Powerful writing. Evokes emotion. Very nice.
Linda d'Merle, Apr 16, 2007, 7:29am EDT
Powerful writing here, Mirika. I'm definitely
checking out your books. Gave this a 10..God
bless you and your purpose.
Cherie L., May 22, 2007, 7:16pm EDT
You have a wonderful gift, Mirika, powerful and
succinct. This brought tears to my eyes. I gave
it a 10. I'll look for your books. God bless.
Judith W., May 24, 2007, 1:42pm EDT
Wow...Mirika your writing has integrity &
strength. Lynx (livin in the moment), May 26,
2007, 12:58pm EDT
her father than his love? However, in the
rural town of Louisville, GA, a teenage girl
called by the name of Jocie, finds out how
the love she once adored from her poppa
can become twisted and feel so much
like hatred, causing hell-grown wounds.
Going on a search for the love that she
yearns so deeply, Jocie winds up with
worse than she bargained for, and
without an escape, ends up in the midst
of death, darkness, and a cold
conception while gripping the darkest
secret that only God in heaven can know
and forgive!
saga found in Secret. Not as suspenseful,
Colored Lily became the back drop of what
started the whole thing and actually arose
from an overwhelming desire from the
readers of Secret who didn't want the story
to end! I wrote Colored Lily for them and
the people whose lives are affected by
abuse. It is a dramatic story." - Mirika
pass the first bedroom on the left of me. He must’ve been in there waitin’ on me to start
coming down the hall. I freeze at his touch. Immediately, my eyes fall down to his hand that’s
coming around in the front of my stomach and underneath my shirt. The scabs from his
hands are rubbing up against my skin.
“Momma,” I start, getting ready to call loud but hush up and make a sentence instead. “She
says come and eat.” Then, I push his hand down as hard as I can push it, but when I do that,
he yanks my arm up in the air so that I feel a small pop in my arm like he pulled something
out of place. Before I can even get a scream out, I hear grandma’s cane hitting the railing of
the porch with that cane of hers as hard as she can and over and over again.
Poppa, then, drops my arm and moves from behind me, jumping from the noise grandma’s
making. What I see when I turn around is grandma staring right at me through the screen
door with tears streaming down her eyes while she’s banging that cane. I hurry up and move
pass poppa. Grandma please! I run out, swinging the screen door open, to her to make her
stop fussing, but I can’t. She saw it all. She saw poppa with is hands all over me, and I know
she’s liable to kill him dead. Momma, too. I never saw grandma cry before.
“Grandma! Grandma, stop please! Stop making all this racket. It’s fine, grandma, please! He
didn’t hurt me. Just touch me is all, grandma, please!” I panic and try to grab her by the arm,
but she swings that big cane of hers at me so hard that I back away. She’s not even looking
at me anymore either, but right back there in that hallway at poppa. I don’t want to, but I call
on momma before grandma hurts herself. “Momma, come and get grandma! She’s gonna
hurt herself, momma! Aunt May! Something’s wrong with her. She won’t sit still!” I yell at the
top of my lungs, but then, all of a sudden, grandma cuts her eyes at me deep after what I
said. The way she did it made me throw myself back against the porch rail. I dare not speak a
word. Then, she picks up that cane and breaks it on the side of the porch right beside me.
The part of the cane that hit it falls to pieces. I don’t move. “I’m sorry, grandma, but y’all not
supposed to know. He told me it would kill y’all or he would,” I whisper, my lips quivering.
Tears come down my cheeks as momma, Aunt May and Junior come running toward us. With
grandma standing there looking at me with horror in her eyes, I touch her arm and say, “It’ll
be time for poppa to stop soon what he does to me. I’m almost grown. Don’t make a fuss,
grandma. Everybody’s happy. I can take it. I can, grandma.” As I speak, I remember what
poppa has been telling me since I was small. Telling me all this is my fault, and that if the
family breaks up, then it’s on a count of me.
Grandma, then, at the sound of my words, lifts the rest of her broken cane and shoves it into
my neck. She’s tryin’ to say something, but all I can understand is humming. It’s not hymn
humming. This kind of humming is hurting her, not doing any healing. Moving my eyes over
at momma, Aunt May and Junior, they’re all stopped in their tracks at the sight of this cane at
my throat. My neck is so stiff I can’t swallow. Finally, grandma moves that cane from me and
heads up the steps toward poppa, one step at a time, pulling herself up that rail with her old
broken cane. I’ve never seen grandma like this. As I glance up at poppa in the house, he
leans up against the wall and lights up a cigarette. Then, he takes it from his mouth and tips
it to the floor, dropping the ashes on that floor Aunt May mopped up real good this morning.
If I didn’t know better, I would think my own grandma is on her way to stab the life out of him
with that cane of hers. I feel a tug at my arm.
“What’s wrong with my momma, Jocie?” momma asks pushing past me with all the might she
can muster when she reaches the steps. She’s breathing really hard. Aunt May is the last
person to get to here while Junior jumps the rail of the porch to hold grandma up. She’s
struggling up the steps.
“Grandma! Grandma, what’s got you upset like this here?” Junior asks. “What Jocie do to
you?”
“I didn’t do anything to her,” I silently respond with my head down, staring at my feet.
“What you cryin’ for then, Jocie?” he yells. “Had to go and say something to her. You the only
one over here with her, and you supposed to be gettin’ poppa anyway…not messin’ ‘round
gettin’ grandma upset.”
“I said I didn’t do anything!” I yell at the top of my lungs, squeezing my fists together, with the
thought of what grandma saw showing up over and over in my mind. “I didn’t do nothing!”
Aunt May nears me, looking at me funny, but then speaks. “Alright, now. Be quiet, and shut
up your mouth there, Junior. Where’s your poppa, Junior?” Aunt May asks slowly. “Go get
him right now. Need him to help us get grandma inside. Ain’t nobody’s fault grandma throwing
a fit but grandma. She’s the only one with the power in herself to do it. It ain’t your fault,
Jocie.”
“Yes ma’am,” Junior answers.
He’s gone. Poppa’s been gone. He was standing right there in the hallway with that cigarette
hanging from his mouth, and now he’s done gone. As my eyes scan the inside of the
doorway, I don’t see him anywhere. I don’t even smell him. He can always disappear like that
when good is coming to get him. Evil always runs from good, I hear, but evil always runs
toward evil. It’s a fight if good and evil connect.
Before I get my eyes focused back on grandma, I wipe my tears and wipe them fast. Then I
go up behind grandma’s waist to hold her from behind while Junior’s in the house. She’s so
upset she’s shakin’. When she gets to the top of the porch, I grab the other rocker and help
sit her down.
“He’s in the bathroom, Aunt May, but he comin’. Y’all done got grandma down, though, and
that’s a good thing,” Junior calls huffin’ from inside the house, holding on to the door.
“Good,” momma answers before Aunt May gets a chance to. “Help Aunt May keep an eye on
your grandma.” After giving her orders to Junior, she comes near me down to where I already
backed up to…the bottom of the steps.
Before she even speaks, I answer like she already asked me a question, “Yes ma’am.”
“I saw you go inside this house with my own eyes after your poppa. I saw momma facing her
house, too, right behind you, watching every move you make. That’s something about
momma you don’t know. Noddin’ don’t mean sleep. It’s what it is. A nod. Sleep is sleep. A nod
is a nod. You know why I send you to walk with her all the time, Jocie?”
“No ma’am.”
“Because you make her smile. This the first time you done made her frown. Now you want to
tell me what happened or you want grandma to.”
“Grandma can’t talk,” I quickly respond wondering if momma’s holding back some more
secrets that I don’t know about.
“Yes she can. She don’t point that cane at nobody’s throat ‘less she madder than God’s own
wrath. She loves you, but it looked to me like she could’ve killed you dead if you said one
more word.”
“Momma, I didn’t do anything!” I struggle trying to get her to believe me. “Grandma,” I call for
her while I watch as she fights to catch her breath. “Tell her I didn’t do noth…” I can’t even
get the words out of my mouth before I see poppa at the door. He’s even acting like he doesn’
t know what’s wrong and looking right in grandma’s face.
“Momma, here go some dirt here.” Junior’s rushing dirt back and forth to the porch. That’s
another reason why grandma normally sits at the bottom of the porch. It’s so she can write
words and erase ‘em easy with her foot in the dirt. “Here, grandma. Tell us why you hurtin’
and actin’ crazy round here.”
“Junior!” Aunt May fusses at Junior for askin’ grandma such a question. Junior just shrugs his
shoulders and moves away waitin’ on her to write something.
Poppa, then, leans over closer to her and begins to talk. “Yeah, Momma Sunflower, tell us…”
Before he can finish his statement to her, grandma swings that small piece of her cane so
hard it busts poppa right on the side of his face and the other side of his head hits the brick
of the house. Immediately, like tomatoes drip juices when you bite into them, blood came
running down his face.
“Jesus! Momma!” Aunt May rips the cane from her hands, and at that, grandma begins to
swing her arms back and forth and forth and back like she’s fighting with the palms of her
hands. Tears are coming down the wrinkles in her face, and I don’t care what we do to try to
stop her, she won’t stop.
“Rain! Rain!” Aunt May calls to momma, but momma has her eyes set on poppa. She’s not
movin’ not one muscle. Even though Aunt May’s callin’, she acts like she can’t even hear her.
She almost looks like she could kill him.
“Momma!” I yell knowing good and well why Aunt May’s calling her like she is. Grandma…she’
s not breathing right. And her eyes…the blood vessels are busting inside of ’em. Momma
said all her life she had something like what they call asthma where air can’t enter in and
none can come out. Makes sense because if none can come in, then where would you get
the air that is supposed to come out.
When I call her, whatever she was thinking about while she had her eyes on poppa, she’s not
thinking on anymore. “What’s wrong with momma?” she says immediately. “Is she breathin’,
May? Is she breathin’?”
I back up and stare at poppa holdin’ his face from being hit. He wants her to die. I know he
does. Just so she can’t write in this dirt for us. That’s exactly what he wants. Even though all
this is going on around me, I can’t say it. I just can’t say it.
“No, Rain, she not breathing how she should,” Aunt May answers fanning her with the bottom
of her skirt. “First call on the reverend and then the elders.”
“I’m callin’ the doctor, too,” momma adds.
“No you don’t,” Aunt May responds still fanning.
Momma stops in her tracks on the way to the doorway and looks back at Aunt May like she
done lost her mind.
“What did you just say, May? No?”
“Momma ain’t going to no doctor.” Then, Aunt May frowns up and continues. “The way they
treat her last time she went she like to die in the first place. She wrote me while in the hospital
the words NO MORE. So I’m not lettin’…”
“What momma wants? Momma’s about to die here, May, over something that can be fixed. I
don’t care what momma wants!” momma screams back at her. “This is your old timey way,
May! You hear? You and momma’s! But I’m not standin’ here stupid like God won’t provide
help. He can help however…”
Aunt May calmly responds letting her skirt fall to a stand still from fanning, “I took her out last
time. The doctors didn’t release her. I took her. While she was still sick even, that’s when I
took her. Momma wants it this way. She’s old and tired, but she said in writing to never take
her back. She wants her spirit leaving her body right here in this house if it wants to go and if
she’s not strong enough to hold it. Not ‘round no strangers who don’t know the Lord and treat
her like being black is a sin. Now…” Aunt May stands to her feet. “She ain’t going back. I gots
to live with my obedience. She told this here to me, not you. If she leaves us today, this is
what she wants. I might not have as much learning as you, Rain, being you the younger, but I
keep what I got and respect it. And that’s my word and promise to momma and God. You
hear that? She ain’t going to no hospital. Never again.” Aunt May kneels back down, and
looks into momma’s eyes as she’s trying to breathe. “Momma, you put down what’s wrong
with you in this dirt if you can do so, and you lift that piece of stick you got here and hit this
wall if you don’t want to go to that hospital. The Lord will see, and we all will obey.”
Grandma hits the wall first, and then, she dies, falls slumped over in the rocker, after writing
the letter P in the dirt. Everybody knows who she was getting ready to spell out. Especially
me. I’m sorry, grandma.
Release - Ain't Quite... What I
Thought
Took My Innocence