The Sweet By and By A Novel Chapter One Lorraine I barely have got in the door good and it's already three thirty in the afternoon. Church seemed like it lasted too long this morning and I didn't come straight home like I usually do. Althea was determined to take me over to her house cause she had fixed collards and was bound for me to have some with her cornbread and dumplings, so now I'm 'bout to pop wide-open. She said she might not go to church so much if it wasn't for me, it takes so much time out of a Sunday. I told her, "Don't be puttin the burden of your soul on me, girl. You're too hardheaded to change, and I'm too smart to try and make you." Althea used to decorate cakes for a livin out of her own kitchen 'til it 'bout killed her it got to be so much work. She did birthdays, anniversaries, weddings of course, retirements, and a -couple times she even made a cake for a funeral, but I don't think there was much decoration on those. Now she works in an insurance office, mostly houses and cars is what they do. She picks me up on Sunday mornings for church sometimes, I think she likes to have some company ridin, and there ain't no way her husband is gon go unless a meal is bein served. She is one drivin woman, I tell you that. Wants to go, go, go every minute. This morning we had time to drink a cup of coffee cause she got to my house so fast. I pulled out the cups and put four big spoons of sugar in hers or else she woulda asked me if I was tryin to put her on a diet. "Well," Althea said, raising her eyebrows when she took the hot coffee from me. "Lorraine, I've had a revelation." "Was it the Ten Commandments?" I asked. "Cause I ain't so sure you got em the first time around." She ignored me. "I had a dream last night. I woke up sweatin to death, and I remember every bit of it. There was a circle of candles and me sittin in the middle of em." "Is this voodoo, Althea, cause if it is . . . ?" "You're bad for interruptin somebody, you know that?" "I'll hush." I took too big a sip and burned my tongue. Althea looked around like she was about to tell a secret even though there wasn't a soul there but the two of us, sittin in my kitchen drinking coffee and gettin ready to be late for church. She pushed her cup to one side so she could lean in across the table. "When I tried to step over the candles they flew up in the air like comets or something and disappeared, I mean poof." She lowered her voice to a whisper. "Then I saw a man with his shirt wide-open and muscles all up and down his chest and stomach. Fine lookin too. Standing in front of a big pond, no, a lake, big as Jordan Lake, and he was waving at me to come across with him, only there wasn't a boat or any other way to get across. Then he took a -couple of steps backwards with his pants rolled up, water lapping around his ankles. He kept on waving at me to come down there, and I thought to myself I don't even know you, you might be tryin to drown me." I got up and ran some water in my empty cup, then set it in the sink. I would wash it later. "Are you listenin to me?" Althea snapped. "I told you I would hush, that's what I'm doin." "Well I woke up, Lorraine, and I realized. That mighta been Moses I dreamed. Do you think it was Moses?" "Hmm." I must have made a sound even though I didn't realize it. "That's all you got to say?" "Honey, what exactly's the revelation?" "It's time for me to cross over, Lorraine. That's all I'm sayin." "You gon die sometime soon?" Althea shook her head and reached for her coat. "I don't know why I try to tell you anything. You don't have my kind of vision. Let's go to the car." Me and Althea go way back. She helped me just about raise my daughter, much as anybody did besides my mama. That's how come she feels like she can act like a second mother to April. Some -people might not like another person tellin their child what to do, but I like it all right. Having to make all the rules all the time wasn't never my idea of a party. I'm grateful for the help. There's one thing about gettin somebody to help you though, you got to take whatever it looks like, their kind of help, and you can't be choosing what you like and don't like. Help is a take it or leave it kind of thing, and if you can't take it like it comes, might as well leave it cause it's gon be more trouble than it's worth. Or you're gon lose a friend in the process. When April was little, we stayed at Mama's. She didn't have many rules in her house except for one, and I made it my rule too. No matter what else was goin on, we had to sit down and eat breakfast together every day unless one of us was sick, and I mean so sick you couldn't get yourself up out of the bed. Mama fixed food for me and April while I got ready to go to work. There was one morning, I remember cause I had just started my new job, I heard her call April in from her bedroom for about the third time. Breakfast was on the table, and knowing my daughter, she was probably readin something or other, still in the bed. The Sweet By and By A Novel . Copyright © by Todd Johnson. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from The Sweet by and By by Todd Johnson All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
