The Do-Right Read Online Free PDF Page B

wastebasket. He walked around his territory in his socks. After a while he leapt straight up and tagged the tin ceiling, locked his own door, and padded down the stairs.

III III
    TO CALINDA BLANCHARD, born the very last morning of the nineteenth century, Delpha Wade was a girl who had to toe the line. She showed back up in the kitchen after dinner, presented a Gatesville Women’s Prison release form for Miss Blanchard to acknowledge privately, then folded it away again. Stood there canvas suitcase in hand, leather purse tucked up under her arm, deep pile of nothing on her face—waiting to see if she’d be turned out or taken.
    An idea glimmering twenty-watt in her brain, Calinda took her.
    â€œOK, I can give you your room and board free in turn for taking care of my aunt evenings. Sundays off. You stay with her from six-thirty in the evening to ten or till she’s sleeping. Sleeps a lot. Telling you now it’s short-term. Jessie’s a hundred years old and when she passes, you got to start paying for your room.”
    Color rose in the girl’s pale cheeks. “I can pay. Found a day job today.”
    Calinda’s estimation of her hiked a notch. She explained to the girl that her aunt Jessie needed a dinner she could eat with five teeth. Needed dishes washed, kitchen swabbed, sheets changed, and personal hygiene care that meant muscle and fortitude. There was a nurse-aide, Moselle, until three in the afternoon. After that, her care fell to her granddaughter,Calinda’s cousin Ida Rae, who lived with the old woman when she wasn’t shacked up with some lizard. Calinda was stepping in now, given Ida’s personality deformities. Not to mention the gin.
    Miss Blanchard went on to say that her aunt had recently had a stroke, and a few days afterward began to cry and say she wanted to leave Calinda something that was in her room. Cousin Ida had interrupted to ask what it was.
    â€œJessie said Tiffany something or ruther. Couldn’t hardly understand her, but Ida and me both made out that Tiffany name because Ida stared blue murder at me. Moselle heard too, she surely did, and Moselle’s got no use for Ida. Couple days later, Jessie had an even worse stroke than the first one.”
    Calinda paused, narrowed her gaze on Delpha. “You know what Tiffany is?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œJewelry. Know what kinda box it comes in?”
    â€œNice, I ’spose. Not cardboard.”
    â€œJust keep an eye open and tell me if Ida’s poking around and gets excited all of a sudden. Maybe I can catch her fore she sells it off. Don’t think about cutting a deal with her. It wouldn’t occur to Ida to keep a bargain. Besides that, I copied down your parole officer’s name. Steal from me, and I’ll put you on the bus back to Gatesville.”
    â€œI’d be glad for evening work, Miss Blanchard, and the free room, I sure would.” No tone to her voice.
    Studying the neutral, respectful face before her, Calinda felt medium perked-up about this tit for tat. She gave Delpha Wade a key and her aunt’s address on Ashley Avenue. Also gave her a key to Room 221 at the New Rosemont Hotel.
    The offer of a free room induced stillness in Delpha. She liked stillness, liked quiet, but she thought best when her body wasin motion, busy, occupied so that her mind, left alone, could feed her the tricks that might lurk behind such a proposal. For now she just listened to Miss Blanchard talk.
    â€œCouple days later, she had an even worse stroke than the first one.”
    Aunt tells niece she has something in her room to give her. Tells her it’s some valuable piece of jewelry. Then she up and suffers a stroke. And not her first one either. Delpha saw that Calinda Blanchard wanted her to understand the connection between the stroke and cousin Ida. Yeah, Delpha understood night followed day. What she pondered was how the cousin had given a hundred year-old woman a stroke