You Get What You Pray For by E.N. Joy Page A

stainless-steel stove, stirring something in a pot. She made a beeline over to her mother. “Your famous neck bones, black-eyed peas, and corn bread.” She put her arm around her mother’s shoulders. “Ordinarily, I wouldn’t want such a high-sodium meal this late in the day and in the middle of the week.” The weekends were usually when Lorain was more lenient with meals and snacks. “But you are an absolute lifesaver, Mom.” She kissed Eleanor on her head of dark brown hair. It was her natural color, not dyed. Lorain always joked that Eleanor caused everyone else to have gray hair but didn’t have a single one on her own head. “Thank you. Sorry I’m late.”
    â€œNo problem,” Eleanor said. “I got the girls off the bus and did their little homework with them.” Putting the girls on the bus and getting them off the bus was something Eleanor did every day, so that was nothing new. She insisted on earning her keep in any way she could and devoted herself to caring for the girls, especially since Nicholas and Lorain refused to accept any rent money from her. When Eleanor sold her home to move in with them, she had tried to bless the couple with a few grand at least, but they wouldn’t hear of it. Eleanor hadn’t pressed the issue. That meant more bingo nights for her.
    While Eleanor talked, Lorain stole a sliver of corn bread and stuffed it in her mouth. She could taste the hint of sugar and the real butter that had melted on the top and seeped into the sweet, cake-like delicacy.
    â€œWhere are the girls at now?” she asked with her mouth full.
    A little smirk appeared on Eleanor’s face. She nodded over her shoulder. “Right there.”
    Lorain turned around.
    â€œSurprise!”
    Lorain swallowed a hunk of corn bread practically whole and began choking. She tried to cough it up, but it was stuck in her throat. She hunched over in a ball, with her hands gripping her neck, like she was trying to squeeze the bread out of her throat. She couldn’t breathe.
    â€œOh, dear God!” she heard her mother cry out. “I’ll call nine-one-one!”
    Lorain didn’t know how much time had passed, but it felt like forever and a day. The very air she breathed had been ripped from her in a matter of seconds. Just as she felt she was going to black out, she sensed a presence behind her. Then she felt arms around her. She felt fists gripping her under her breasts. Next, she felt the pressure on her chest from repeated pumping. The corn bread came back up, and she spit it out onto the floor. She felt the arms release her.
    â€œAre you okay?” Nicholas asked after releasing Lorain.
    â€œYes, Mom, are you okay?” Unique asked as she ran over to Lorain. She had come into town unannounced.
    Lorain was speechless. She hadn’t seen Unique in months. The few times that Unique had been in town since moving to West Virginia, she had tried to connect with Lorain, but Lorain had never seemed to have any openings in her schedule.
    â€œHoney, talk to me. Are you all right?” Nicholas said, worried.
    â€œShe just better be,” Eleanor spat. “Because we can’t be having a repeat of the last time she choked, fell over, bumped her head, and didn’t remember a thang.” Eleanor reminded everybody in the room of an incident a few years ago, when Lorain had gotten a grape stuck in her throat. After choking, falling, and bumping her head, she woke up in the hospital, suffering from selective memory loss. Slowly but surely, her full memory returned and she was able to put the pieces of her life back together. But now it looked as though everything could possibly fall apart again.
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    â€œYou gave us quite a scare back in the kitchen, honey,” Nicholas said to Lorain as he dug the meat out of a neck bone with his fork. They were all sitting at the dining table, eating dinner.
    â€œIt was like déjà