"Don't tell no one," she said. "Especially not Miss Lil."
Samson whiped the sweat weighing down his thick eyebrows, unsure of why his best friend would think he'd tell Miss Lil anything. The two kids huffed as they climbed the hill, Samson a little harder than Naomi because he was a little fatter and his legs were short. When they got to the top, they could see the brilliant blue ocean and a cool breeze came off it and the salty air felt good as it licked the insides of his gaping mouth. Samson stopped and bent over a little to catch his breath.
Then he said, "Sure Omi. But... what was it like?"
She shrugged her shoulders, which were burnt except for the line of skin beneath her spaghetti straps.
"It was just a shadow standing there against the wall that holds up the bridge."
"And then what?"
"And then a train came by and when it was gone the shadow was gone too. The end."
She trudged down the other side of the hill, in the direction of the ocean. Samson noticed that she didn't look at him. There was something she wasn't saying. He just looked at his feet so he wouldn't fall on the lumpy ground. The tall grass brushed against his legs and, remembering how Miss Lil always checked for ticks, he pulled his socks all the way up so the little red stripe at the top was near his knees. They were damp and dark with mud.
Halfway down the hill, there was a lonely house on a small ledge. It was small and painted on its various walls in purple, pink, and pastel blue. The roof was corrugated aluminium. A brick wall enclosed a little garden and a green wooden gate hung open. The pair entered into the garden and passed beneath the shade of a mango tree.
Naomi snatched a mango from the ground and handed it to Samson. The boy bit into it and it smelled like his mother's wine.
"So what are you afraid of, then?" Samson said.
"Well you can't tell Miss Lil about ghosts, that's all. I'm not afraid of them. I'm afraid of her."
"If you're so afraid of her, then what are we doing in her garden?"
"I'm only afraid of her when she's mad. So don't don't make her mad."
The children turned when they heard a low humming. A shadow darkened the door and then a rubber footed cane emerged and searched the uneven ground for purchase. The tip of an orthopedic shoe followed. The humming continued. Samson guessed it was some old hymn, though he couldn't make it out. The sound was too low and broken by intervals of heavy breathing. The woman emerged in full. The breeze kicked up from the ocean, causing the red and orange flowers on her skirts to flap about her legs. It twirled her dark unruly locks too. The woman's towering height made her look to Naomi and Samson as though she were the one causing the wind. Like she was herself a force of nature.
"You coming to Sunday School tomorrow?" she said.
Omi nodded. "Of course, Miss Lil." she said, but without looking Miss Lil in the eyes.
"What's the matter with you, child?"
"Nothing."
"Lying's no good. It'll come back to you. You'll see. Get along, now."
They gathered up a few of mangoes they'd come for and left without a word. That night it rained pretty hard. Samson changed out of his muddy clothes and into a set of pajamas printed with the orange and white livery of the Houston Astros. They were his favorite pajamas, though he was much too old for them. The legs barely touched his ankles and their were holes in his knees. He had to be careful because there was now a tiny hole in the crotch and the other day Naomi saw his penis. Samson could only wear the clothes because the elastic waistband had long since grown tattered and limp.
He sat on the concrete porch, where an awning covered most his body. The rain still fell on his feet, but it was warm. Back in the house, his Momma was yelling at the TV. At dinner time she'd started drinking that wine which smelled like rotten mangoes and now she was nearly done with the first bottle. Samson heard the volume tick up. It would go on like that all night, with Momma raising the TV volume every so often and shouting even louder.
There was something out there. The mist sometimes made shapes in the darkness. Samson wondered if maybe he was seeing the ghost Omi had seen down by the train tracks. He heard footsteps on the ground. He heard it speak.
"Samson?"
The boy shot up and ran back into the house. He wasn't watching where he was going, so he tripped over the second bottle, which Momma had just opened, and tumbled in front of the TV. He splashed down in a dark red puddle that soaked into his Astros pajamas.
"What you...?" she shouted.
Samson didn't wait for her fists to come down on him. He got up on all fours and crawled away as Momma fumbled. Then he stood on his feet and ran to the woodshed, where he could lock the door. He sat there in the dark while his mother pounded on the door and screamed at him. He could see her mouth in the gaps between two of the wooden planks, where another plank should've been but was missing. Most of her teeth were gone.
In time, she gave up and went away, knocking over a chair as she departed. Samson listened to the sound of the rain on the metal roof and in time he slept. He awoke to the tolling of church bells. Someone was pounding on the front door. Samson unlocked the shed and found Momma asleep on the chair in front of the TV. He flung open the door and there was Miss Lil on the concrete step, her head nearly touching the awning. Naomi stood next to her dressed in Sunday white and blue with a ribbon around the top of her braid.
"What happened to you?" Omi said.
"Hush." said Miss Lil as she looked Samson up and down and peered into the home. "Let's go."
"I'm not dressed." said Samson.
"I'll get you new clothes. Come. We'll have our own Sunday school."
She led them down the hill and into her little yard with the mango tree and into her house. It was the tidiest place Samson had ever seen. Miss Lil sat him down on a big, fluffy chair while she went into another room. Then she returned with a pair of blue jeans and a striped shirt. She gave them to Samson and he changed right there without much caring who saw what.
"I bought those for my own son." she said. "Twenty years ago."
"They look brand new." Naomi said.
"He never had a chance to wear them."
The towering woman used her cane to propel her to the other side of the room, where an upright piano sat. She flipped up the key board and her hands hovered above the ivories. She hummed to herself again. Then her fingers came down and she sang. The children sang along. When they finished, Miss Lil turned to them.
"Isn't this nice?" she said. "Our own private Sunday School."
At that moment, a shot ran out across the hillside. The kids didn't dare ask what it was. Miss Lil got up and went into the yard and only then did Samson and Naomi follow. They stayed behind her as she reached the top and just stood there, staring. There was Samson's house and there was Momma, kneeling on the ground.
She was silent and her mouth was parted. She ran her finger tips up her brow until they reached her widow's peak and then pushed them back through her hair, dragging mounds of sweaty bangs out of her face. The hair flopped back and she did this ritual over and over. Then she grasped the hair and pulled it and screamed. Momma's fists came down and slammed them into the chest of a dead man stretched out in front of her.
His face was gone. A pistol lay nearby.
"Oh Samson." said Miss Lil.
The big woman reached her arms around him and her waves of bright fabric closed off the scene like a theater curtain. Samson turned his face away. Miss Lil smelled nice, like burning candles on a birthday cake. He'd always loved it when she hugged him. Through the narrow gap between her arms he could see Omi standing there with a stunned look. Then the girl's eye's met Samson's and she began to wail.
"I'm sorry Miss Lil!" she shouted. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"
Miss Lil didn't ask Naomi what she meant and didn't tell her to shut up, the two responses the children had come to expect from most adults. Instead, Miss Lil grasped them both by the hands and towed them back to her house. She set them down at a little square table in the kitchen and put two tall glasses of lemonade in front of them. Samson didn't know what was going on or how exactly to ask about it, but at least he could take the cold glass with his two hands and gulp down the liquid, which was so cold he couldn't even taste its sweetness. It was only then that he realized his throat was burning.
A little calmer, Noami said, "I saw the ghost man down by the tracks. You told me not to lie to you about it and you told me it would come back to me and now it's happened."
"That was no ghost man." said Miss Lil.
The girl barreled on as if she hadn't heard the response.
"I didn't tell you because you'd say I saw the devil or something and make me take communion."
Miss Lil set a hand on Omi's shoulder and said, "None of this is your fault. There's nothing that you could do to change it, and nothing you didn't do that made a difference either." She turned to Samson and said, "Do you know who that man was?"
"No." he said in a small voice.
"It was your Daddy."
Samson thought about the figure he'd seen in the fog. It had called his name.
"I've never seen him before."
"Well, he had problems."
Considering the state of his mother, the boy couldn't image what that meant as it regarded his father.
"Do you want to help me do the dishes?" said Miss Lil. "We can talk about this all later."
"Sure."
She put a foot stool in front of the sink. It was green and stenciled with words in yellow that red, "Sit Down To Be Small, Step Up To Be Tall." Samson stepped up and turned on the water. As he filled the sink with soap, he knew this was an odd thing to be doing after witnessing the death of a father he'd never known. At the same time, he knew it was just the right thing. At the moment, he felt as though his life had been lived on the wrong side of the fence, where you could only see slivers of what lay beyond. In an hour or perhaps another day, he'd be ready to get the story from Miss Lil. He'd be ready to cross over. But not now.
Samson took a dish rag and dipped his hands on the water. Naomi was quietly sobbing behind him, but then stopped as she took another drag on the lemonade. She gulped loudly and then breathed, not crying so hard anymore. Samson pushed the dishrag round and round on a plate, making a spiral from the center out to the edge.
"Sometimes." said Miss Lil. "This is all we can do to hold off the darkness."
Just then it began to rain again. It was a light rain. It whispered on the roof. Samson rinsed the plate, put it on the rack, and took another.