Georgia Paranoia

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• Georgia Paranoia
• Chiquita Mullins Lee (bio)

Star Point, Georgia, August 1937

Star Point Holy Church. Miss Alma worked steady there, becoming a woman strengthened and ripened and wizened by the grief and the grind and sometimes cautious joys of taking care of peevish, imperfect, and somehow precious folks. Cora was growing up there, a tight-lipped teenager in the background, relieved her mother's shadow blocked every ray of light.

Folk always had something to say.

"Everybody knows he run off somewhere with another woman."

"Yeah, chile, don't no man want no preacher for a wife."

"That gal don't look nothing like him. You 'spect that's why he left?"

"The child ain't right in the head. She don't never say nothin.'"

Miss Alma never heard it. Cora heard it all, the hateful comments pushing her further inside herself. Miss Alma never talked about Mr. Henry. Cora never asked. She kept close by her mama when the church folk weren't around, and when they were, Cora removed herself from the present and the premises through a mental escape into Miss Alma's shadow.

"Miss Alma," they'd say, "My baby is already trying to out-talk me."

"Miss Alma, I crocheted this muffler myself, and I'm making another one for you."

"Miss Alma, did you love that pecan pie I sent you? Nuts came right off my backyard tree."

They'd talk right past Cora to Miss Alma, as if Cora wasn't even there. Miss Alma would be so consumed with soothing the new mama too anxious to switch to table food, calming the loud-talking elder with selective deafness, and loving on them in spite of themselves, that she didn't notice how they treated her girl, how her girl retreated into herself.

________

Cora learned early to cling. She found comfort with Alma, only. Miss Alma had shared stories and always suggested books or newspapers for Cora. Even before Cora learned how, Miss Alma sat with her little girl and talked about the world. Amazing Cora was so quiet. Seems she would have inherited that talking spirit from her mama.

Miss Alma and Cora had been sitting on the back porch one night when Cora was five years old. Star Point was deep dark and full of sounds. Every hoot and cricket gave a jolt to little Cora and she tensed into a knot, scared of every snap. Miss Alma could hear Cora holding her breath and drew her close.

"That's some music, right there," Miss Alma said. "That ain't noise to scare nobody. Just the jazz of the night. It's better when you relax and let it surprise you." [End Page 68]

Cora took a deep breath and heard an irregular drum beat of squawks, a flutish thrill of coos, a guttural something that might have been a lonely alley cat.

"Awww, looka there," Miss Alma pointed straight up. Cora couldn't see her hand, so black was the night, but she could see the sky lit with scattering pinpricks, and one flash slipping down an invisible arc. "See that falling star? That's how Star Point got its name. Stars rain down in Star Point like no other place on Earth. Sit outside at nighttime long enough. You'll see it. Every once in a while, and I knew I was blessed when I saw this, a star will land just so, and the point of that star will pierce the earth and colors will gush like a fountain."

Cora looked away from the sky and squinted to see Miss Alma's eyes, but she couldn't. Her mama's eyes were locked on the litter of dust in the path of the fallen star.

When they went in to go to bed, Miss Alma hugged Cora real tight. Cora didn't let go. At first, Miss Alma laughed, trying to unlock Cora's arms from around her waist. She pulled at Cora's arms, but Cora had them locked at her wrists.

"Come on and let Mama go," Miss Alma said.

Cora held tight and Miss Alma repeated, "Come on, now. Let me go."

Cora...