It's All About The Moon When The Sun Ain't Shining by Ernest Hill Page A

thinking about something. Or like I was supposed to figure it out. And when I didn’t he decided to tell me.
    â€œYour place,” he said.
    Suddenly, I felt the seat move.
    â€œThat ain’ true,” Mama said, turning toward Daddy. “And Nathaniel, you ought to be shame of yourself for saying such a thang.”
    â€œIt is true,” Daddy said. “And you the one ought to be shame.”
    I saw Daddy lean forward and turn on the heater. I heard the fan rattle, then I felt the warm air from the vents on my cold, throbbing fingers.
    â€œI don’t understand,” I said, still confused.
    â€œAin’t nothing to understand,” Daddy said. “Miss Hattie just trying to teach you that no matter how much education you get, you still ain’t fit for nothing but to run white folks’ errands.”
    â€œNathaniel!” Mama said. “Miss Hattie ain’t like that and you know it.... And for the life of me, I can’t understand why you’d go and say such a mean, hateful thing.”
    â€œ ’Cause it’s the truth,” Daddy said.
    â€œIt ain’t the truth,” Mama snapped, “and you know it.”
    â€œI don’t know no such thing,” Daddy said.
    â€œMiss Hattie been good to us,” Mama said. “Her and Mr. John both. And you ain’t got no cause to sit here and drag her name through the mud like that, no cause at all. She been good to us.”
    I saw Mama looking at Daddy. But he wasn’t looking at her; he was looking straight ahead.
    â€œWhen you ever knowed Miss Hattie to mistreat anybody?” Mama asked him.
    Daddy didn’t answer.
    â€œI tell you when,” Mama answered for him. “Never, that’s when. Miss Hattie asked Maurice to go on account I don’t drive. And that’s the only reason.”
    â€œWoman, this ain’t about you,” Daddy said again.
    â€œI done known Miss Hattie and Mr. John my whole life,” Mama said. “And they good people.... They good people through and through.”
    â€œNever said they wasn’t, just said this ain’t ’bout you.”
    â€œIf you didn’t want Maurice to go,” Mama said, “why didn’t you say so?”
    â€œMaurice a grown man,” Daddy said. “He do as he please. He got to find his own way. Got to make up his own mind.”
    â€œIt’s no big deal to me,” I said. “I don’t mind going.”
    â€œNathaniel, you wrong about Miss Hattie,” Mama said. “Dead wrong.”
    â€œBeen wrong ’bout lots of things in my life,” Daddy said, “but I don’t figure this one of ’em.”
    â€œWell it is,” Mama said. “You wrong, I tell you. Wrong as wrong can be.”
    â€œIt’s no big deal,” I said again.
    Then all was quiet save for the sound of the heater blowing warm air through the vent. I had said it, but I was sure they were not listening to me. Both had retreated within themselves. Daddy clutching the steering wheel looking far up the road and Mama sitting statuelike between the two of us, her hands folded across her pocketbook, her eyes staring straight ahead. I looked at them for a minute then turned my head. It was early yet, and though there were but a few people out and about; inside their homes they were beginning to stir. Through the darkness, I could see the occasional glow of a burning light illuminating a distant window or a front door or a back porch, and I knew that those were the domiciles of people like my father who had to be up and about long before the rest of the world had begun to stir.
    I was staring at the house when I felt the truck slow. I turned my head back toward the windshield and looked. We had reached the intersection at Main Street. Daddy paused a minute to let a car pass, then turned right and headed out of town. A block or two before Main Street, Daddy turned right at what had once been the Ford