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position near Mama’s bed, slipping white handkerchiefs from patent leather handbags with gloved hands, dabbing at dry eyes, but mostly protecting their nostrils as they discreetly surveyed our cramped, odorous accommodations.
    “Count you blessings, sisters!” Reverend Nelson bellowed. It was the first time he had been a guest in our home, and apparently he had just noticed that our ceiling offered an excellent view of Heaven.
    The women burst into song, their voices combining and reverberating in the small confines of the house. I could not see my mother from where I stood, but every now and then I would hear her moan or scream. Reverend Nelson had brought God into our house, and Mama was deathly afraid of God. She was so afraid, in fact, that she would not go near a church. She sent us, instead, to collect her blessings and bring them home. I think she had convinced herself that God could not see her evil deeds if she did not go near His house.
    I felt overwhelmed by miracles. Our little house was still standing under the weight of Reverend Nelson and the women’s choir. They had braved our rickety, old steps to pray over Mama, and just when it seemed they would be the death of her, God opened the door for Miss Pearl.
    She poked her head in first, her short, kinky hair sparkling with Royal Crown hair pomade. Her large, brown eyes took in the scene, then she pushed the door wide and brought too much of everything into the house—too much laughter for a death room, too much swearing for the reverend and the women’s choir, and too much weight for a woman of forty. Miss Pearl was like a huge, chocolate Tootsie Roll Pop on a broken stick. Her feet, the smallest part of her entire body, padded across the floor as her pudgy arms swung back and forth, clearing a path from the front room to Mama’s room.
    “What’s going on here?” she demanded.
    “Pearl,” Mama cried out. “I’m dying, Pearl.”
    “The hell you say.” Miss Pearl roared with laughter. “Rosie, you ain’t bit mo’ dying than the man in the moon. You done had these people come out here thinking you dying. That’s a damn shame.” “Well, I feel like I’m dying,” came Mama’s sulking voice.
    Miss Pearl turned to Reverend Nelson, a short, stocky-built, handsome man in a dark blue suit.“Y’all can leave now, Reverend,” she said. “I’ll call y’all back if I have to kill ’er for being a jackass.”
    Reverend Nelson seemed flustered for a moment. “What’s going on here?” he asked. “Sister Janie informed me that . . .”
    Miss Pearl put up a hand to silence him, and then apologized for the misunderstanding. She told him that Mama was in labor, but she probably wasn’t going to die. The reverend nodded, and his nod ended in a bowed head. He clutched his Bible to his chest with one hand, raised the other, and prayed for my mother. When he was done, he said, “Sister Rozelle, you send these little ones to church every Sunday. God loves them, and He loves you, too. Why don’t you join us one Sunday? We’d like to see you there.”
    “Amen!” the women chorused in unison before they began backing along the short hallway toward the front door, spilling out onto the porch, and descending the steps.
    Reverend Nelson glanced at me and smiled sadly as he left. I felt a lump in my throat, and I felt sorry for him. He had put on a suit on a Saturday, and had come all the way down from Plymouth to the outskirts of town to pray for a woman who was not dying after all. God was surely frowning down on the whole lot of us, and Tarabelle was right. The Quinns were going to keep the fires burning in Hell, and Miss Pearl was going to be right there beside us.
    “Okay, we got work to do,” Miss Pearl said, rolling around to face us. “We gotta get something up to this door. Where them boys?”
    Tarabelle answered, “Harvey and Sam out working, and Wallace . . .”
    “I know where Wallace is,” Miss Pearl said. “He up to my place helping