INTRODUCTION
“Auntie Momma! Auntie Momma!” Bernice dashed through the front door of the small frame house, panting and crying hysterically. Her pale green dress was soaked in perspiration on that hot Tennessee afternoon. A thin layer of rich red dirt clung to her bare feet and parts of her legs.
Bernice had run nearly a half mile from the dry goods store up town on Bolivar Street. Sweat poured down her sun-burnt face as she raced from room to room near hysteria, tracking dirt on the spotless wooden floors. Her long black hair fell heavily down her back, wet strands clung to her neck and face. She found Mary out in the back yard removing sun-dried clothes from a wire fence that doubled as a clothesline.
Mary took one look at Bernice’s face in the doorway and knew something had gone drastically wrong. She tossed the clothes back over the fence without removing her eyes from Bernice, and she walked hurriedly toward the house, fearing the worst without knowing what the worst could be.
“Lord, help us,” Mary murmured as she rushed up the back porch steps and flung open the screen door. “Baby, what’s wrong?” She pleaded to Bernice who stood just inside the door.
“What in the world is the matter?” Bernice’s mouth opened but nothing spilled forward. The only sound Mary heard was the frantic breathing of a distraught young woman.
Mary grabbed Bernice’s hands and pulled her through the doorway and out onto the porch; she rushed across the porch and lowered herself into the worn kitchen chair that sat near the porch’s edge. Bernice sat on the porch near Mary’s feet, her small trembling hands still caught between Mary’s larger, firmer ones. Mary had never witnessed Bernice in such rambling disarray; her heart pumped wildly as Bernice attempted to regain some sense of composure.