All-Bright Court by Connie Rose Porter

the door. She wandered out to the porch and sat with the men.
    They were drinking some peach wine her mother had put up. Her father gave her a splash in a tin cup. It was hot and sweet.
    â€œIs your mama fenna have the baby?” her father asked.
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œWhat your aunt-nem doing in there?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œWhat you mean, you don’t know? What you was doing in there?”
    Venita began crying, puffing out enough clouds to fill a stormy sky. Her father calmed her down, filled her cup with wine. “Huh,” he said. It was an apology.
    She cried softly and drank the wine. Her father went back to his game, slamming dominoes down on the plank porch. Venita did not notice her hands were numb.
    Morning was coming. A grayness was pushing its way into the sky when a cry came from the house. It woke Venita where she had fallen asleep on the porch. She went inside to find her father in the kitchen. The women made him wait before they would let him in to see the baby.
    Venita went in with him. It was a boy, and there he was with her mother. They were in the bed. Her mother was asleep, her hair gone back and drawn up tightly on her head. The midwife handed her father a sack and told him to take it out back and bury it.
    Venita thought he was taking it to the garden, and she headed in that direction.
    â€œWhere you going?” her father asked. “Come on.”
    He led her to the back corner of the yard and beat at the earth with a spade. It broke in big chunks, yielding a small, shallow hole.
    â€œIt probably ain’t deep enough,” he said. He placed the sack in the ground and pressed the clods back into the hole.
    â€œWhat’s in the croaker sack?” Venita asked.
    â€œThe afterbirth. Let’s go.”
    Venita did not ask for any more of an explanation. She went inside and up to bed. As she was falling to sleep, she thought that this was what it must feel like to be old. Stiff and tired, wanting nothing but rest and feeling like all that came before was a confusing dream.
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    No, it was not because she was stupid that she had no children. Venita figured even stupid women could have children—plenty had. If she wasn’t stupid, maybe she was just unblessed. Unblessed wasn’t the same as cursed. It was not that she had offended God.
    There was a lady back home who had. She would wander through town mumbling, her hair matted like a sheep’s coat, her clothes tattered, carrying a dirty rubber doll wrapped in a threadbare diaper. Venita’s mother told her about the woman.
    â€œThat woman cursed. When her was a girl no bigger than you, her family-nem had a cat that had kittens. They needed that cat to keep mice out the house, but they ain’t need no litter of kittens to feed. Her family-nem couldn’t afford it. So the mama tied them up in a sack and told her to take it down to the creek and throw it in. There ain’t no sin in that, ’cause the Lord understand. He know how much you can bear. He would lift they soul up right out the water. Pluck they soul out.
    â€œBut that girl was a regular hardhead, had a head like a regular rock. She thought her mama was being mean, so her took it in her head to be mean too. Before her got to the creek her threw the sack in a trash can that was on fire.
    â€œThem cats was screaming and yelling to get out the bag. Now, her family-nem didn’t find out ’bout it then. But when her grew up it all come out. Ain’t nothing you can’t do in the dark that don’t come out in the light. When her grew up and took a husband, her ain’t had no one baby. Her had a whole litter, five or six, all born at the same time. All born live, too, and crying just like them kittens. Every last one died. Her told her family-nem. Her was raving. All ’bout kittens and a fire. They say her was in shock, you know. Her ain’t never come out it.
    â€œThe Lord dried