An Inconvenient Friend by Rhonda McKnight

Author:Rhonda McKnight
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp.
Published: 2011-12-12T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22

I had to show up in church or be excommunicated from the women’s Bible Study. I knew that I dare not disappoint my new mentor who for sure was going to ask me, “What did you think of Pastor’s sermon?” like she always did.

I choose the eleven o’clock service. Seven A.M. was out of the question on a Sunday, and I was glad I’d arrived on time, because it was a packed house. Angelina was front and center. She’d seen me when I made the rounds for the collection of tithes and offerings, smiled like a proud mother, and pointed to the empty space next to her like she wanted me to move from my back row pew to join her. I waved and scrunched up my nose. I wanted to sit in the back. Heaven forbid she try to push me to the altar. Plus depending on what the message was about, I might need the cover of the rear in case I fell asleep.

The preacher was standing up there talking about some lost sheep, lost coins, and a lost son, and he would have lost me, except the stories were kind of interesting, or at least his presentation was. In particular I was struck by the one about the lost sheep. He, or rather the Bible, said that if a shepherd had one hundred sheep, he would leave the ninety-nine to go look for one who was lost, and that’s what God does with us. He wants all of us to be saved, not just the Christians that are already in the church. Same thing with the coins, that if one out of ten was missing, the Lord would frantically search for the one because it had value too. Then there was the prodigal son. I got that. Two kids, you don’t give up on one, but a hundred sheep? I’d grown up in a world where you cut your losses and kept on moving. Nothing had value, nothing was worth fighting for.

I could remember the countless times we got evicted. It happened at least once a year until we moved into White Gardens when I was eight. I would come home from school and find the sheriff had come and gone. Our things were strewn up and down the street like trash. Mama had packed some clothes in garbage bags, grabbed the food she wanted, but left the rest for the neighborhood vultures—human and animal—to pick through.

I hated that we always had to start over. We’d go to the Salvation Army like vultures ourselves, picking through rich people’s leftovers for new sheets and new curtains and new pots. I mean, none of it was new. It was gently used and new to us. It didn’t make sense to me that we kept leaving behind the stuff I’d gotten attached to, so one time I got up the nerve to ask. “Mama, why you always gotta leave our stuff on the corner?”

I don’t know if it was

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