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can’t do this by myself.”
    “What about Ernest? Have you told him?”
    “No. And I’m not going to. I ain’t having Ernest marry me ’cause I’m having his baby!”
    “He might
want
to marry you!”
    “A baby don’t make a man stay, and in the case of a black man it’ll make him leave faster!”
    “Once he knows—”
    “No!—I ain’t having Ernest beat me down … I ain’t gonna tell him, don’t want him to know!”
    “Girl, you’re crazy! Ernest has got a right to know!”
    “No, he doesn’t!”
    “Suppose he wants his baby?” I asked.
    “I’ll—” Yasmine stopped, thought, then said softly, “I’m only twenty-five. I can have other babies. Oncewe’re married, I’ll give Ernest all the babies he can take care of!”
    “Suppose—”
    “Simone, get real! Men ain’t got feelings for babies like women do!”
    “Who told you that?”
    “If you listened to the women whose hair I do every week, you’d
know
it!”
    “My father—”
    “Mr. James is different. He’s from the old school, not like these men today! I’ve heard my clients tell me how their man disappeared once they became pregnant! It’s the way things
are
nowadays!”
    “Maybe you need to spend less time talking to your clients and more time doing their hair!”
    She glared at me. “I’m not telling Ernest and neither are you!”
    “And if I do?”
    “I’ll never speak to you again, Simone. You and I have been girlfriends since before Ernest, before Cliff. I know you ain’t about to let something like this come between us now!”
    I ran my hand through my braids. “Yasmine,” I said, “you’re supposed to have some sense … don’t do this thing to your baby!”
    She made a funny sound in the back of her throat. “Give it a week! Think about being in my shoes. Then you’ll see things my way.”
    I shook my head. “Believe what you want,” I said, deciding already that there was no way that I was going to change my mind.
    She stood and began walking toward the front door. Then she turned. “Simone,” she said. Her voice cracked.
    “Yeah!”
    “Don’t tell anybody what I’ve told you. Not even Miss Candi.”
    “I won’t say anything,” I promised.
    She cocked her head, pulled on the neck of her T-shirt, then opened the door. “I ain’t kidding. Don’t mention it to your mama … I don’t want Miss Candi thinking bad about me!”
    “Mama isn’t judgmental,” I said. But I couldn’t help but wonder what my mother would think if I told her that I was going to have an abortion.

CHAPTER
FOUR
    T he Covingtons are natives of Otis County. They own quite a bit of land, property that my great-great-grandfather obtained during Reconstruction. His oldest son was my great-grandfather, Ezekiel Covington. Great-grandpa Ezekiel’s youngest and only living child was my great-uncle Chester. He had died six months earlier at the ripe age of ninety-nine.
    Uncle Chester had quite a few children himself, since he’d buried three wives. It was his daughter, Agatha, however, who inherited Great-grandfather Ezekiel Covington’s shrewd business sense. Cousin Agatha is a tall thin woman, with banana-colored skin. She has never married and, to my knowledge, has never wanted to. When you meet her she appears shy. But this is a deception. She is so astute inthe handling of the Covingtons’ land that you’d think she had a degree in business management.
    It was Cousin Agatha’s cleverness, along with a few encouraging words from Mama, that convinced Uncle Chester to give Agatha the power of attorney before he died. Cousin Agatha set up the Covington Land Company and had it incorporated, ensuring that our land would stay in the family for at least another hundred years.
    Daddy’s cousin, Fred Covington from Philadelphia, doesn’t value land ownership the way Cousin Agatha does. As a matter of fact, Uncle Fred’s philosophy is that land is good only for burying the dead. Money, he says, is for the