Like Sisters on the Homefront by Rita Williams-Garcia

Author:Rita Williams-Garcia
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-10-25T16:00:00+00:00

12

GAYLE SWUNG OPEN the oak doors to Great’s wardrobe, not caring if she disturbed Great’s sleep. A funk of cedar chips and dried flowers and spices hit her immediately. Her nose wrinkled, her eyelids blinked. She pushed through the musty barrier, shoving the gray-blue dress way, way back where the other dresses could smother it. If that one-hundred-year-old rag didn’t feel sunlight until the next century, it would be too soon.

A flicker of pity caught Gayle off guard, as she saw all of Great’s finery arranged in the wardrobe, never to be worn by her great-grandmother again. The oak floor was lined with shoes small enough to fit her own feet, and the top shelf was stacked with cardboard hatboxes of varying sizes. On the rack hung coats and dresses, many outfits obviously cut from the same pattern. Fascinated, Gayle ran her fingers along the fabrics. She stroked a marvelous pelt of fur, then brought it out for closer examination, finding a reddish stole with twin fox heads, four paws, and twin tails dangling.

“Gross!” she cried. “You be thinking you high-steppin’, wrapped in your fur, and a fox head bites a chunk out your booty.” She rehung the stole, exchanging it for a crepe daffodil-colored dress, which she pressed against her body. “Now, why couldn’t Miss Auntie find a dress like this?” She put the dress back and turned to Great, who was still sleeping. “You must’ve been a hot thang,” she said, then continued to snoop. Maybe there was money tucked away. A hundred dollars was all she needed for a bus ticket.

She spied a mustard-gold dress bag hanging stiffly at the left end of the rack. Had to be something fabulous, Gayle thought. It was hard to get to. She wrestled it down off the rack and laid it on the floor, kneeling over it while tearing down the zipper. She peeled aside the plastic flap, then snatched her hand away, realizing instantly that the lavender gown with the high neck was Great’s funeral gown. Struggling to pull the zipper up, she all but threw it into the wardrobe and turned suddenly. It wouldn’t surprise her any to catch the frail woman chuckling.

“That’s gonna cost you,” Gayle told Great, who slept undisturbed. “Now where you stash your money?”

A wooden cigar box wedged between hatboxes seemed a likely place to start looking. She brought it down and sat over it like a child raking through treasure. There was nothing but letters inside tattered brown envelopes with half-penny stamps dated 1800 something. In one envelope addressed to Mahalia she found what looked like play money. The bills were the wrong sizes, some even dated 1862, with the wrong dead presidents sitting in the wrong corner. She found a five-dollar bill with a buffalo, another bill with women on it. Absolutely useless. She tore the brittle envelopes as she stuffed the phony bills back inside. Next she picked up a handkerchief coarse with cotton seeds woven into its fabric. When she

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