A Misty Mourning Read Online Free

care. Not you. You’re one of the smart ones. You’re one of the ones who do care.”
    All right. I’d agree with her on that, but I wasn’t exactly sure where this was going. Not all people were history buffs. They just weren’t. No crime there, I suppose. Most of the time, though, when people were history buffs they would go out of their way to learn everything they could about a particular place or time.
    â€œYes,” I said. “I care very much about where my people came from.”
    â€œI’ve waited eighty-three years to repay this debt. I didn’t do it before now, because I was afraid,” she said.
    â€œMomma?” a voice said from behind me. It startled me a little, and I wondered why I had been so on edge since I’d come here.
    I turned around to see a man in his late sixties with slicked-back hair and shiny black shoes. Needless to say, his brown leisure suit was nearly as old as I was. I was probably in first grade when he bought it.
    â€œMomma,” he said, with his arms opened wide.
    â€œEdwin?” Clarissa asked. “Is that you?”
    â€œWho else ya think it’d be?” he asked. He walked over to her bed and kissed her on the forehead. He then produced, out of thinair, I might add, a Hershey’s candy bar. “For you. Shh, don’t tell nobody.”
    â€œI’ll come back in the morning, Clarissa,” I said and let myself out of the room.
    On the way to my room, I saw a few other people whom I did not have names for. A crack of thunder shook the boardinghouse and I squealed. Grown woman, here. Just thunder.
    As I entered my room, I found my grandmother sitting on
the
edge of her bed, unpacking her suitcase. Her cane was leaned up against the oak nightstand, which matched all of the other antique furniture in the room. This room even had one of those old dressing tables with the scalloped mirrors. The only lights in the room were two lamps that were covered with old maroon shades.
    â€œEdwin just arrived,” I said as I stepped into the room.
    â€œEdwin was always a slick fart,” she said. “Never trusted him.”
    â€œSo what do you think of all of this?” I asked.
    â€œAll of what?”
    â€œNothing,” I said with a sigh. “Did you really play with the Hart children?”
    â€œI played with Lafayette a little. I was nine or so when he was . . . By the time the younger two, Edwin and Maribelle, came along. . . We played some. I was baby-sitting age.”
    â€œSo you baby-sat them?” I asked, trying to make sense of her sentences. It was amazing. Sometimes she could talk for a whole ten minutes with no problems, and then other times her phrases came out unfinished and disjointed.
    â€œYeah, I was nine when—”
    â€œNo, did you baby-sit them, Gert? Edwin and Maribelle?” I asked, trying to keep her on track.
    â€œYup. I’ve seen all of their plumbing.”
    â€œGee, that’s great, Gert. Just what I wanted to know.”
    I sat down on the edge of one of the beds and took off my shoes. I was tired. I was going to go to bed and sleep as deep and long asI could. While I had that thought in my head, another crack of thunder exploded, reminding me that I might not sleep as well as I’d hoped.
    â€œI thought we’d go see your aunt Millicent,” Gert said. “Tomorrow or the next.”
    â€œSounds good,” I said. Aunt Milly—or Millicent—was one of my mother’s sisters and the only sibling who had stayed in West Virginia, the others all having moved to Missouri when their mother, Gert, moved back in the fifties.
    Without really knowing how it happened, I was in my bed and sound fast asleep within minutes. Not even my grandmother’s snoring kept me awake. But, alas, an overfull bladder will do the trick every time. I awoke around two in the morning and had to use the bathroom Which meant I had to get out of bed