“You all right?” I asked her again when I got up to the top of the yard where she was standing. She pulled her arms even tighter around her and turned her head and looked up the road she’d just come down. That rain picked up a little then, and I could hear the thunder rumble out over the valley behind me.

“Can you keep me from having a baby?” she asked. She turned her face to me and her eyes looked like she was just terrified to have to ask me a question like that.

“Do you think you’re pregnant?”

“If I was, could you keep me from having it?” she asked.

“Why are you asking about that?” I said.

“I just can’t have me another baby,” she said.

“Well, Lord, why not?” I asked. “Having a baby is a good thing, girl. It ain’t no reason to be scared.”

“I can’t have it,” she said.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because,” she said, “I’m afraid it’ll happen again.”

“What’ll happen?” I asked.

“It’ll be like Christopher,” she said.

“Goodness, Julie,” I said. “That ain’t no reason to get rid of it. Christopher’s a fine boy, and you know you don’t love him no less than you would’ve if he’d been different. And look at Jess. You got yourself two fine little boys, and there ain’t nothing wrong with either one of them.”

“But Pastor said it might happen again,” she said. “And I think he might be right.”

“What makes you think that man knows anything about having a baby?” I asked. “He ain’t no woman, and he ain’t no prophet neither. No matter how bad he wants y’all to believe he is.”

“He just knows,” she said. “And I believe him when he says it.”

“What’s Ben got to say about all this?” I asked her.

“I ain’t told him yet,” she said. “And I ain’t going to either.”

“A man needs to be told something like this,” I said. “I think a father needs to have a say in it.”

“If you’re thinking you ain’t going to do it, then tell me now so I’ll know for sure,” she said. Her eyes dropped to the ground, and her voice was just a whisper. “I already been trying to stop it anyway.”

“What have you done?” I asked. She turned and looked out over the trees that ran down into the holler behind the house. When she looked at me again, her eyes were full of tears. She tried to say something, and then she stopped herself like she was going to cry.

“I been doing all kinds of things,” she finally said. “Boiled some water in a pot and knelt over the steam until I couldn’t stand it anymore.” She looked back toward the road, and then she looked down at her stomach. She lifted up her blouse with one hand and pulled at the waistline of her skirt with the other. When she did, I saw that her stomach was purple with bruises so dark it looked like she’d dyed her skin with blackberries.

“Lord, girl,” I said. “Who done this to you?”

“I done it,” she said. “I threw myself on the edge of the porch until I couldn’t stand up to do it again.”

She started crying then, and I went to her and wrapped my arms around her, and when I did her body shuddered like it was too painful to even be touched. She folded her arms across her belly again and leaned her head against my shoulder and took to sobbing.

“It’s going to be all right,” I said. “There ain’t nothing to be afraid of.”

“I was going to drink some castor oil, but I didn’t have any,” she said.

“Who told you that would work?” I asked.

“Pastor did,” she said. When I heard that, I leaned back so I could see her, and she stepped away from me and wiped her eyes.

“Pastor told you to do all this to yourself?” I asked.

“He showed me how to do it,” she said. “And he told me if I didn’t get it this month then I should come and see you. He said you might be able to fix it, if you’re willing. He said you wouldn’t tell nobody either.”

I didn’t like Carson Chambliss speaking for me, especially when it came to this kind of thing, especially when we hadn’t said more than two words to each other in years and years. And I didn’t like a grown woman telling her pastor she was pregnant before her own husband knew and then him sending her out to me after showing her how to get rid of it on her own. Then it dawned on me, and I’ll never forget the look on Julie’s face when I asked.

“Is this Ben’s baby?”

She raised her eyes to mine, and we stood there looking at each other. “What do you mean?” she said.

“Is this Ben’s baby?” I asked again.

“Of course,” she said. “Whose in this world would it be otherwise?”

“You tell me,” I said.

“If you don’t think you’re going to do it, then tell me now,” she said. “I can figure out something else if you won’t help me.”

I ain’t going to say that I hadn’t ever done it before, and I ain’t going to say there’s not reasons good and bad for that kind of thing, but I knew right then there wasn’t no way I was going to do it for Julie Hall, no matter who’d sent her. But I didn’t tell her that with her standing out in the rain soaking wet and scared to death, bruises spreading out across her belly like flower blossoms.

“Let’s just wait,” I told her. “Let’s just wait another month and see what happens. It ain’t going to hurt nothing at all if we just wait. You probably ain’t going to show for a while anyway.”

BUT I GUESS WHAT SHE’D DONE TO HERSELF MUST’VE WORKED BECAUSE she never mentioned nothing else about it to me, and she sure didn’t have no baby. I waited a couple of months before I asked her about it again, and I could tell then that she didn’t want to talk about it at all. We were standing out in the parking lot one Sunday afternoon after the service had let out. I’d brought the children up from the riverbank, and they were all running in between the cars and chasing each other like they always did. Julie was standing and talking to a few of the women from the church, and I waited until she was alone before I went up and spoke to her.

“I reckon you had your cycle,” I said, “because you ain’t been back around to see me.”

“I got it this month,” she said.

“You ever tell Ben?”

“No,” she said. “Turns out there wasn’t nothing to tell. I was just late; that’s all.” She turned around and hollered for Jess and Christopher, and then she loaded them up into Ben’s truck.

“You come by and see me if you ever need to,” I said. “It ain’t got to be about something like this, but just know you can come and talk to me whenever you need to.”

“Thank you,” she said, “but I reckon everything’s all right now. I’m fine.”

I stood and watched her back Ben’s old truck out of the parking lot and drive off up the road. I remember thinking, There goes a woman who’s gone and got herself scared good, but I just couldn’t figure out what in the world could’ve scared her so bad.

I turned back toward the building to talk to some folks before they left, and when I did I saw Carson Chambliss standing in the door of the church. The sunlight was right in his eyes, and he stood there with a wooden crate in each of his hands. He stared at me without even once blinking. He held those crates down at his sides by the little suitcase handles that were fastened to them; they had chicken wire stapled up around the insides, but he was too far away for me to see what was in there, although I knew well enough what they were.

“How’re you, Sister Adelaide?” he asked me.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I’m just about to leave.”

“We had us a blessed service this morning,” he said. “And I pray our children did as well.”

“We got along fine,” I said. “We always do.” He took him a few steps into the parking lot and stopped in front of me, and when he did one of those crates he held bucked so strong I was afraid it would jump out of his hand. He looked down at it for a second, and then he looked up at me. He was smiling.

“That’s good to hear,” he said. “Children are the lifeblood of this church. There ain’t no future without them.” He turned and set those crates in the back of Tommy Lester’s pickup truck where Tommy had put the ones he was carrying, and then he went around to the other side and climbed in beside Tommy. I watched them pull out of the parking lot and listened to Tommy rev the engine as they took off up the road.