My motherâs peach cobbler was so good, it made God himself cheat on his wife. When I was five, I hovered around my mother in the kitchen, watching, close enough to have memorized all the ingredients and steps by the time I was six. But not too close to make her yell at me for being in the way. And not close enough to see the exact measurements she used. She never wrote the recipe down. Without having to be told, I learned not to ask questions about that cobbler, or about God. I learned not to say anything at all about him hunching over our kitchen table every Monday eating plate after plate of peach cobbler, and then disappearing into the bedroom I shared with my mother.
I became a silent student of my mother and her cobbler-making ways. Even when I was older and no longer believed that God and Reverend Troy Neely were one and the same, I still longed to perfect the sweetness and textures of my motherâs cobbler. My mother, who fed me TV dinners, baked a peach cobbler 60with fresh peaches every Monday, her day off from the diner where she waited tables. She always said Sunday was her Saturday and Monday was her Sunday. What I knew was that none of her days were for me.
And for many of those Mondays off and on during my childhood, God (to my childâs mind) would stop by and eat an entire 8 x 8 pan of cobbler. My mother never ate any of the cobbler herself; she said she didnât like peaches. She would shoo me out of the kitchen before God could offer me any, but I doubted he would have offered even if Iâd sat right down next to him. God was an old fat man, like a Black Santa, and I imagined my motherâs peach cobbler contributing to his girth.
Some Mondays, God would arrive after dinner and leave as I lay curled up on the couch watching Little House on the Prairie in the living room. Other times my mother and God would already be in the bedroom when I got home from school. I could hear moaning and pounding, like a board hitting a wall, as soon as I entered the house. I would shut the front door quietly behind me and tiptoe down the hall to listen outside the bedroom door. âOh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!â my mother would cry. I could hear God too, his voice low and growly, saying, âYes, yes, yes!â
Even before he started coming by on Mondays, I had suspected that Pastor Neely, the pastor of Hope 61in Christ Baptist Church, was God. He was big, black, and powerful, as I imagined God to be. My very first Easter speech, memorized in kindergarten during Sunday School, was âJesus is the Son of God,â but I didnât find it odd that Black God could have a blue-eyed, blond son. Pastor Neely was dark, his wife was pale, and their son, Trevor, who was around my age, had gray eyes and wasnât too much darker than the Jesus whose picture hung all over church. Plus, midway through every Sunday service, Pastor Neely, his wife, and Trevor stood in the front of the sanctuary and collected a love offering from the congregation as the choir sang âI Love You (Lord Today).â So it was easy for me to deduce that Pastor Neely was the âLord.â My motherâs cries of passion through our bedroom door confirmed it.
I enjoyed the theater of Pastor Neelyâs Sunday sermons. From the pulpit, he thundered and roared at the congregation about Godâs wrath and judgment. And when he intoned about Godâs goodness and mercy, he wrapped his arms around himself and rocked. Then he stepped down from the pulpit and prowled the aisles of the sanctuary, energized and excited to tell us what he called the Good News. For a big man, he moved with surprising ease and grace. By the time he got to the altar call, most of the women and some of the men would 62be up on their feet, swaying and crying out. But not my mother. She stayed seated, her face unreadable as usual.
Pastor and First Lady Neely were the opposite of Jack Sprat and his wife. He, thick and corpulent. She, gangly and gaunt, like a childâs stick figure drawing. During the love offering, she stood as straight and stiff as an arrow. Her straight brown hair hung past her shoulders, and I thought she was a white woman until years later, when I saw her up close for the first time, at her front door.
Like many of the church ladies, First Lady Neely wore a wide-brimmed hat, but hers hung low and almost obscured her eyes. But I could see enough of her to know that she did not have big, begging eyes like my mother; she was not beautiful like my mother. She did not have my motherâs round breasts and full hips, the kind that excited strange men on the street. Men my mother called âdirty motherfuckersâ when they said nasty things to her as we walked past. First Lady Neely probably never walked anywhere. I saw her stepping out of a pink Cadillac in the church parking lot one day. I heard one of the church ladies standing nearby say she had earned that car selling Mary Kay.
Pastor Neely always drove a luxury car, a new one each year, gifts from the congregation. He parked it in our backyard, which was adjacent to the woods. Our house sat alone at the dead end of a gravel road. The 63nearest neighbor was a half a mile away, near my bus stop.
One day, in second grade, I ran that whole half mile home, excited to share some good news with my mother. I burst into the house, threw my backpack on the couch, and ran straight into the kitchen, breathless.
Pastor Neely sat at the table, hunched over. It was a Monday. He looked up from his plate of cobbler and said hello in that fake, forced way that drags out the oâthe way people say it when they donât enjoy talking to children. I said hello back, and he went right back to his cobbler. He ate surprisingly small spoonfuls, slowly. His full lips, slightly parted and glistening, made me think of the kissing I saw on TV and the movies. The spoon practically disappeared in his bear paw of a hand. His fingers resembled the thick sausages my mother made for breakfast sometimes on Sunday morning.
My mother leaned against the counter near the back door with her arms folded, watching Pastor Neely eat. She looked pleasedânot particularly happy, but pleased. And yet she watched him so intently she also appeared ready to rush and block the door if he tried to leave.
âMama!â I said, still gasping to catch my breath. âGuess what!â
64âWhat?â She never took her eyes off the pastor.
âLatasha Wilson invited me to her birthday slumber party. Can I go?â The talk at school was Latasha Wilson lived in a two-story house and had a pink canopy Barbie bed. Her hair was always neatly pressed and pulled into a high ponytail of shiny, spiraling curls. Her father worked at a bank. The birthday party invitation, which Iâd shoved down inside the front of my shirt, smelled like bubble gum. Latasha smelled like bubble gum. I bet her house smelled like bubble gum too. I couldnât wait to find out.
âNo,â my mother said.
I bit down on the âwhy notâ that almost slipped out of my mouth. My motherâs eyes were still on Pastor Neely. His eyes were still on the cobbler. My eyes filled with tears.
âGo on and change out of your school clothes,â my mother said.
Tears spilled down my cheeks as I backed out of the kitchen. At first I stood in the hallway out of sight instead of going to the bedroom to change. Normally I did what my mother told me to do. But at that moment, I was too crushed.
I peeked around the corner. My mother had sat down at the table, across from Pastor Neely. She couldnât see me peeking, but Pastor Neely suddenly 65looked up from the cobbler, right at me! I quickly moved out of sight, bracing myself. But instead of ratting me out, Pastor Neely asked my mother a question: âWhy wonât you let the girl go to the party?â
I peeked around the corner again.
My mother sighed. âBecause I like to keep to myself and she needs to learn to keep to herself too. Itâs better that way. You go accepting invitations, then people expect an invitation in return. Then you got people coming in your house, looking at what you have and what you donât have. And the next thing you know, your business is all over town.â My mother ran her fingertips along the edge of the table and smiled to herself. âAnd Iâm sure you can understand not wanting to have your business all over town.â
Pastor Neely didnât say anything. He just took another bite of cobbler and shook his head.
âAnd besides âŚâ my mother said, âIâm trying to raise her to be satisfied with what she has. I know that lil girl Latashaâs mama and her daddy. Went to school with them. Theyâve always been flashy, like to show off. He used to drive her around in his daddyâs Lincoln until his daddy bought him a Mustang. At sixteen years old. They got money and all that come with it. So you know Latasha donât want for nothing and that birthday party is going to be over the top.â
66âI donât know these people,â Pastor Neely said, âbut if the Lord has blessed them, and they want to celebrate their childâs birthday and invite your child to share in it, I donât see the problem.â It was strange hearing Pastor Neely talk about the Lord outside of his pulpit. Instead of that scary, booming voice, he sounded like a regular person. A regular person who might convince my mother to let me go to Latasha Wilsonâs birthday party. I crossed my fingers on both hands.
My mother sat up straighter in her chair. When she spoke, it was slowly, as if she were trying to choose her words carefully. âThey can raise their child however they see fit. But Iâm not going to raise mine to go through life expecting it to be sweet, when for her, it ainât going to be. The sooner she learns to accept what is and what ainât, the better. She get a taste of that sweetness, sheâs going to want it so bad, sheâll grow up and settle for crumbs of it.â
Pastor Neely glanced at me again, shook his head, and ate the last bite of cobbler.
I ducked back out of sight and uncrossed my fingers. My eyes filled with tears again. Without looking, I knew my mother would whisk away the empty cobbler pan, the pastorâs plate, and the spoon. I knew she would dunk them in the soapy dishwater in the sink, 67like she always did, so that I couldnât even sneak a taste of the remnants later.
âYou got the best cobbler in the world right here,â I heard Pastor Neely say, Latasha Wilsonâs birthday party invitation apparently forgotten. He said this all the time. And because I believed he was a kind of Black Santa, I imagined him preaching at church on Sunday, traveling the whole world Tuesday through Saturday to try other mothersâ peach cobblers, but always coming back to my motherâs on Monday.
I went and changed out of my school clothes, then sat on the couch, unsure of what to do with this new feeling toward my mother: anger.
I heard them go into our bedroom and shut the door. I got up to put a TV dinner in the oven. Sometimes my mother remembered to put one in, sometimes she didnât. The fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn, and warm brownie was my favorite. I always ate the brownie first, while it was still gooey in the middle.
Sometimes Pastor Neely and my mother would be in the bedroom for minutes, sometimes an hour. Always there was laughter when they came out. My mother would be laughing at some joke I hadnât heard, and she would wish ...
