Getting Mother's Body by Suzan Lori Parks

Cadillac car.
    Well, his wife, she seen us driving, and she saying we done gone too far.

    She got the paper, she my man’s ball and chain.
    She got the paper, she my man’s ball and chain.
    She put her big foot down, bought me a ticket on the very next train.
    ALBERTA SNIPES
    I got Zekiel on my tit, Daniel on my knee and child number seven bout to bust out me any minute. Ruthie, Joshua, Adam and Eve, they with they daddy over in Lubbock, gone to spend money we don’t got at the circus. Clifford wanted us all to go, he got real serious about it but I put my foot down cause here I am ready to drop this child. “You want me to drop this child in the middle of the circus?” I ast him, cause that’s what I felt like would happen if I went. I would smell them elephants and, you know, the heavy smell they got would make me drop this child and there I’d be, having number seven not in a hospital. And after Clifford promised me seven would be born in a hospital too. “Can you hold that child inside another day?” Clifford ast me and I just had to laugh. This one ain’t due till next month although you would think, looking at me, that it’s overdue. If he a he, he gonna be Moses, if she a she, she gonna be Esther. “When you gonna start your work for Doctor Wells?” I ast him. There’s a doctor in Midland who hired Clifford to make him a black doctor bag–style coffin and Clifford come home yesterday with a look of pride on his face that I only seen once before, when Ruthie was born. He worked all day and night, drawing and redrawing the pattern for the coffin and then this morning, all jumpy, talking about how it’s Thursday and all of a sudden wanting to take us all to the circus. I tell him Thursday comes every week and the circus’ll be back soon enough but Doctor Wells may drop dead tomorrow and if we don’t got his coffin ready the Wells family will have to put their Doctor in a regular box. At least go pick out the wood for it or something, I tolt him, but all he wanted to do was take us all to the circus. I wasn’t about to go. Not in this heat. We got a thermometer on the side of the house that says it’s a hundred and two. But I let them all go on. Daniel cried at first but he can go next time. Clifford piling the children in the Ford and looking like he wanna tell me something before he goes, but just kissing me on the lips and saying how he’s gonna bring me something pretty back.
    It’s like Zeke was born with a full set of teeth the way he pulls. Like he got fangs or something. And Moses-or-Esther always kicking.
    It’s around four in the afternoon when this gal, dark-skinned and on the narrow side, comes up into the yard. She just walks right through the gate towards the house. She’s carrying a dirt-colored suitcase with the same color pocketbook swinging in the crook of her arm. She’s carrying a big white box on her head. When she sees me on the porch she stops, setting down the suitcase and switching the box from her head to under her arm. She walks back to the gate, where we got the mailbox with the house number on it, then turns and heads at me again.
    â€œHow you doing?” I ask the girl. Esther-or-Moses kicks. Daniel shies his head away from the strange gal and Zeke bites down hard.
    â€œI’m doing pretty good,” the gal says smiling. She got a sweaty face from walking. She puts her pocketbook down next to the suitcase, and reaches her free arm up, swiping it across her temple, then licks the sweat off her upper lip with her lower one.
    I figure she needs a coffin, but she don’t look like she can afford one.
    â€œYou looking for Snipes?”
    â€œYes, ma’am.”
    â€œHe ain’t here right now.”
    â€œI’ll wait,” she says. She looks at the porch toward the long square of shade where I’m sitting. There’s a rocker there, Clifford’s chair, but