The New Moon's Arms Read Online Free Page A

him.
    “You sure you don’t want us to drive you?” Ife asked again.
    “I don’t need minding. The matriarch don’t need a full-time nurse yet.” I was smiling, but the words came out harsher than I meant them.
    “Mummy, please stop it. You know I didn’t mean it that way. I just meant that you were a grandmother. In some cultures, grandmothers are honoured.”
    “And in all cultures, grandmothers are old, ” I snapped. Damn. Temper again. We were at Victoria, my red rattletrap of an Austin Mini car. I hugged Ife by way of apology. “Really. I’m okay.”
    Nobody would do me a favour and steal that car. The left back window was brown paper covered with plastic wrap and held on with masking tape. A crack in the front windshield had long since walked its way from the bottom to the top of the glass. I wasn’t even going to ask the mechanic how much it would cost to replace the windshield. I still hadn’t finished paying him for when he’d fixed my brakes last year.
    Clifton was frowning at Victoria. “You should get that muffler fixed, you know, Mother. It hanging a little low.”
    Hanging low? Rusting away and falling off was more like it. I got my keys out of my purse, opened the car door so it could cool inside a bit before I put my behind on that hot seat. I rubbed my itchy hand.
    “Your hand hurting?” asked Stanley.
    I realised I had been rubbing that hand since we left the funeral home. “No,” I answered. “Allergy, maybe. Probably Gene’s punch.”
    Stanley made a “yuck” face.
    I laughed. “I see you tried it, too.” I did that little dance you had to do to get into a car wearing a pencil skirt: sit sideways on the seat first, with your legs outside the car; then knees and toes together, lift the feet into the car, swivel till you’re facing the steering wheel. Clifton closed the door after me. Such a gentleman.
    I rolled down the window. It only stuck once. “I going straight home. Promise.”
    “You have to work on Monday?” Ife asked.
    “Yeah. Shit.”
    “Grandma said ‘shit’!” burbled Stanley.
    “Stanley, you will not use such language,” his mother told him.
    “They gave me a week’s bereavement leave,” I said. “I wish it was a year.”
    “Maybe Mrs. Winter will have to be off work till her ankle get better,” said Ife.
    I rolled my eyes to the sky. “Please God.”
    “Grandma can say ‘shit,’” muttered Stanley. He crossed his arms, pushed his lips out in a sulk.
    “Grandma’s a big old woman,” Clifton told him. “She can say what she wants.”
    “I am not old!” I started the car over his apologies. Old. I called out the car window, “Men your age still soo-sooing me in the street.” I tried to remember the last time anyone had wolf-whistled me. Chuh. Probably wasn’t so long ago.
    The engine switched over to idle. “All right,” I said to them. “The old witch—excuse me, the old matriarch —is returning to her cottage in the woods now. She’s going to talk to her mongoose familiar and brew up some spells.”
    “Spells?” Stanley looked delighted.
    “Oh, yes,” I said. “Snips and snails and puppy dogs’ tails—covered in chocolate .”
    His mouth fell open.
    I put the car in gear. As they walked away, I saw Ifeoma put one arm around Clifton. Stanley took her free hand.
    Damned punch was bitter in the back of my throat.
    I was at the exit to the parking lot when I heard a car horn blowing at me. I stopped. A beige sedan pulled up alongside me. Gene got out and came to my window. “I think I upset you in there just now,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
    “Don’t fret,” I replied. “Wasn’t you. It’s just the strain of…everything.” Like waking up four mornings ago to find that Dadda had died in the night. The arrangements. Putting on a good face. I was tired like dog, the little bit of arthritis in my left knee aching. I couldn’t wait to get home to the peace and quiet. No more Dadda and his secrets. Just me in the empty,