Bliss by Gabrielle Pina

Author:Gabrielle Pina
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780345509949
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2008-09-30T00:00:00+00:00

“WHAT KIND OF craziness are you talking, girl?”

“I have a chance, Mama, to go places, see things, not waste my life away here, peeling potatoes.”

“You think I’ve wasted my life here, taking care of this land, raising you and your brothers and sisters? Farm work is good for the soul, gives you character, makes you a woman.”

But Hattie Mae had been laboring hard her whole life, sewing quilts, canning vegetables, whatever her mama wanted her to do. She could cook a entire meal by the time she was eight, standing on a footstool to reach the stove, and balance her mama’s books without paper and pencil, adding long columns of figures in her head. She was the youngest and also the most responsible. She had always watched over her brothers and sisters, all eleven of them, while her mama ran the stand that was located on the east side of the farm, next to the well, one hundred yards from the outhouse. So the thought of not working intrigued her, made her sneak around like a girl up to no good, beg her siblings to do her chores.

“Girl, you ain’t going nowhere, you hear me? I’ll tie your hot ass to the outhouse till you come to your senses. You betta come to yourself. That’s what you betta do.”

Gracian almost had her convinced to stay, until Nathan Lee showed up with flowers, daffodils. Her brothers surrounded him. Her sisters tried to offer him corn bread.

“Miss Jones, I’m here to ask for Hattie Mae’s hand in marriage. I love her, Miss Jones, and I promise you I’m going to take good care of her.”

Hattie Mae started to walk toward him. Gracian pulled her back.

“This man ain’t no good, Hattie Mae. I’m telling you now. He ain’t worth the dirt he’s standing on. Open your eyes…. You just a girl. He a full-on man. Something just ain’t right here. I can smell it.”

“You’re wrong, Mama. I love him.”

Gracian raised Roscoe, her Stevens double-barreled sawed-off shotgun, and fired, narrowly missing his right foot. He ran but returned that night—and vowed he would return every night until Hattie Mae was his. Her resolve lasted exactly twenty-four hours. When he came back for her the next night, Hattie Mae was ready. It was hard to leave, the hardest thing she had ever done. It was almost as if she could see her mama’s pain reaching out, pleading with her to stay. Her brothers wanted to kill Nathan Lee, bury him in the back field, but Gracian stopped them, said the decision was up to her.

“You have a responsibility, Hattie Mae, to the family, the farm, the land,” she said sternly.

Nathan Lee reminded Hattie Mae that she could get her hair pressed once a week and wear real stockings on Sundays.

“You can’t ever come back if you leave with him. He gone be the ruination of you, Hattie Mae. I can feel it. You mark my words. You hear me!”

“Mama, why can’t you just be happy

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