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comes walking in my room,
    Soon one morning when death comes walking in my room,
    Oh, my Lord,
    Oh, my Lord,
    What shall I do?”
    They were singing of their own dread, of the promise of death whose cool hand was even then resting on their frail shoulders. I began to cry. I wept for their age and their pain. I cried for my people, who found sweet release from anguish and isolation for only a few hours on Sunday. For my fatherless son, who was growing up with a man who would never, could never, understand his need for manhood; for my mother, whom I admired but didn't understand; for my brother, whose disappointment with life was drawing him relentlessly into the clutches of death; and, finally, I cried for myself, long and loudly.
    When the prayer was finished I stood up, and was enrolled into the church roster. I was so purified I forgot my cunning. I wrote down my real name, address and telephone number, shook hands with members, who welcomed me into their midst and left the church.
    Midweek, Tosh stood before me, voice hard and face stony.
    “Who the hell is Mother Bishop?”
    I said I didn't know.
    “And where the hell is the Evening Star Baptist Church?”
    I didn't answer.
    “A Mother Bishop called here from the Evening Star BaptistChurch. She said Mrs. Angelos had joined their church last Sunday. She now must pay twelve dollars for her robe, since she will be baptized in the Crystal Pool plunge next Sunday.”
    I said nothing.
    “I told her no one who lived here was going to be baptized. Anywhere. At any time.”
    I made no protest, gave no confession—just stood silent. And allowed a little more of my territory to be taken away.

CHAPTER 5
    The articles in the women's magazines did nothing to help explain the deterioration of my marriage. We had no infidelity; my husband was a good provider and I was a good cook. He encouraged me to resume my dance classes and I listened to him practice the saxophone without interruption. He came directly home from work each afternoon and in the evening after my son was asleep I found as much enjoyment in our marital bed as he.
    The form was there, but the spirit had disappeared.
    A bizarre sensation pervades a relationship of pretense. No truth seems true. A simple morning's greeting and response appear loaded with innuendo and fraught with implications.
    “How are you?” Does he/she really care?
    “Fine.” I'm not really. I'm miserable, but I'll never tell you.
    Each nicety becomes more sterile and each withdrawal more permanent.
    Bacon and coffee odors mingled with the aseptic aroma of Lifebuoy soap. Wisps of escaping gas, which were as real a part of a fifty-year-old San Francisco house as the fourteen-foot-high ceilings and the cantankerous plumbing, solidified my reality. Those were natural morning mists. The sense that order was departing my life was refuted by the daily routine. My family would awaken. I would shower and head for the kitchen to begin making breakfast.Clyde would then take over the shower as Tosh read the newspaper. Tosh would shower while Clyde dressed, collected his crayons and lunch pail for school. We could all sit at breakfast together. I would force unwanted pleasantries into my face. (My mother had taught me: “If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don't be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning ‘Good morning’ at total strangers.”)
    Tosh was usually quiet and amiable. Clyde gabbled about his dreams, which had to do with Roy Rogers as Jesus and Br'er Rabbit as God. We would finish breakfast in a glow of family life and they would both leave me with kisses off to their separate excitements.
    One new morning Tosh screamed from the bathroom, “Where in the hell are the goddamn dry towels?” The outburst caught me as unexpectedly as an upper cut. He knew that I kept the linen closet filled with towels folded as I had seen them photographed in the
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. More shocking than his