bears em and has the raising of em, so them cheerun mostly hers. That’s the way God planned it. But this man
put the chile in your belly ain’t gonna be no natural father to it – he wouldn’t be no natural father to it even if he
was gonna be round, because he was never meant to be yours in the first place. So tell me, girl: who is the
chile’s natural father?’ And she kind of leaned toward Me.
“All I could do was shake my head and tell her I didn’t know what she was talking about. But I think that
maybe part of me – a part of me way back in that part of your mind that only gets a real chance to think in your
dreams – I think that part did. Maybe I’m only making that up because of all I know now, but I don’t think so.
I think that for just a moment or two his name fluttered there in my head – Peter Jefferies.
“I said, ‘Please – you’re scaring me – I don’t know what it is you want me to say – I don’t know anything about
natural fathers or unnatural fathers or anything like that – I don’t even know if I’m pregnant!’
“Well, she sat back for a minute, and then she smiled. Her smile was like sunshine, and it eased me. ‘I didn’t
mean to scare you, honey,’ she said. ‘That wasn’t none of what I had in my mind at all. I’ll just brew us a cup
of tea, and that is gonna put you at your case. It’s just that I got the sight, and sometime it be strong. I’ll make
us tea. You’ll like it. It’s special to me.’
“I wanted to tell her I didn’t want any tea, but it seemed like I couldn’t. Seemed like too much of an effort to
open my mouth, and all the strength had gone out of my legs.
“She had a greasy little kitchen place that was almost as dark as a cave and I sat there in the chair by the door
– same one I fell into when she hit me with those things coming in – and watched her spoon loose tea into an
old chipped china pot and put a kettle on the gas fire.
“I sat there thinking I didn’t want none of anything that was special to her, nor nothing that came out of that
greasy little kitchen neither. I was thinking I’d take just a little sip to be mannerly and then get out of there as
fast as I could go and never come back.
“But then she brought over two little china cups just as clean as snow and a tray with sugar and cream and fresh-baked bread rolls. She poured it and it smelled good and hot and strong. It kind of waked me up and
before I knew it I’d drunk two cups and eaten one of the bread-rolls, too.
“She drank a cup and ate a roll and we got talking along on more natural subjects – who we knew on the street,
where I came from, where I liked to shop, and all like that. Then I looked at my watch and seen over an hour
and a half had gone by. I started to get up and a dizzy feeling ran through me and I plopped right back in my
chair again.”
Delores was looking at her, eyes round.
“‘You doped me,’ I said, and I was scared, but the scared part of me was way down inside.
‘Girl, I don’t mean nothin but a help to you,’ she said, ‘but you don’t want to give up what I need to know and
I know damn well you ain’t gonna do what you need to do even once you do. So I fixed both things. You are
gonna have a little nap here, but before you do you are gonna tell me the name of your babe’s natural father.’
“And, sitting there in that chair with its saggy cane bottom and hearing all of Harlem outside, I seen Peter
Jefferies as clear as I’m seeing you now, Delores. He was just as white as I am black, just as tall as I am short,