But the child who is born on the Sabbath Day
Is bonny and blithe and good and gay.
- Traditional
Bonny and Blithe
As if it weren't enough, her momma being that stupid she named her after a plantation (and a fictional one, at that), but God must have had some sick sense of humour letting Tara be born on a Sunday.
She was six when they learnt the poem at school. Sookie, Thursday's child through and through, had just lost both her parents. That year, on her birthday, Tara went to the old Stackhouse estate. Ms Stackhouse fed her pot roast and pudding, and when the dinner table had been cleared, and Tara's stomach felt like it could burst, Adele took out a parcel wrapped in tissue paper and set it in front of her.
The tissue tore, Tara remembered, as she was opening her present. It was so pretty, and so ruined, it made her want to cry. And when she saw what was inside, she did cry. It was a dress, Adele's needlework written all over it. White, with soft, lacey trimming that looked like it had been dripped in freshly churned butter.
With her hair washed and laboriously combed, she wore it to church the next day. Stepped out feeling like she was a beam of sunlight, to Sookie's horror and the other children's delight.
Lettie Mae, as if brought of her daze by the sound of laughing, dragged Tara into the trees by her arm, screeching: 'Don't you have no shame, girl, walking into the Lord's house in a nightgown?'
That year, Tara decided that she hated birthdays. Or maybe just her own.
THE END
13 September 2009
