Chapters (55)
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- Cast of Characters
- Part One
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Part Two
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
- Forty
- Forty-one
- Forty-two
- Forty-three
- Forty-four
- Forty-five
- Forty-six
- A note on the Author
When he left, she looked at her watch. “We gotta get you some breakfast. It ought to have been here by now. You skinny enough as it is.”
“I look skinny to you?”
“Well, in all honesty, I can’t tell. You lyin’ flat on your back in a bed, after all. And if it’s so, I ain’t sayin’ it’s a good thing. You white girls take skinny as a compliment. That’s funny. Even the word, the way it sound, makes it pretty plain it ain’t an attribute to be encouraged. Skinny as a snake. You not a snake.” She eyed me, as if I might be.
“No, I’m not a snake. I’m a cat.”
“A cat!” she beamed. Folding up her knitting, she placed herself plump on the side of my bed and started to pet my hair. “You is a little cat.” I curled and wriggled at the soft touch of her rough hand. I was glad I was there with her. I was glad I had done what I did if it meant that I could lie in a slim white bed and have a large black lady stroke my cheek.
She moved her chair so that it was next to my bed, in order to underline the fact that she would no longer be watching me, but that for the rest of my stay she would be being with me. I asked her, later, as I ate my lunch, whether she was this nice to everyone she was assigned to watch.
“First off, I take assignations from no one but the Lord. Second, I’m cordial to everyone, but nice to the people I think are nice in their bellies …”
“Nice in their bellies or nice in their hearts?”
“Down in their bellies, because the heart can be worked on with music, film, and books.”
“That’s true, for sure. What’s wrong with that?”
“Your belly be the only organ you cannot fool.”
Agreeing wholeheartedly, I stuffed it full of Jell-O, a truthful dessert if ever there was one, and waited for my next blood test. Soon enough, the results were back and the doctor announced that I was all clear.
“No liver damage. We’ll let you go around lunchtime tomorrow.”
Forty
I used to be frightened of flowers
There was a knock at the door and Rachel came striding in to see me, bearing flowers in tones of purple and red, royalty and blood. “Thank you,” I nodded, as she bent to kiss my cheek. She was wearing high-heeled sandals made of snakeskin. Through the open toes, her nails shimmied in their pearlescent pedicure. The nail on one of her big toes was in a better condition than my entire life.
She shook her head. “Really, Ruby. This is not,” she said, motioning to the hospital bed, “the best way to begin a friendship.”