Mourner's Bench by Sanderia Faye

Author:Sanderia Faye [Faye, Sanderia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781610755672
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
Published: 2015-09-14T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I’ll Be There for You

THE NEXT MORNING, Sunday, when I should’ve been at church, our first stop was at Uncle Robert’s shop. I was excited to see him and his shop. Esther parked the car on the curb. Storefront buildings lined the other side of the sidewalk. I opened the glass door and heard the sound of wind chimes. I’d never seen a store like his. Odds and ends covered the floor and benches. Clay, broken pottery, dust and God knows what lay scattered throughout the room. Me and Esther squished against each other, and she was close enough to Uncle Robert that her breath moistened his face when they talked. He backed away from the door, which put him practically in the second room. Esther walked to the other side of the front door. I stepped further into the room and closed the door behind me.

My eyes roamed across the room taking in the mess, including Uncle Robert’s messy clothes. Didn’t he know we were coming? He wore painter’s pants that matched the untidiness of the rooms, which screamed for a bucket of soapy lye water and a mop and broom. It reeked of must, unwashed clothes, and I guess the stuff he used to make pottery. If Muhdea could see and smell his rank shop, she’d come up here, clean it, make him help her while fussing at him the whole time she sanitized it. I’d imagined his store as luxurious and expensive as his car. Nobody could’ve made me believe Uncle Robert kept a nasty place, not even God.

“As-salamu alaykum,” he said.

“Wa alaykumu as-salam, and peace be unto you as well, my brother,” Esther said.

I just said hi. He hugged Esther, and then me. He felt bony, too thin, no meat on his bones. I let go of him quicker than I’d ever done before. I eyeballed his bony fingers. Esther slid in front of me and wrapped her arms around his waist.

“It’s so good to see you, bro. How long has it been?” she said, which was exactly what I was thinking.

“February,” he said.

Esther ignored the rooms and his size and talked as usual. She handled him with respect and dignity, unlike Muhdea would’ve done. She’d have hauled every piece of food in her kitchen up here and forced him to eat it, pork and all. I followed Esther’s lead and asked him about the bean pies Muhdea had refused to let him bring in her house.

“Where them bean pies you always talking about?” I said.

“The sisters bringing breakfast in a few, and I told them you’d disown me if they didn’t bring the pies.”

A few pans of half-eaten pies sat on one of the benches in the front and on a table in the back room. He’d left other moldy food in bowls and pots, which looked as if he ate a little something and forgot to come back and finish it. I wondered again if Esther’d told him we were coming today.

We moved to one side of the room when the sisters opened the door.

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