June had her problems; it was easy to forget Ray. June’s youngest boy, Bryan, was in jail again, picked up for the sixth time for driving without a license. What did they want from the boy, anyway? He had to drive to get to work. He had to work to pay his rent and support Marlene and the baby, even if they weren’t married. June believed in marriage, and her son refused to marry Marlene.

“I ain’t marryin’ nobody till I’m sure she’s here to stay,” Bryan said when his mother pressed him about a wedding.

“How long’s it gonna take to be sure?” June had asked.

Bryan shrugged. “You never know about folks from way up there in West Virginia. I’ll know when I know, and I’ll let you know.”

Pastor Johnson had talked to Bryan a year ago, way before the baby came, and Pastor Ledbetter, her sister May’s friend, had talked to him more recently, but Bryan wouldn’t budge. He wouldn’t baptize the child, either, and that really upset June. How could he condemn the child, her grandchild, a baby with no will of her own, to hell’s fire? Maybe, she told herself when she lay in bed at night, if the baby died in sin, God would have mercy on her, and June prayed that would be the case. After all, she’d remind God, it ain’t the child’s fault she ain’t baptized.

June had decided long ago not to become attached to her granddaughter. Marlene and Bryan fought a lot, and that girl could just pick herself and that baby up and walk out anyday. She had a mama to go home to. June had never been to West Virginia, but Bryan seemed to think it was a place she wouldn’t want to go. June was certain that if Marlene left, she’d never see hide nor hair of either of them ever again.

Her mind fastened on Bryan. Who was gonna bail him outta jail this time? His father said he sure wasn’t going to. They wanted $1,000 bail, and June hadn’t seen that kind of money in one place in all her born days. As she drove home, she wondered if Ida had $1,000 set away in savings, and if so, could she be convinced to part with it? June shook her head. Probably not. Ida was no fan of Bryan’s.

“It’s the sixth time they’ve locked him up. He ought to stay in jail and learn his lesson,” Ida said when she heard. “He’s a grown man, over twenty-two years old, and he ought to know better than to go speeding in the first place.”