Chapter Four
Jessica
I’d put Ruth in her bouncy chair and placed it on the table when I started to make dinner. Mama walked in as I floured the counter to roll out the dough for dumplings.
“There’s my sweet granddaughter!” she exclaimed with an expressive smile and pulled the baby from her seat.
It was one of the rare times my mother smiled anymore.
I recalled how fun Mama used to be. How she’d play in the sprinklers with me and my four siblings in the summer, or take us to the lake, or on picnics. It seemed like there had always been laughter and a flutter of activity in our house during my childhood.
She’d been lighter back then.
But maybe that was just because I was the baby of the family and everyone had always shielded me from anything bad that was happening.
The first time I ever witnessed conflict in my family was when I was in tenth grade and Mary left the church her sophomore year in college, and was therefore, “cast out,” as Pastor Crowley had called it.
I knew what it meant; I’d seen it in fourth grade when Miriam Thornridge and Caleb Trent had committed adultery—although I hadn’t fully understood what that signified at the time.
I was just told we were supposed to act like they no longer existed.
A hard thing to do in a small town, especially when you run into one of them at the grocery store.
And God bless my mother—when we saw Miriam at J and J, the local grocery store, a few months later, Mama had grabbed her hands and asked how she was, which brought tears to the other woman’s eyes.
I’d realized in that moment how much a little kindness could mean to someone—kind of like how Lainey and Jade had made me feel earlier.
Although, on the way home from J and J, Mama had told me not to tell Papa we’d seen Miriam.
I didn’t question it and just did what I’d been told.
The day Mary was excommunicated, my mother wept silently in the pew while my father sat stoically with his jaw clenched tight. All of my brothers were married and attending their own churches, so it’d just been the three of us.
We never spoke about my sister again.
Come to think of it, that was probably when Mama started to become bitter.
Then four years later, I brought shame on the family again by getting knocked up out of wedlock. I’d earned my parents’ ire and accepted my punishment. Now, I was trying to get back in their good graces.
I wasn’t sure how my parents would feel about me getting a job, but I decided to broach the topic with Mama first.
As I used a rolling pin on the dough, I tried to sound nonchalant when I said, “So, when I applied at the bakery today”—then glanced up to make sure she was listening—“they offered me a job working in the kitchen. I could start work as soon as tomorrow.”
She furrowed her brows.
“What about Ruthie? She isn’t taking a bottle yet. Do you have someone lined up who’s willing to watch an unweaned infant?”
“The bakery’s owner said I could bring her with me. She has a crib in her office for when she brings her son in. She said it’s no problem to breastfeed Ruthie as I need to.”
That seemed to surprise Mama because she was silent for a moment, before she finally said, “How are you going to get there? I can’t let you use my car every day.”
I didn’t know why not—it wasn’t like she went anywhere, other than the grocery store, and occasionally the fabric store.
“Maybe you could drop me off.”
“And how would you get home?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe I could get a ride from another employee or something. Just until I make enough to buy a car.”
She snorted. “Oh, so we’re just supposed to keep buying Ruthie’s diapers so you can buy a car.”
No. That’s why I want a job… duh. How else am I supposed to be able to buy diapers?
“Maybe I could get a car loan from the bank, then, and just make payments.”
“What about insurance? Gas? Maintenance?”
“I mean, I understand those are expenses I’d have, too.”
Mama pursed her lips like she’d eaten something sour, then grumbled, “We’ll discuss this when your father gets home.”
Greeaaat. Can’t wait.
“Okay, but we really need to do it tonight because I told Lainey I’d let her know after I talked to you.”
“Lainey?”
“Lainey Beaumont. The bakery’s owner.”
My mother nodded toward the counter where I was using the biscuit cutter, changing the subject. “Don’t twist; press straight down.”
I didn’t know why I couldn’t just drop the dough onto a cookie sheet. Rolling and cutting seemed like such a waste of time and dough.
Still, Mama’s kitchen, Mama’s rules.
Someday I’d have my own kitchen and make biscuits however I wanted.
I might even get them in a can and pop them open—something my mother would consider blasphemous.
I felt a smile form when I thought about serving them to my parents and never telling them they were store-bought.