Paradise by Toni Morrison

behind her. Maybe we can help out some.”
    Jeff grunted. “I don’t know about that.” He looked at his father. “What do you think, Papa? Would that…?”
    “Have to ask her mother. She’s hit by this too, you know. Hit worse’n I am, maybe.”
    “Well,” said Deek, “whyn’t you talk it over with her, then? If she’s agreeable, stop by the bank. Tomorrow.”
    Fleet scratched his jaw. “Can’t make any promises. Mable is a mighty proud woman. Mighty proud.”
    Deek nodded. “Got a reason to be, daughter going to college and all. We don’t want anything to stand in the way of that. Credit to the town.”
    “When that school start up, Fleet?” Steward cocked his head.
    “August, I believe.”
    “She be ready then?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Well,” Steward answered. “August’s a long way off. This here is May. She might change her mind. Decide to stay on.”
    “I’m her father. I’ll arrange her mind.”
    “Right,” said Steward.
    “Settled then?” Deek asked.
    “Like I say. Have to talk to her mother.”
    “Of course.”
    “She’s the key. My wife’s the key.”
    Deek smiled outright for the first time that evening. “Women always the key, God bless ’em.”
    Reverend Misner sighed as though breathable air were available again. “God’s love is in this house,” he said. “I feel it every time I come here. Every time.” He looked toward the ceiling while Jefferson Fleetwood stared at him with stricken eyes. “We treasure His strength but we mustn’t ignore His love. That’s what keeps us strong. Gentlemen. Brothers. Let us pray.”
    They bowed their heads and listened obediently to Misner’s beautifully put words and the tippy-tap steps of women who were nowhere in sight.
             
    The next morning Reverend Misner was surprised by how well he had slept. The meeting with the Morgans and Fleetwoods the previous night had made him uneasy. There was a grizzly bear in Fleetwood’s living room—quiet, invisible, but making deft movement impossible. Upstairs he’d made the women laugh—well, Mable anyway. Sweetie smiled but clearly didn’t enjoy his banter. Her eye was ever on her children. A slide. A lean. A suck of air—she bent over a crib and made quick, practiced adjustments. But her expression was mildly patronizing as if to say what could there be to amuse her and why would he try? She acquiesced when he asked her to join him in prayer. Bowed her head, closed her eyes, but when she faced him with a quiet “Amen,” he felt as though his relationship with the God he spoke to was vague or too new, while hers was superior, ancient and completely sealed.
    He had better luck with Mable Fleetwood, who was delighted enough with his visit to prolong their conversation unnecessarily. Downstairs the men he had assembled, after learning what had happened at the Oven, waited—as did the grizzly.
    Misner fought his pillow for a moment and convinced himself that the ending was satisfactory. Tempers banked, a resolution surfaced, peace declared. At least he hoped so. The Morgans always seemed to be having a second conversation—an unheard dialogue right next to the one they spoke aloud. They performed as one man, but something in Deek’s manner made Misner wonder if he wasn’t covering for his brother—propping him the way you would a slow-learning child. Arnold’s air of affront was coy: a formula everyone expected but knew had no weight. Jefferson’s skin was thin as gauze. But it was K.D. who irritated Misner most. Too quick to please. An oily apology. A devious smile. Misner despised males who hit women—and a fifteen-year-old? What did K.D. think he was doing? His relation to Deek and Steward protected him, of course, but it was hard to like a man who relied on that. Servile to his uncles; brutal with females. Then, later that evening, as Misner warmed up the fried steak and potatoes Anna Flood had brought him for his supper, he had looked out of his window