Baby Brother's Blues Read Online Free PDF Page A

all out. Now, five years later, she wasn’t sure she was ready to sleep with Peachy yet, but she was ready to admit she had been
thinking
about it.
One small step for womankind…
    She heard him turn into the driveway just as she was about to resign herself to the fact that he was going to miss the sunset. She smiled to herself.
Who was she talking about anyway?
Peachy Nolan was famous for being in the right place at the right time. He had once done sixty-eight one-nighters in a row and never been late to a single gig.
Why would he start now?

4
    G eneral Richardson glanced in the rearview mirror at his friend sitting in the backseat of the car as they sped through the Georgia night. In all the years of their association, he had kept only one secret from Blue. In principle, he knew it was wrong, but he didn’t feel like anybody could hold this one lapse against him once they heard the whole story. How are you supposed to tell a man you started having sex with his mama when you were eighteen and that the two of you kept doing it until she died twenty years later, and neither one of you ever told a living soul? General and Blue were like brothers, but even brotherly love goes only so far.
    He had wanted to tell Blue. They had both wanted to, but Juanita had been so nervous about how her son might react that she could never quite bring herself to do it. Then she got sick and all bets were off. He had still wanted to tell Blue what had been going on, but Juanita begged him to respect her wishes and keep their secret, and General said he would. He was still keeping it.
    Not long before she died, they had the house at Tybee to themselves for a few days. They had been sitting on the deck, holding hands while they watched the tide coming in, when he asked her if she believed in the past lives Blue was always talking about. She smiled and turned her face to him. She was so thin now. General could carry her in his arms like a child.
    “I hope it’s true, you know?” she said. “I’d love to bump up on you again next time around.”
    He grinned and squeezed her hand.
    “Do you believe it?” she asked.
    “I’m not sure,” he said,
wanting
to believe it, but not sure he really did. “Blue ain’t been wrong about much else I can remember.”
    She laughed softly. “He was always so sure about everything. Even when he was a little kid, remember? He just
knew.
”
    “I don’t know what to believe,” General said. “But how about if it’s true, you send me a sign?”
    “A sign?”
    He nodded. “You know, from
over there,
so I’ll know you’re okay and that you miss me.”
    She closed her eyes. “I already miss you, baby.”
    “That’s why you’ve got to send me a sign,” he said, terrified he had depressed or frightened her. They had talked frankly about death enough for him to know she wasn’t scared of it. Just not quite ready to go yet, that’s all. He touched Juanita’s cheek. “What do you say, sweet thing?”
    She opened her eyes then and turned back to him, her smile the only thing in her face that hadn’t changed. It was as radiant as ever. Her eyes were as bright.
    “All right,” she said. “You got a deal.”
    He smiled back. “So what kind of sign are you going to send me?”
    “I don’t know yet,” she said. “Does it matter?”
    “Sure it does,” he said. “What if I don’t recognize you?”
    “You’ll recognize me. You just keep looking until you find me.”
    He promised he would. Later, when the cancer had taken everything she had and then some, Juanita reminded him of that promise. She made him swear he wouldn’t dismiss or ignore any sign that seemed to mean she was calling to him from
out there.
    “If you think it’s me,
it’s me,
” she said urgently. “Even if it’s something weird,
it’s me
!”
    He promised never to ignore a sign. He would have promised her anything,
done
anything, to soothe her pain for a minute. He had never seen a person who wanted to live as badly