Forever Never Ends by Scott Nicholson Page B

having a gun held to their heads. But she'd never leave here, and he knew why, from the stories Momma had told him.
    Mayzie and her husband moved to Windshake forty years ago, fresh from between the honeymoon sheets, to take jobs at the new sock factory. Had settled in this house, filled it with love and a baby and linen curtains. But the baby had died of what they now called Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, only back then they called it “baby just up and died.” Uncle Theodore had followed their baby to heaven three years later in a factory accident, when the cotton press had grabbed his sleeve and pulled him into its iron jaws.
    Mayzie had gotten some money from the factory, enough to pay off the house. Black lives were cheap, especially back then, but housing was cheap in those days as well. So Aunt Mayzie had kept working at the factory and tending her marigold beds and became a local fixture as the "town nigger." The Civil Rights turmoil bypassed Windshake, as had most everything else. Then her diabetes had taken a turn for the worse and she had retired to her little house with her television set, tabby cat, and the ghost of her right foot.
    Now she was a part of the house. She was the house. The framing studs were her bones, the rafters her ribs, the slate siding tiles her skin. Her nerves were lined on the shelf, in a collection of animal salt shakers and miniature teapots. Her lungs were the screen doors, opened during the summer to let in the mountain breeze. Her eyes were the windows, watching as the forsythia bloomed and bluejays scrapped and dandelions filled the cracks in the sidewalk and Old Man Thompson doddered by to deliver her mail. And her heart was the photograph on the mantel, a cracked black-and-white portrait of a smiling young Theo holding a round-cheeked infant.
    "Looks like the rain has done passed on," Aunt Mayzie said, looking out the window over her corner of Windshake. "And look yonder, the crocuses are starting to poke up.”
    "Maybe spring's finally getting here. It sure took its own sweet time. Hard to believe this is the South. I thought it was supposed to be scorching down here."
    "The mountains is a land unto itself. And the bad makes you appreciate the good. It's going to be the kind of day makes you forget all that snow.”
    "Yes, ma’am." James watched the wind press against the stubby balsam shrubs that lined the walkway. "Maybe we can go for a walk after I get off work."
    "Walk, nothing. I got an appointment with Dr. Wheatley today. I ain't got to walk nowhere when I got to walk somewhere ."
    "You didn't tell me."
    "I most certainly did. Last night. But you had your eyes glued on that basketball game like they was giving away money.”
    "Georgetown was playing, Aunt Mayzie. I've got to keep up with my old school. What's this appointment for? Something wrong?"
    "Just a checkup, is all. Anyways, my appointment's at three o’clock and I know you can't get off work. And I don't even want you to ask. I done fine for myself for thirty years, and I hope to do for at least a few more, the Good Lord willing."
    Yes, but for most of those years, you had two good feet and one strong heart. And you can't use my Honda because you never learned how to drive. Always a walker, you were. A mile to the factory, half mile to the Save-a-Ton, two miles to church. Three miles to catch the Greyhound for the annual family visit. Miles and miles put on those wide black feet, their experience now halved.
    "Let me set you up with a cab, then." James put his hands on his hips. He felt ridiculous trying to stare down the woman who could stare down his own mother.
    "Ain't setting foot in a car with that fool Maynard. Keeps a bottle under the seat and a cinder block on the gas pedal. No, I reckon a little stretch ain't gonna do me no harm."
    James pictured Aunt Mayzie crutching down the sidewalk, wearing the purple velour coat James had gotten her for Christmas, a diaphanous red scarf knotted under her chin. Nodding