The Women of Brewster Place Read Online Free PDF Page A

was Fred’s baby. But then, that was the only man he had allowed her to see, and his mind had been so conditioned over the years to herunquestioning obedience that there was just no space for doubt. She listened with horror as he continued.
    “So I figure to go over to his place tomorrow after breakfast and clear this all up. I know he’ll be willing to do right by you.”
    Mattie wanted to choke. She felt as if the entire universe had been formed into a ball and jammed into her throat—“Papa, it ain’t Fred’s baby”—sent it hurling out of her mouth and into a whirlwind that crumbled her father’s face and exploded both of their hearts into uncountable pieces. She saw them both being spun around the room and sucked out of the windows along with everything that had ever passed between them. She felt the baby being drawn by the winds, but she held on tightly, trembling violently, because she realized that now this was all she would ever have.
    “Whose is it?” came to her over the dying winds of the tempest, but her ears were still ringing and she couldn’t quite make out the sounds.
    “I say, whose is it?” And he came toward her, grabbed her by the back of the hair, and yanked her face upward to confront the blanket of rage in his eyes.
    Instinctively her body cried out to obey—to tell him that it was Butch’s so he would release her and grab his shotgun and go out and blow Butch into as many pieces as her world now lay in around her. She didn’t care about Butch Fuller, and they had hardly spoken since that day, but this baby didn’t really belong to him. It belonged to something out there in the heat of an August day and the smell of sugar cane and mossy herbs. Mattie knew there were no words for this, and even if there were, this disappointed and furious old man would never understand.
    “I ain’t saying, Papa.” And she braced herself for the impact of the large callused hand that was coming toward her face. He still held her by the hair so she took the force of the two blows with her neck muscles, and her eyes went dim as the blood dripped down her chin from her split lip. The grip on her hair tightened, and she was forced even closerto his face as she answered the silent question in his narrowing eyes.
    “I ain’t saying, Papa,” she mumbled through her swollen lip.
    “You’ll say,” he whispered hoarsely, as he yanked her to the ground by the hair.
    She heard her mother rush from the kitchen. “That’s enough, Sam.”
    “Stay out of this, Fannie.” He picked up the broom that was leaning against the fireplace and held it threateningly in the air. “Now, you tell me or I’ll beat it out of you.”
    Her silence stole the last sanctuary for his rage. He wanted to kill the man who had sneaked into his home and distorted the faith and trust he had in his child. But she had chosen this man’s side against him, and in his fury, he tried to stamp out what had hurt him the most and was now brazenly taunting him—her disobedience.
    Mattie’s body contracted in a painful spasm each time the stick smashed down on her legs and back, and she curled into a tight knot, trying to protect her stomach. He would repeat his question with each blow from the stick, and her continued silence caused the blows to come faster and harder. He was sweating and breathing so hard he couldn’t talk anymore, so he just pounded the whimpering girl on the floor.
    Her mother screamed, “For the love of Jesus, Sam!” and jumped on his back and tried to wrestle the stick from him.
    He flung her across the floor and her blouse tore to the waist as she went sliding into the opposite wall.
    “Oh, God, oh, God,” Fannie chanted feverishly, as she got up on her bruised knees.
    The broom had broken, and he was now kneeling over Mattie and beating her with a jagged section of it that he had in his fist.
    “Oh, God, oh, God,” Fannie kept saying, as she searched blindly around the room. She finally found the shotgun