The Sweetest Thing Read Online Free PDF Page A

one photograph. Sure enough, it showed Father sitting in Aunt Josie’s lap when he was a baby. I felt a gentle relief that although Aunt Josie disapproved of Father’s vocation, she nonetheless had enough affection for her little brother to keep this picture in her bedroom.
    Going downstairs, I stepped into the fancy hall with its dark wood walls. Off to the right of the hall was a room with high ceilings and a grand piano, another fireplace, and more fancy furniture—winged chairs and sofas the likes of which I had only read about in novels and seen in magazines that my school friends passed on to me.
    I wandered from room to room, each elegant in its own way, until I arrived in the kitchen at the back of the house. What a kitchen! The white Frigidaire stood almost as tall as me, the oven looked big enough to bake five chickens at once, and the sink was made of porcelain! No one was there, although evidence of dinner preparations lay along the shiny dark green counter.
    I was leaning over to see what was in the sink when I heard, “Hello. I guess you’d be Miz Chandler’s niece.”
    I turned around to see a colored child staring at me. She was about eight or nine, her hair all in braids that were attached with bright little ribbons, and she was wearing a blue servant’s dress with a white pinafore over it.
    â€œHello. Yes. I’m Mary Dobbs Dillard.”
    â€œUh-huh. I’m Parthenia Jeffries. My mama and papa work here for the Chandlers. We live down there in the quarters.” She threw a skinny arm out toward the backyard.
    â€œNice to meet you, Parthenia.” Then, “Where is everybody?”
    â€œAin’t ya heard?”
    â€œAll I know is that my aunt received a phone call and got very upset and left the house. And it seems like everyone else did too.”
    â€œMr. Singleton passed.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYep. He’s done passed, and Miz Chandler went over ta help and Papa and my brother, Cornelius, went too and I was told ta stay here, so I did.”
    It slowly registered. “Do you mean that Mr. Singleton died ?”
    â€œYep.”
    â€œWould that be the Singletons who have a daughter named Perri?”
    â€œYes, ma’am, and Miz Singleton is Miz Chandler’s best friend. A tragedy.” She stared at me when I didn’t say anything. “I’d best be gittin’ dinner ready now.” She went to the counter where carrots and potatoes lay and then opened the Frigidaire and took out a hunk of meat.
    I stood there, shocked, thinking about Perri Singleton with her pretty see-through green eyes and her blond hair, cut in the latest bobbed style, and the way she had disliked me right away, and I hurt for her. Right then and there I started crying for a girl I had only just met.
    I started to leave the kitchen, but Parthenia said, “You don’t have ta go. I’m not embarrassed by you crying. I just stopped crying myself.” She handed me a white handkerchief that she retrieved from a frilly pocket on her pinafore. “Mr. Singleton was the handsomest, nicest man you’d ever want to meet. He always brought me cherry candy when him and Miz Singleton came over to play bridge.” Parthenia sniffed loudly, as if to prove she had been crying.
    â€œWas he sick?”
    Parthenia’s eyes flew open wide, the whites showing around her dark face. “No, he wasn’t sick. The picture of health. Miz Singleton’s the one who’s all scrawny. But Mista Singleton wadn’t sick at all, s’far as I know.” She hesitated. “ ’Cept for mebbe in his head.”
    I didn’t know what to do with that information, so I asked, “Can I help you with anything?” She stared at me as if I were standing naked in front of her, then went back to peeling carrots. “I can do something. I know how to cook.”
    â€œAin’t proper for guests to help with the meals. We’s