Mama's Words [Memories]

[Coralie Mansour (DELETED 224)]

My favorite memories growing up are of my Mama Maudy, of making pink lemonade with her and curling up at her feet so that she could tell me and my cousins a story. I remember when I was little, I’d be leaning over the counter , with my chin propped up in my hands. I used to wear these little purple overalls everywhere with a creamy colored shirt that had ducks all over it. The sun would be streaming through the window and hitting her leathery skin at every angle. Age dulled her tone so that she didn’t glisten the way my mama used to always say it did when she was growing up. I would be watching and listening as she would move around the little kitchen, picking up the best lemons from the window sill.

“Girl, what you doin with eyes that big?” She would ask me. I guess that I’d always go wide eyed when watching; call it childish fascination, but I loved to see her get it ready. I would shrug because I never knew how to answer her, and she’d go on about what she was doing. I remember how the floor boards used to squeak when her feet would pass over them. She never liked to wear shoes, told me “Cora Lee—“ Because she said that’s how a real southern woman should pronounce it. She said “Cora Lee, Jesus didn’t wear no shoes in the desert.” I always giggled at that.

“But Mama Maudy.” I would say. “Jesus wore sandles.”

She’d always fix a look on me, the kind that said I’d better not be thinking too much about all of that mess. “Jesus wasn’t an old woman, now be nice to your Mama.” And of course, I always went along with it. But I’m getting off track.

She would take those four or so lemons and chop them up, squeeze out all of the juice into the bottom of a crystal pitcher. She’d get herself a bottle of fresh water from the fridge because drinking from the bayou and the river was a bad idea. The pitcher itself had a bulbous bottom and a long slender stem that fanned out into a spout. She’d put that away and t hat’s when we always reached my favorite part, the strawberries. She’d get out a big mixing bowl, by which point I’d usually be pouting up at her. She’d arch a brow and mutter something about a hellion then pass me over the knife.

I would chop up the strawberries and add the sugar to them so that they could form a natural syrup, thick and juicy, which she’d add to the lemonade in place of outright sugar. We’d toss in a few chunks of Ice and stir it all together. By the time we were done, I was usually grinning like a fool. She always made it at sunset and so the light would be going out. She’d say “Girl, get you a drink.” So I would, get a big glass that I could barely hold in my hands and then we’d go out back where her garden was. She had a rocking chair that she’d take out with her and once we were outside on the cement, she’d sit down and I’d curl up against the side of her seat.

We would always look up at the stars together as they began to come into view and the taste of the lemonade would begin to lull me to sleep along with the creaking sound of her rocker. I’d be nearly dozing when she would always say. “Baby girl, Mama’s got a story to tell you.”

[Coralie Mansour (DELETED 224)]

“’Once there was a good man and he was a man like any other, lived by the sun on his head and the sweat trickling down his back. He was getting on in years and had never been able to do naught to get himself a better place in the world despite all his work. He had mouths to feed and a wife to keep happy even when the days were long and the nights were short. Even still, he was a good man who prayed every night. He would kneel at the edge of his bed and put his hands together and raise his voice up to God so that the father would hear each of his words. But even Job had trials, he would tell himself and I’m not better than any man so I better accept and one day I’ll get my reward.

Well one year, a plague came along and took his oldest and his youngest child and the good man wept because he had lost two of the most important things to him. He cried out to god every night from then on, and his voice grew louder saying ‘Lord are you testing me? Lord when will I get my reward?’ But, like always he got no answer. So he went back to work in the fields because his middle two were getting older and eating more, and his wife wasn’t getting any less needy for attention. Try as he might, he couldn’t ever seem to get ahead, was always fighting and fighting to get the barest scraps of bread and meat on the table. He told himself ‘I know there are others worse off, so who am I to judge?’

Another year or two went by and his wife was hauling wheat up and out of a cart one day so that she could load it into a barn. Well the cart wasn’t fixed right and so when she climbed in to get the last of it, she took off down the hill and didn’t stop till she’d crashed right into the pond. The good man lost his cart and his wife that day. For months after, he would cry out louder than he ever had before on his knees. He’d crush his hands together like if he squeezed them god might hear better. ‘Lord are you testing me? Lord when will I get my reward?’ And god didn’t answer him. So he went back to the fields, but life was hard without a cart, and without a wife to look after his children when he should have been working. Life only got harder for the man.

Another year passed and his children were playing out in the field he usually worked when they decided to play a game of chase. One of the boys got his hands on a scythe and before he knew what he was doing, he had slit his sister’s throat clean. The good man watched his baby girl die that day and he beat his boy, beat him till his boy was bloody and addled. He cried out to god that night in the pouring rain as he knelt over his daughter’s body and his other child passed out against the tree. He screamed ‘Lord are you testing me? Lord when do I get my reward?’ And god answered.

‘Stop callin my name, you ain’t my child.’ The good man looked confused as he stared up to the sky and the thunderclouds spoke to him.

‘But God, I been a good man all my life.’ He said through the tears.

‘Man do you see that boy over there? You did that to him. You’s a sinner man. You’s a devil man so you can go on to the devil’ The lord said. And so the good man pulled himself away from his little girl and he ran away, crying out for brother Lucifer. And that’s the story of the devil man.’ Mama Maudy would say as she’d stroke through my hair.

‘But Mama, he was a good man for all them years and --‘

‘And nothin’, child. Everyone’s got a devil man in theyself and they can either let him out or they can lock him up tight. Babygirl Coralie, what are you gonna do?’”