God Still Don't Like Ugly Read Online Free Page B

mournful look and quickly glanced over her shoulder in the direction where Daddy was. “I’m sure you know what I mean by that.”
    “I do,” I said flatly.
    “Besides, I can’t stand bein’ lonely, so I’m just about ready to put GOD STILL DON’T LIKE UGLY
    19
    up with anything if he decides to come back. Even that panty thing he used to do. Daddy is seventy-two years old now. He won’t be around to keep me company too much longer. I’ve been so blessed to have him with me all these years.”
    “I wish I could say that,” I muttered grimly.
    Lillimae gasped and frowned. “Excuse me?”
    “Oh, I didn’t mean anything by that,” I said levelly, listening as Daddy flushed the toilet again.
    CHAPTER 6
    It was another twenty minutes before Daddy returned from the bathroom, mopping his face with a wet towel and straightening his bathrobe.
    “Lord, I wish I hadn’t et them peppers. Lillimae, can you run out to the drugstore and get me some more Maalox?” he grunted, a severe grimace on his face. “Carry Annette with you so she can sight-see.”
    I waited with Daddy in the living room while Lillimae went to put on some clothes and shoes.
    Sitting next to me on the couch, Daddy placed his hand over mine and squeezed, smiling so hard his eyes watered. “Annette, I can’t get over how fine you turned out. But then, good-lookin’ females run in my family.”
    I listened with interest.
    “Daddy, do you have other family? Aunt Berniece said something about you having a brother somewhere. I’d like to get in touch with your other relatives, if you don’t mind.” I thought that at this stage of my life, it was important for me to know as much as I could about my background. I wanted to have some answers for the questions I expected from the children I planned to have with Jerome.
    Daddy sighed and shook his head and then an unbearably sad smile crossed his face. “St. Louis was my only brother. He passed last year. He would have been eighty last week. He had a bunch of kids GOD STILL DON’T LIKE UGLY
    21
    but I don’t know where none of ’em at. Both of my sisters, twins named Collette and Corinna, passed before you was born.” Daddy paused and giggled. “Big-foot gals, both of ’em.” He sniffed and got serious again, massaging his chest. “A car wreck is how they died.
    They come into this mean old world together and they left it together.
    Comin’ home from a revival one night, a possum jumped in front of the car and they ran off the Yammagoochee Bridge over in Alabama.
    Both of ’em died in my arms after me and some boys from the church pulled ’em out of that car. There was a hospital less than five minutes away, but we couldn’t carry them there on account of it was still segregated at the time. Right after Kennedy got in the White House and him and the rest of the decent white folks made new laws, they closed that hospital down to keep from havin’ to doctor on Black folks.”
    Daddy’s lips quivered and his jaw twitched, almost as much as mine.
    He sniffed and continued. “Corinna left a little girl behind that her man took off somewhere right after the funeral. He was one of them Geechees so I suspect he took that child off somewhere to one of them islands where I think he came from.” His jaw still twitching, Daddy paused and blinked fast and hard. But a single tear still managed to slide out of his eye. “I declare, I loved that little gal as much as I love my own.” He paused again and grinned, wiping the tear off his cheek with the back of his hand. “You ever gwine to be my girl again?”
    He sniffed hard and downgraded his grin to a weak smile.
    “I’ve always been your girl, Daddy. And I always will be.” I patted Daddy’s shoulder and looked away, sucking in air so hard a sharp pain rolled through my chest. “How come you didn’t tell me Lillimae looked like that ?” I asked in a whisper, leaning my head close Daddy’s.
    He looked at me with genuine surprise. “Look