“Why go at all?” said Laughing Girl. “Those people are not like us. They will look at us with religious eyes and make us sorry.”

“That’s not the point,” Marigold said. “I wanna see what the healings are like. I wanna see who does them.”

Rachel placed her bare feet on the windowsill and let the fan blow against her silk robe. “I ain’t going. Besides, I ain’t got nothing to wear to a church service.”

Laughing Girl added, “Me neither. I have nothing to wear.”

“What do you mean?” said Marigold. “You both have more clothes than anybody.”

“But nothing decent,” said Rachel. “Nothing a preacherman wants to see.”

The girls laughed again.

Helen placed both hands on Marigold’s shoulders and said, “People like us don’t belong there, Marigold. Just the way the world works.”

Marigold walked outside to the porch. She leaned against the railing and looked at the sunset above her. Helen followed and let the screen door slap behind her.

“I feel alone,” said Marigold. “I feel like a freak sometimes.”

“Honey, you’re not a freak,” said Helen.

“I’m someone mystic people come to see in the woods, and that’s all. They don’t wanna know me, they don’t wanna meet me, they don’t wanna have me over for supper or invite me to church to sit beside them. They just want me to do something for them. And when I do it, they’re gone.”

Helen said nothing.

“I do our laundry, I cook the food, I watch Abe, and I watch the men come in and out of Cowikee’s by the droves to escape their pitiful lives. And at night we’re alone. I’m alone. Nobody comes calling on me. Nobody even cares.” Marigold began to cry. “I just wanna know if there’s anyone else like me out there. Anyone.”

Helen wrapped her arms around Marigold. She kissed her cheek. “Okay,” she said. “Okay, we’ll do it.”

“You will?”

“I said we’ll do it, and we will.”

“Well, I won’t,” Rachel hollered through the open window. “Not unless you want us all to get struck by lightning before we even find a seat.”

“She’ll go with us,” said Helen. “She will go. So will Laughing Girl. And so will Abe. We’ll all be there. Front row, if you want us to be.”

Sixty-Nine
I Shall Not Want