Page 8 of Small Town Hunter

“Lord have mercy! They told me — Oh, I should have known!” She says some ugly words before barking out, “Where are you, baby? Talk to me.”

“I’m still home. But the car is here. I have to go.” I brace myself. “They locked me up, Mamie. They locked me up for a month.”

“Trina, you don’t have to go through with this,” my grandmother says firmly. “What can I do? How can I help you?”

“Trina, get off the phone!” Mama orders through the door, her voice rigid with rage. “Don’t make me get your father!”

It’s time to say goodbye. This might be the last time I hear Mamie’s voice at all. She was not invited to the wedding.

I don’t even know what to say as Mama’s footsteps fade. She’s going to get the keys -– or worse, Big Ron, my father.

The pain in my grandmother’s voice is deep. “Trina, it’s the twenty-first century. You have rights.”

“What about God? Isn’t it — a sin? The Reverend is a holy man.”

“God has nothing to do with this!” Mamie shouts. “That woman has twisted your head all around!”

I want to defend my parents, my faith, the church. I know I am ungrateful, sinful. The devil stays enticing me with these disobedient urges. But on the other hand, I am positive that marrying the Reverend isn’t in His plan for me.

“Trina, here’s what to do. Book a ticket from the airport — do you still have my card information?”

I can’t admit to Mamie that I lost it. Not just the credit card, but my entire cellphone with her number and address, when Mama stole it from my room. And I was dumb enough to never write it down.

“Do you know my new address, Trina?” Mamie says urgently. “Remember I moved? Talk to me, sugar!”

“Mamie, the car is outside. It’s too late.” I clutch my stomach. “This is it.”

“It ain’t over ‘till it’s over,” Mamie says firmly. “God shows the way! Look baby, I’m at 1174 Lincoln — ”

The door flies open and the phone is jerked out of my hands.

“Play with me again,” Mama hisses, her nails digging into my arm, “And I’ll tan your black ass hotter than fish grease. Getoutside! Do you want to ruin everything?”

She hangs up on Mamie and shakes me like I’m a little girl and not a grown woman of twenty-four years. But if I was so grown, I would never have let myself get here.

“What the hell is your problem?” My mother shouts.

I shrink away from her as her light skin goes milky pale. “You ungrateful little girl. You’re about to marry the richest man in town and a servant of the Lord. Zip your mouth and get outside right now or you’ll regret the day you were born.”

I finally notice the black eye daddy gave her — a patch of gray under the foundation. Mama grew up in a dirt floor house with eight siblings without a pot to piss in. My father married her and gave her the life of luxury, and she worships the ground he walks on no matter how he treats her. Is this my future too?

“Mrs. Whiteleaf?” Calls our driver, Charles, from he foyer. “Mrs. Whiteleaf, we have a problem.”

“Whatis itnow?” Mama stalks back the way she came.

“Trouble with the car,” answers Charles.

My mother’s voice rises dangerously. “What do you mean? I thought the Wilsons sent their vehicle.”

“They did, Ma’am, but something’s wrong with it. Whole thing just cut off and won’t start.”

“This is unacceptable,” Mama says, panic entering her voice. “What will I tell the Wilsons? We’re already late, and — AHHH! Close the door! Close the door!”

A red fluttering thing shoots through the foyer, headed straight for me.

Huh?

It’s just a bird. A cardinal, actually.

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