Chapter 6: Grits

Josiah's POV

I have faced down armed men in parking lots.

My mother in my hallway at six in the morning is harder.

Geneva Hardaway is five-foot-four and sixty-three years old.

She retired as a principal, and she still carries a covered dish in both hands, chin up.

"Josiah Lee," she said. "Whose shoes?"

They were Marlee's boots, two sizes smaller than anything I own, set neatly together by the door.

"A friend's, Mama," I said.

"A friend who leaves her boots in your hallway at six in the morning on a school day."

"You're retired."

"I am retired," my mother said. "I am not blind."

Marlee came out of the bedroom in my T-shirt, with her hair standing up and her bare feet on my grandfather's floor.

She stopped in the doorway.

I watched her take in my mother, the dish, and the hat my mother wears even to bring me breakfast.

She did not run.

I have guarded a lot of people, and in my experience, most of them run.

"Good morning, ma'am," Marlee said. "I'm Marlee. I'm so sorry about the boots."

"Don't be sorry. I'm too old to be shocked. Come in the kitchen, baby, you'll catch a chill."

I was not consulted.

My mother put the grits on the stove in my kitchen, in my pot.

She sent me to the porch for the paper.

When I came back, the two of them were standing side by side at the counter.

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