Mama by Terry McMillan

tall. She had planted them in anticipation of Freda's sweet sixteen party. Mildred pulled the hose from around the house and put its nose at the base of their thin trunks. Her hands were caked with rich black dirt from where she'd been hoeing and weeding the small garden in the back yard. Each year she planted two rows of corn, a few string beans, some tomatoes and yellow squash, okra and cucumbers, and mustard and collard greens. Though none of them ever did too well, Mildred liked to smell the mixture of grass and spring air, and she liked the solitude of working her own soil. She had just finished cutting down the dandelions that had grown up through the grass. They left a fresh, tart smell around the yard. Mildred loved this yard. It was big enough for the kids to play hide-n-go-seek, and in the winter she'd let the hose run in the side yard and they ice-skated there.
    She heard the screen door slam on Curly's front porch.
    "Hey, sis'-n-law," yelled Curly. "What you know good?"
    "Nothing, girl, just trying to get this garden in some kind of order. These weeds grow like ain't no tomorrow, I'm telling you."
    "Got any coffee over there? I'm all out, and Lord knows I could use a cup. The kids is at the playground and I got so much cleaning to do upstairs that I'm scared of what I might find once I start digging in them closets. A cup of coffee sure would be nice."
    "Yeah, come on over, chile, I can let you have a couple of teaspoons until tomorrow, and you can have one with me. I don't have no sugar, though. You got any?"
    "A drop, just a drop. These kids eat it like candy, but I'ma start hiding some just for my coffee."
    Out of all of Mildred's so-called friends, the only one she truly liked and trusted was Curly. The others, like Geechie and Gingy and Sally Noble (folks always said both of her names as if they were one), were good over one or two cups of coffee, but they liked to drink, and when they did they got vulgar and loud and started talking about the first person who popped into their minds. If they got worked up real good, meaning they agreed with each other, they'd forget where they were and who they were with, and say, "Yeah, and that Mildred..." Then Mildred would cuss them out nicely, put them out of her house and tell them not to bring their poor tired asses back until they knew how to act like they had some sense, which, she said, would take about another twenty years.
    Curly laughed as she sat down in Mildred's bright yellow kitchen. She had the kind of laugh that would automatically set you off to grinning right along with her, no matter what you had on your mind. Curly didn't have much to laugh about, though. Her big house looked much nicer on the outside than it did on the inside. It was full of dark, rickety furniture, which was why she kept her drapes drawn. And though Mildred loved her sister-in-law like a sister, she couldn't stand being in Curly's house for too long because it depressed her. "Why don't you open those drapes up, girl, and let some light in this place?" Mildred would ask her. And Curly would say, "For what? What's some light gon' do to these dingy walls but let all the hand marks and grease show?" Mildred saw her point.
    "You heard from Crook?" Curly asked her.
    "Naw, ain't heard from that sorry bastard since I had to beg him for twenty dollars for shoes for Money and Bootsey for Easter. I ain't got nothing to say to him. He ain't working yet, is he?"
    "Naw, him and Ernestine still down there living with her mama like savages. It's a shame, girl. I ain't never knew what he saw in that old hussy. She past trifling, ain't she, girl? Ugly as all hell, look like something the cat done dragged in, and I betcha, Mil, if the chile had some teeth in her mouth, don't you think she'd look just like a beaver?" She giggled and Mildred stomped her foot on the linoleum, almost spitting a mouthful of hot coffee in Curly's face.
    "Well, I'll tell you, Curly, the way thangs is going around here, honey,