Mama Read Online Free PDF Page B

leafy head of lettuce, stacks and stacks of lunch meat, and three different kinds of bread. There was fresh fruit—oranges and apples and grapes. Everything was neatly housed in plastic containers. But there was something so orderly about this refrigerator, Freda didn't feel comfortable about touching anything. Something was missing: it lacked a wholesome smell. She'd noticed it was missing in the rest of the house, too. That smell that meant somebody really lived here, tracked up the floors, burnt something on the stove every now and then. There was no smell of heat coming from the radiators, or any signs that rubber boots and wet mittens ever dried over them. Her own house smelled rich from fried chicken and collard greens and corn bread, from Pine-Sol and washing powder and Windex and Aero Wax and the little coned incense Mildred burned after she'd finished giving the house a good cleaning.
    Freda decided she wasn't hungry and closed the refrigerator. Mildred hollered from the living room for her to go upstairs and start cleaning the bathroom. Freda slowly made her way up the winding staircase to the blue tiled bathroom in the hallway. The towels were folded neatly across the silver racks and looked like they had never been used. The blue bathtub was shining like a satin bedspread. Nothing in here needed cleaning. Freda pulled down her slacks to use the toilet, then remembered her mama had told her never to use a toilet when she didn't know the owners. So she put her hands on the seat and let her small behind support itself in midair. When she'd finished, she washed her hands, dried them on her slacks, and ran back downstairs.
    "I'm done, Mama."
    "Good. You may think we playing house, but I'm counting dollars and cents. All I gotta do now is wax this floor and we through. Look in that pantry over there and get the duster and swish it across the furniture in the front room and dining room, even if don't nothing look dusty."
    'While Freda was dusting, the real reason they were there finally hit her. Cleaning. She wondered just how long her mama would have to do this kind of work. Until something better came along? Like a new husband for her and a new daddy for them? One who could afford them all. When Freda finished, she stood in the doorway watching Mildred work on her hands and knees. She saw the sweat oozing down Mildred's temples, which made her red headrag look like it was soaked in fresh blood. Freda didn't like seeing her mama like this. Didn't care how much money she was getting for it. And on the way home, Freda tried to figure out the best way to tell her mama that one day if she had anything to do with it, she would see to it that Mildred wouldn't have to work so hard to get so little.
    "Mama, guess what," she said, as they drove down the winding road along the river. It was a clear fall afternoon, the kind that children are anxious to go out and play in, and come home sniffling and hungry, their fingers too stiff to unbutton their own coats.
    "What?" replied Mildred, only half paying attention.
    "I'ma be rich when I grow up and I'ma buy us a better and bigger house than the Hales' and you ain't gon' have to scrub no floors for no white folks."
    "That's what I need to hear, chile. I sure wish you was grown now. But you got plenty of time to be worrying about millions of thangs. Take your mama's word for it. And you don't have to worry about me. I know I ain't gon' be on my knees for the rest of my life. I got way too much sense for that. This is what I gotta do right now so I don't have to ask nobody for nothing. Ain't no sense in me whining like some chessy cat. This ain't killing me. Women've done worse thangs to earn a living, and this may not be the bottom for me."
    Mildred pulled up to a stoplight and reached for her purse to get a cigarette. The light changed so she handed the purse to Freda.
    "Light me a cigarette, would you?"
    Freda found the pack of Tareytons (Mildred'd quit L&Ms right after she and Crook