadn’t been the Lord’s work I wouldn’t have been able to hear him. It was a miracle.”
    â€œBut what happens if he doesn’t say a word ever again?”
    â€œHe will,” she said. “The Lord ain’t going to give us this gift just this one time and then take it away. That ain’t no kind of mercy.”
    â€œBut how do you know what God’s going to do?” I said.
    â€œI just know,” she said.
    â€œBut how? Maybe God doesn’t want Stump to say nothing else. You tell us all the time that nobody can ever know God’s will.”
    â€œThat’s right,” she said. “You can’t. But the Lord doesn’t play no tricks. Evil plays tricks, and there ain’t no room for evil in this family.”
    I kept my head back on the seat and swallowed hard even though I knew I wasn’t swallowing nothing but air, and I tried to keep myself from getting sick. I felt my forehead start sweating because I knew that Mama would tell me that I was evil for being the one who hollered out for her and then letting her believe it was Stump. It didn’t even matter whether she knew it was me or not, I felt evil just the same. She rolled her window back down like she was done talking, and that air coming in felt good against my face, even if it was hot and dusty.
    â€œWhat do you think Daddy’s going to say?” I asked over the sound of the wind pouring into the truck.
    â€œWe ain’t going to tell him yet,” she said.
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œBecause he’ll need to see it for himself,” she said. “He ain’t going to believe in miracles no other way.”
    â€œWhy wouldn’t he believe it?”
    â€œBecause he don’t want to.”
    I closed my eyes and thought about Daddy having to see a miracle to believe in it, and then I thought about mirages again, about how miracles might be like that sometimes. It was like Mama was lost in the desert and had gotten so thirsty that she was willing to see anything that might make her feel better about being lost. I knew that she needed to think she heard Stump holler out for her, even if I knew he didn’t, and I wondered if it was a sin to think any less of a miracle just because you know it ain’t real.
    I looked down at my hand and I thought about trying to slide that splinter right out, and I took my finger and felt where the end of it stuck out of my palm. The rest of it was right there just beneath my skin like a branch that’s frozen just under the surface of a pond in the wintertime.
    â€œQuit messing with that splinter,” Mama said. “You’re just going to work it down in there deeper, and then I won’t ever be able to get it out.”
    M AMA PULLED OFF THE HIGHWAY AND DROVE DOWN THE L ONG Branch Road toward the house. Up ahead, my daddy’s tobacco fields sat on the left-hand side of the road, and I could see where he’d started to cut and stick the burley and hang it upside down to