A Piece of Mine Read Online Free PDF Page A

I’ll marry you and take care of you. If you don’t want me, you can still work here while you get yourself together, I’ll help you.” She had looked at him and shaken her head at the futility of it all. He reached for her hand and said, “We both need someone to give our love to.” She leaned toward him as if to say something, decided against it, took her packages with a sad smile, and left. He could not know he had made her heart soar like a broken-winged bird dreams of, because it was months before he even knew she had been really listening to him and that came about like this.
    Teresa used to go into the bathroom to read her Bible and study her books, locking the door. Mr. Rembo had been drinking steadily all day at Mrs. Ginny’s and at home. He was sloppy drunk and decided to have some sport. Kicking in the bathroom door, one of the few things still working in the house, he tore into her, cursing, “I knew you was in here reading that shit! Don’t you know there ain’t no God yet? Got-dammit! If there was, what he gone want a dried-up ole woman like you for, ain’t good for nothin?! But there ain’t! There ain’t no God!” He began to tear up her new Bible. “See? If there a God, why don’t he snatch this book outta my hands? Ain’t this s’pose to be his holy word?!” With book leaves going every which way Teresa screamed, “Stop, stop,stop!” and struck him a frail blow on his fleshy shoulder. He came up from bending to reach for another book with a backhand slap that threw her into the tub where she hit her head against the faucet and began to bleed and cry (she had never cried before).
    Mr. Rembo raged, “So you gonna shout at me?” He was enjoying himself. “Yeah, you gonna hit me, too! You losing your mind?!” He pulled her roughly from the tub and shoved her through the doorway into the kitchen. “You dumb bitch! I said God, not you! Why don’t he help you? Cause he ain’t there, that’s why! I don’t want no more Bibles in my house! You hear? You hear?” He pushed her out the back door roughly and she sprawled on the ground. Now, this was to the delight of Mrs. Ginny, who was looking through her window, though, I must add, with a fleeting pang of sympathy for Teresa.
    Mr. Rembo went back into the house and returned with the scraps of her Bible as Teresa was on her knees trying to get up. He threw the scraps over her and, placing his foot on her behind, shoved. This time when she hit the dirt, she didn’t try to get up, just sobbed, long deep, sad, tired sobs.
    Mr. Rembo slammed the door shut, saying drunkenly, “You betta realize I’m your god! Stay out there till you ready to ack like it!!”
    Now Teresa laid there so long that Mrs. Ginny would have thought she was dead if she hadn’t seen the movements of a sob every once in a while. “Oh get up from there and have some pride bout yourself!” she said to the gin bottle.
    After a while Teresa did get up, slowly, brushed herself off and walked away, with dignity, though bruised, dirty, torn, with rivulets of tears making rows in the dust on her face. She walked to Mr. Wellington, who closed his store and took her to a lawyer without using a comb or a washcloth or anything else on her first. Then, he took her to a doctor … then he took her home … his home.
    Mr. Rembo slept about an hour, then weaved his way tothe back door and seeing she wasn’t there, weaved his way through the house calling her name. Deciding she would be there eventually, he weaved his way over to Mrs. Ginny’s to get another drink. At her front door, which she opened a crack, she said quickly and in a low voice, “Come in the back door, come in the back!” To her humiliation, he peed right by the geraniums, then staggered to the back door. She wanted not to answer the door but somehow had to, and did. They spent the evening and many other evenings drinking because Teresa never did come home. However, things changed. There was not so much