The Little Friend

Edie’s garden gate creaked open. Suddenly Harriet leaped up. “Odean!” she cried. But the little black lady—in straw hat, and belted cotton dress—cut her eyes at Harriet without turning her head and did not reply. Her lips were compressed, her face rigid. Slowly, she shuffled to the back porch and up the stairs, and rapped on the door.

“Miz Edith here?” she said, hand to brow, peering through the screen.

After a moment’s hesitation Harriet—stunned, cheeks burning from the snub—sat back down in the swing. Though Odean was old and grumpy, and Harriet’s relationship with her had never been very good, no one had been closer to Libby; the two of them were like an old married couple—not only in their disagreements (mostly about Libby’s cat, which Odean despised) but also in their stoic, companionable affection for one another—and Harriet’s heart had risen violently at the very sight of her.

She had not thought of Odean since the accident. Odean had been with Libby since they were both young women, out at Tribulation. Where would she go now, what would she do? Odean was a rickety old lady, in poor health; and (as Edie often complained) not much use around the house any more.

Confusion on the screen porch. “There,” said somebody inside, moving to make room, and Tat stepped sideways to the front. “Odean!” she said. “You know me, don’t you? Edith’s sister?”

“Why aint nobody told me about Miss Libby?”

“Oh, dear … Oh my. Odean.” Glance backwards, at the porch: perplexed, ashamed. “I’m so sorry. Why don’t you come inside?”

“Mae Helen, who works for Ms. McLemore, done come and told me. Nobody come and got me. And yall already put her into the ground.”

“Oh, Odean! We didn’t think you had a telephone.…”

In the silence that followed, a chickadee whistled: four clear, bouncy, sociable notes.

“Yalls could have come and got me.” Odean’s voice cracked. Her coppery face was immobile. “At my house. I lives out at Pine Hill, you know it. Yalls could have gone to that trouble.…”

“Odean.… Oh, my,” said Tat, helplessly. She took a deep breath; she looked about. “Please, won’t you come in and sit down a minute?”

“Nome,” said Odean, stiffly. “I thank you.”

“Odean, I’m so sorry. We didn’t think …”

Odean dashed away a tear. “I work for Miss Lib fifty-five years and nobody aint even told me she’s in the hospital.”

Tat closed her eyes for an instant. “Odean.” There was a dreadful silence. “Oh, this is horrible. How can you forgive us?”

“This whole week I’m thinking yalls up in Sorth Carolina and I’s suppose to come back to work on Monday. And here she is, laying in the ground.”

“Please.” Tat laid a hand on Odean’s arm. “Wait here while I run get Edith. Will you wait here, just a moment?”

She flustered inside. Conversation—not very clear—resumed on the porch. Odean, expressionless, turned and stared into the middle distance. Someone—a man—said, in a stage whisper: “I believe she wants a little money.”

Blood rose hot to Harriet’s face. Odean—dull-faced, unblinking—stood where she was, without moving. Amongst all the large white people in their Sunday finery, she looked very small and drab: a lone wren in a flock of starlings. Hely had got up and was standing behind the swing observing the scene with frank interest.

Harriet didn’t know what to do. She felt as if she should go over and stand with Odean—it was what Libby would want her to do—but Odean didn’t seem very friendly or welcoming; in fact, there was something forbidding in her manner that frightened Harriet. Suddenly, quite without warning, there was movement on the porch and Allison burst through the door into Odean’s arms, so that the old lady—wild-eyed at the abrupt onslaught—had to catch the porch rail to keep from falling over backwards.

Allison sobbed, with an intensity frightening even to Harriet. Odean stared over Allison’s shoulder without returning or appearing to welcome the hug.

Edie came through, and out onto the steps. “Allison, get back in the house,” she said; and—grabbing Allison’s shoulder, turning her around: “Now!”

Allison—with a sharp cry—wrenched away and ran across the yard: past the glider swing, past Hely and Harriet, into Edie’s toolshed. There was a tinny crash, as of a rake toppling off the wall at the slammed door.

Hely said, flatly, as he swivelled his head to stare: “Man, your sister’s nuts.”

From the porch Edie’s voice—clear, carrying—resonated with an air of public address: formal though it was, emotion trembled behind it and also something of emergency. “Odean! Thank you for coming! Won’t you step inside for a minute?”

“Nome, I don’t want to bother nobody.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! We’re mighty glad to see you!”

Hely kicked Harriet in the foot. “Say,” he said, and nodded at the toolshed. “What’s the matter with her?”

“Bless your heart!” Edie scolded Odean—who still stood motionless. “Enough of this! You come inside right this minute!”