The Barrenness

By Sonja Lewis

This debut novel intrigues with an element of surprise that keeps the reader captivated until the very last page—a story about whether you can truly be fulfilled as a woman without being a mother.

When Georgia peach Lil (pronounced Lille, France) embarks upon a campaign to have a child, she expects her most formidable opponent to be her biological clock. After all she is 39, her childless aunt, Mamie Lee, reminds her.

Nonetheless, when Aunt Mamie dies suddenly, Lil finds herself up against a cadre of obstacles, including a battle with her aunt’s stepson over the family’s land and a relationship with a congressman who doesn’t want more children and possibly can’t have them anyhow. She also faces a major crisis at her high-powered job.

The most unsettling of all her adversaries, however, turns out to be her own mind, filled with conventional notions about this illusive tie in between motherhood and womanhood.

An emotionally captivating story, told with skilful pacing that makes it hard to put down.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sonja Lewis
• Release date: Apr 3, 2011
• ISBN: 9780956710512

Sonja Lewis

Sonja Lewis, author of The Barrenness, proudly introduces her second novel, The Blindsided Prophet; a riveting read about a modern-day prophet, who fails to predict a tragic event that alters his life forever. She has appeared on CNN and The Tom Joyner Morning Show, as well as in a host of regional and local programs. She has also been featured in Black Enterprise magazine, and in the media in Canada and the United Kingdom. A former newspaper journalist for The Albany Herald (Georgia, USA), Sonja has also written for British newspaper The Guardian, and run a successful communications consultancy in the UK. Today, she writes a blog for the Huffington Post, UK, and sonjalewis.com. A member of the Society of Authors and English Pen, Sonja lives in London with her husband, Paul.

Book preview

What Reviewers Have Said

The Barrenness is a novel that touches on one of the critically important issues of our times. Sonja Lewis is a writer to look out for ~ Jacob Ross

An emotionally captivating story with skilful pacing, character development and dialogue ~ Natasha Mostert

Sonja Lewis delivers a seamless novel comprised of controversy, surprising twists and turns with tremendous ease. As a writer, Lewis is a force. ~ Pam Oliver

If you like Maya Angelou, you will love the echoes in this modern update. ~ Helen Beatty

For Aunt Fannie and for Paul

PART ONE

Labor Day

CHAPTER 1

Lil

Aunt Mamie’s words are always hard to shake. Her words from their phone conversation the day before sit at the pit of Lil’s stomach and haunt her. She cannot keep her mind on her work. All she seems capable of is staring out the window and remembering. Just remember what I said about time, her aunt said, as if Lil could forget.

Gripping the telephone to her ear, Lil watched the rain come down in sheets. She’d heard her aunt’s opinion about having a child loud and clear. But women were having children later these days, weren’t they? She had time as far as she was concerned. She wasn’t quite forty yet. And she really didn’t see what all this had to do with womanhood, not really.

Lil, you still there, Aunt Mamie said. Yeah, she answered and changed the subject. It’s coming down pretty hard out there, isn’t it?

At least you made it home in time, Aunt Mamie snapped. In time for what, Lil wondered, having pushed the Porsche to top speed to cut the three-hour drive from Atlanta to two and half, but she didn’t dare ask for fear that she’d be pulled into an unpleasant conversation about her aunt’s day of reckoning, all she seemed to want to talk about these days— and, of course, Lil having a child.

Listen, Aunt Mamie, I’m really sorry I didn’t make it yesterday, but I couldn’t miss the crisis meeting. You know that. Barbara would never let me hear the end of it.

Is what your boss thinks all you care about? There’s other things in life. Humph!

Lil rolled her eyes, glad that her aunt couldn’t see her. Anyhow, speaking of other things, I brought you something pretty. Her aunt was eerily silent. I won’t say what it is, but I will say it’s mauve. It’s just a little something, but you’ll love it, Aunt Mamie. You’ll see tomorrow.

Mauve was her aunt’s favorite color—surely she would be pleased. But she didn’t even respond. Lil couldn’t understand why Aunt Mamie was being so stubborn. She’d never been the easiest person to get through to, but normally, she came around. They had been like mother and daughter for nearly thirty years.

Lil’s mother died when she was ten, leaving her and her two sisters with their father, a busy high school principal. In the beginning, Bud Lee would tie his necktie with one hand and scramble eggs with the other, simultaneously, like he didn’t need help, though his childless sister lived next door. But after a few episodes of burned dinners, bleached-out clothing, and tangled hair, he must have concluded otherwise. Though the girls objected at first to this seemingly hard-hearted woman meddling in their business, Aunt Mamie became their surrogate mother until their father remarried and moved them to Ohio. Lil was twelve then and had no interest whatsoever in moving.

She wanted to stay in Georgia. There, she would always be reminded of times when life was certain, as certain as her mother’s presence. There, she didn’t have to deal with cold weather and cold people, like she did in the poky town of Steubenville, Ohio. But her father refused her pleas and moved her to the place with steep hills and harsh landscapes anyhow. He did, however, agree that she could visit Georgia in the summertime, so every summer she took a Greyhound bus a week after school turned out and endured the long, rambling journey with the help of a good book. She could count on Aunt Mamie to be at the Riverview Station waiting for her.

The older she got, the more she looked forward to the summer, in spite of Georgia’s stagnating heat. The truth was, on the Buildings, she didn’t have to worry about anybody making her uncomfortable—not anybody, not her peers and not her shady uncle-in-law, Mickey. She hadn’t thought of him for years, but she would never forget him.

Anyhow, ten years ago, she had taken a job with Cosmed, making it possible for her and Jerome to move back to southwest Georgia permanently, to be near her aunt and her husband’s family. At work, she had a quick rise to the top, but it didn’t do her marriage any favors. Jerome strayed. So just over a year ago, she had finally kicked her husband out. Enough was enough.

Now Aunt Mamie lived in a nursing home, not quite the same as her small, cozy house on the Buildings, but God willing, she would return home soon, to pick up where she left off, and Lil would visit her there. Until then, Lil saw her at the nursing home every week. Yesterday had been her first miss in three months. Didn’t history count for something?

When lightning flashed across the room, she knew her aunt would hang up soon, whether she had something to say or not. Aunt Mamie couldn’t stand talking on the phone or doing anything that required electricity or water during bad weather.

I’ll see you tomorrow, Aunt Mamie. I might even knock off early.

Humph, it’ll be all over by then, her aunt said as the thunder roared.

What will be all over? Lil couldn’t help asking.

The storm, her aunt said. Anyhow, just remember what I said about time. Her aunt hung up. Lil stewed, gazing out the window.

***

NOW LIL DROPS INTO HER CHAIR and starts working on the crisis strategy. She slips her feet in and out of her high heels. Her eyes feel dry, her eyelids heavy. She has tried every remedy she knows—ibuprofen, a macchiato, sparkling water—to get rid of the veil hanging over her eyes today, but it dangles there along with her thoughts of her aunt. She drops her pencil onto the desk.

When they last saw each other, her aunt had said something to Lil about her womanhood slipping away with time if she didn’t have a child. And she was obviously making the same point again last night.

The phone buzzes, causing her to flinch.

You have an urgent call on line one, her secretary says.

She grabs up the phone. Aunt Mamie?

It’s Will, her aunt’s stepson says in his brittle, scraggly tone. She pushes the hold button and takes a deep breath.

Jennifer! You didn’t tell me it was Will Owens.

You didn’t give me a chance.

Will has never called her before. She does not trust him. She can’t say why, except he has inserted himself into her aunt’s life in a strange way. Lately, every time she has visited the nursing home, he’s been sitting at the foot of the bed, following her movements with his curious eyes. Thank God, her aunt shooed him off the last time she was there.

Did he say what he wants?

No, but he said it’s urgent. He’s your aunt’s son, right?

Stepson. She returns to the call and shudders at the sound of his heavy breathing. Hi, Will, what can I do for you?

He grunts, grating on her nerves. Momma2 passed in the middle of the night.

Lil reaches for the stress ball near her computer. Her fingers encircle it and squeeze it. She can feel her chest constricting and the faint pressure of her aunt’s pearl necklace around her neck. She can’t have heard him right. She wants to ask him to repeat himself, but her voice is stuck in her throat.

You act like you didn’t hear me. I said Momma2 died last night.

This time her brain processes his words. Momma2 is Aunt Mamie; Aunt Mamie is Momma 2. She feels as if a rug has been pulled from underneath her, though she is sitting. It’s similar to the way she felt when her mother died. Then her father had been there to hold her up, offer his shoulder to lean on and cling to. Now all she has is a plastic telephone with the harsh voice of a stranger delivering the news.

This can’t be right, she says, her head spinning. I mean, I just talked to her last night.

So did I, he says.

By now, the dizziness is so powerful that her head is pounding, as if something were chipping away at her temple. I don’t understand. She sounded well when I talked to her. What happened?

She died, he says. A natural death in her sleep.

She feels the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She props the telephone on her shoulder and intensely rubs the back of her neck.

I ain’t surprised, he says. She tried to prepare us.

As much as she hates to admit it, he’s right. I’ll call Foster’s straight away, she says.

For what? he asks. I’ve already called Baine’s. They’re going to pick up her body later this morning.

You’ll just have to call them back. She nearly drops the phone as she continues to massage her neck, which feels like it is on fire. The funeral home is Foster’s. It’s in her will.

I ain’t calling nobody back. The decision to go with Baines is final. You need to call them back, Will. Tell them. She raises her voice, feeling her body lift out of the chair at the same time. All I need to do is stay black and die. Who put you in charge? she asks, ignoring his comment. Why did the doctors call you, anyhow?

Will stalls, but she knows the answer. The bastard probably told the doctors not to talk to anyone except him. He did that the last time her aunt got sick, but Lil’s father had set him straight, told him to his face not to disrespect Lil ever again. After all, she was the closest thing her aunt had to a child. Did you tell the doctors not to call me? Is that why they called you?

For the record, the doctors didn’t call me, he says. Papa called me. He is her husband, remember? Papa—her husband. He the one thought you would appreciate a phone call. But I see that was a mistake. Don’t worry about me trying to do you any more favors.

You do me a favor? Give me a break. I have just as much of a right to know as you do, if not more. I’m her closest relative here, or have you forgotten?

Papa is her closest relative anywhere, Lil Lee. Get a grip, girl.

Lil pulls the phone away from her ear again and curses under her breath. I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I will be there as soon as I can.

For what?

You know for what!

No, I don’t know. We ain’t changing the funeral home if that’s what you think. And everything else is going to get done with or without you.

Now Lil wants Will to stay out of the matter altogether. He’s messed things up enough already. In fact, she wants him out of her aunt’s life—out of her death, to be more specific. And that means getting him out of Aunt Mamie’s house. He has been staying there since her aunt and his father moved to the nursing home. You’ll need to move out of Aunt Mamie’s house as soon as possible.

Why? he says. It’s my house now.

That is a lie! She hears the firmness in her voice.

Bullshit, he says. Momma2 left the house to me.

Aunt Mamie left her house to me. It’s in her will. You must know that.

Will’s sudden quietness gives her the feeling she has pushed him beyond anger. Then without any warning, his voice erupts in a heated flow. No, I don’t know that, but I tell you what I do know, bitch. She left the house to me, and I am not moving! He slams down the phone.

The phone slides from its safe place between her shoulder and neck and falls to the floor. She doesn’t bother to retrieve it, just sits trembling and clutching the pearls around her neck.

***

THE SENSIBLE PLACE TO GO FOR A COFFEE before a senior management meeting should be the lounge, but Lil can’t face her colleagues. They will be assembled in the tight space, anticipating the worse about the thousand cases against Timeless, Cosmed’s anti-aging cream. Women throughout the world who have used the product religiously for almost ten years are now linking the cream to their skin cancer. The first verdict is expected this morning.

The thought of Cosmed being a fraud is more than she can stomach right now. She has been with the company for ten years. There has to be a logical explanation, just has to—but she can’t deal with that now. Her mind flits to thoughts of death, so permanent and so unsettling, though it is supposed to be natural. To her mind, death is anything but natural.

The day her mother died, she sensed something was wrong before she knew. Aunt Mamie had been driving the bus since she could remember. But that day she wasn’t there. Lil boarded the bus anyhow and plunked down beside her middle sister, Paris, who was ensconced in the front seat behind the substitute driver. When this particular woman drove Aunt Mamie’s bus, Lil’s mother picked them up from school, worried Lil’s tongue would get her into trouble.

By age ten, Lil had already developed a sharp tongue that she could unleash at even a slight provocation, let alone when told to give up her seat to another kid.

This driver was known for positioning the white kids at the front of the bus and sending the black ones to the back. Her behavior was illegal, but she got away with it. When the black children protested, they were suspended from riding the bus, spanked by a white principal, and sometimes expelled.

That particular day, however, the bus driver popped her chewing gum and didn’t look at anyone and didn’t say a word for the whole ride. And Paris, who was normally a pest, didn’t say a word, either. She sat like a zombie, facing the window, and didn’t even pinch Lil or pull her hair. So with butterflies in her stomach, Lil watched the world roll past: the sun-dappled pine trees, the dilapidated houses, the rambling bushes and sprawling flowers.

When they got home, their father stood at the end of the walkway, his pipe jutting out of his mouth. It was unusual for him to be home at that hour. When the bus came to a stop, he snuffed the pipe and put it in his pocket.

His face scrunched up, he came to the door of the bus. He placed one foot on the step and scooped up Lil, hugging her tighter than usual, her legs dangling. He caught one of Paris’s hands, and off to the porch they went. Lil’s oldest sister, Nancy, who rode to school with their father, came out of the house and joined them.

He sat on the edge of the porch, Paris and Lil on either side of him and Nancy standing near. Daddy needs to tell you something, he said, resting one arm around Lil and one around Paris. His firm fingers massaged Lil’s shoulder.

She wanted to tell him he was hurting her, but somehow she knew he couldn’t help it. He had never hurt her. Mommy’s gone to a better place, he said. He gripped her shoulder. God’s called her home.

Lil squirmed away. But she was here this morning. This is home. She remembered that her mom had had a headache that morning, which was not unusual.

You are such a baby. Paris wriggled loose. She’s dead.

Paris. Their father reached for her, but she pulled away.

Momma’s dead. The teachers said so. She ran into the sprawling yard, but when she had disappeared around the corner, Lil could hear her shrieking.

Their mother had suffered a minor stroke and was rushed to the hospital, only to have a major stroke on arrival.

Lil’s father held her, her head buried in his shoulder, and let Paris run wild until he’d had enough. When she tore through the hedges nearest them, he called her name. She changed course and rushed into his arms. Nancy dropped to her knees, and they all huddled together.

Now Lil wants to drop to her knees, but she has to keep moving. Normally, she doesn’t hear her own footsteps in the plant of more than three hundred employees, but today most of them are off because of the bad weather. She might as well be walking in a haunted house, the clicking and clacking of her heels against the floor, the voice of the wind moving through the trees, the sound of the falling rain.

In the cafeteria, she looks at her watch, only twenty minutes before the meeting. The young guy with sleepy eyes waves her forward in front of three people. Two women mumble, not happy that she gets favor over them. She looks over her shoulder and apologizes but buys a macchiato anyhow and makes her way to a table in the corner.

Sipping her coffee, she thinks back to a time when it was just her and Aunt Mamie. Just the two of them.

***

LIL’S FIRST SUMMER ALONE WITH HER AUNT, they walked all over the Buildings, the Lee family’s land, talking and reminiscing, Aunt Mamie reminiscing more than her. She could never forget those halcyon days. When she was a girl, the area was like a tiny resort located outside of Phillipstown, which was just a dot on the map itself in a far corner in southwest Georgia. But at least there were main highways connecting P-town to Riverview. To get to the Buildings, you took a rocky local road and drove until the pavement dropped away; then you descended into a narrow dirt road with a deep ditch to each side and eventually turned into an even narrower road to get to the houses.

One particular day, she and Aunt Mamie had taken a short walk to the spot where the big house once stood. Although the trees and weeds obscured the land, Lil remembered thinking how cool it was, though rough. It would be neat to landscape it someday.

Aunt Mamie pointed. Our house was this great big ole wooden shack. There were leaks in the ceilings, cracks in the floor. She remembered her aunt’s big-hearted laughter as if it were yesterday. But it was better ’n anybody else’s around for miles. Yes, sir, I was the black landowner’s daughter. I didn’t have to work in the fields.

So that’s how you gained your weight, Lil teased.

Not in the least. In them days I was narrow as you and couldn’t keep no weight on for toting stuff from the fields to the big house, shelling peas and butter beans with Mother. They didn’t send me to the fields, not when Father was alive, but I had to work. If you was a Lee, you earned your keep. She showed Lil where the barn was, now fenced off and home of some cows. Lil noticed a cloud of sadness come over her face. That’s how I gained my weight.

Lil didn’t understand. She stumbled over words.

It’ll make sense one day when you grow up, her aunt said. Sometimes when a woman becomes a woman, she takes on a lot of extra weight. Maybe you won’t. I sure hope you don’t. But I did and ain’t never been able to shake it.

I don’t understand, Lil said.

"Just as well, it ain’t for you to understand yet. The most important thing for you to know now is this. Us Lees loved this land—we earned it—but after Father died, look like we just lost sight of what mattered.

Mother didn’t have a mind to keep things up, and after she died our ole brothers from Father’s first marriage wanted the money from the land. Me and your daddy kept ours, though.

Now Lil understood why Aunt Mamie had made such a fuss when Lil’s father had sold their house to an eccentric family the year before. The older woman took her by the hand and led her down the narrow dirt road loaded with potholes and weeds. They stood in front of her house next to a peanut field, where the road ended. It was one of the last two houses remaining on the land. The other one, where Lil grew up, was no longer recognizable, with its deep purple trim, overgrown plants flanking the walkway, and old cars piled up in the yard.

Although Aunt Mamie’s house was modest in comparison, these days it was far more picturesque. A small white house finished with aluminum siding, it sat high on cement blocks and overlooked sprawling fields. When the fields were clear, you could see a faraway lake, though it was covered with green moss.

It ain’t much to look at, Aunt Mamie said, staring at her house. But it is all we have left of our history. It’s got to be worth more than money can buy, don’t you think?

Lil nodded.

Don’t you ever let go of it, no matter how big and successful you get, you hear? she said, staring at Lil. You keep this land and this house, even if you have to keep on remaking it. It’s a part of who you are.

You mean you want me to live here?

Child, you already way too citified for that. She rubbed underneath her eyes with the back of her hand. But I want you to have it. All I am saying is, our people passed through this world, and they left memories like anybody else. Those memories abide in us surely, but we got to die, too. This old place will always be here. I can’t walk around out here without sensing Mother and Father. I even feels your momma.

You can count on me, Aunt Mamie.

I know, she said. That’s why I’m willing everything to you. Lil tried to hug her. She shrugged her off. Now, come on, help me pull up these weeds.

***

AUNT MAMIE WOULDN’T WANT A STRANGER TO HAVE HER HOUSE—it was her legacy to be kept within the Lee family. The Buildings was theirs, sort of a way of keeping their ancestors alive. And for Lil now it would keep Aunt Mamie alive.

Lil knows Will was mistaken. She has her aunt’s will to prove it. She finishes her drink and hurries to the meeting.

CHAPTER 2

Lil

Lil could not get thoughts of Aunt Mamie out of her head. When she last saw her, Mamie had really made her point about the importance of Lil having a child.

Not having children takes something from you, makes you hard.

Was Aunt Mamie prophetic? Lil did feel rather bitter these days. She snapped at just about everyone who crossed her path, and her soul pined for something. It must be children, for she had experienced everything else. The emptiness came in the mornings, making it difficult to get out of bed. She stared at children in supermarkets and malls and wondered what it would be like to push a stroller, hold a tiny hand.

There are no guarantees with children, anyhow. Lil sat with legs akimbo on a king-sized pillow on the floor and leaned against her aunt’s legs. Legs that had become feeble over the years.

Aunt Mamie combed through her hair, not releasing it from the ponytail holder. Not pulling it so hard like she used to. She had been doing Lil’s hair since the day Paris snipped it, causing one of the worst panic moments of Lil’s childhood. She’d never forget how upset she was after seeing her plait on the pillow. And how satisfied she felt when Aunt Mamie beat Paris with a rubber sandal and forbid her to ever touch Lil’s hair again. In Ohio, she would wish for that kind of protection, the feeling of her aunt’s fingers in her hair as if they were sheltering her.

Kate, her stepmother, was nice and caring, but she had not been as protective as perhaps she could have been. Though she combed Lil’s hair, washed her clothes, did all that stuff, she just didn’t see the small details in life like Aunt Mamie did, except when it came to her own daughter, Nikki, Lil’s half-sister.

More guarantees with ’em than there is without ’em, her aunt finally said.

Maybe, Lil said, thinking of how Kate had tried and tried until she had Nikki. Her stepmother was forty-two when she got pregnant. It’s not urgent. Lots of women are having babies later in life. Look at Kate.

The old woman twisted Lil’s head around. You ain’t lots of women, her aunt said. You must done forgot about your fibroids. She paused, but Lil didn’t see a need to respond. You think you got time, but all I’m saying is time will trick you. It ain’t never had a problem manipulating circumstances.

Lil rubbed her arms and tilted her head to the ceiling. She felt her aunt’s hands fall away from her hair. I’m living proof of that. No need in you being, as well. I just don’t want you to end up like me.

Like what? Lil asked. End up like what? She kept staring into blankness. Her aunt hadn’t had children or built an empire. So what? She had created a legacy for Lil and her sisters and their children. What was she talking about? At the least, she had valued the land her parents left. The others, including Lil’s father, had sold out. Hard to believe, for the Buildings not only carried the Lee family history in its air and soil, but also held memories of her mother.

Stop pretending you don’t understand, her aunt said. Now come here.

Lil pulled herself up on her knees and faced her. Aunt Mamie had once had the thickest hair she had ever seen, but now it was thin and mangy. Age, illness, and weight loss had broken her. None of it could be helped, Lil guessed, except the latter. Aunt Mamie brought it on herself, refusing to eat much, if anything. The doctors had threatened to force-feed her.

Her face sagged, her eyes hinted of mist. She squeezed them closed and then opened them again, staying silent. Only one other time had Lil seen her look so raw. Her aunt just didn’t believe in exposing her feelings. She certainly did not cry much. Tears were precious, for things that mattered, she once said. She told Lil she had cried her self silly when her son was stillborn, one of the few things that mattered in her life. But that was about all she would say about her son, as if the subject was taboo.

Her aunt’s heated gaze caused Lil to avert her eyes. With sweaty hands, the old woman touched her chin and moved her face back in her direction. I see you do understand, she said. It gets worse. It’s like giving up your womanhood. Lil tried to wriggle away, but Mamie held her fast. Now, you listen to me, girlfriend. You got to slow down. Fast cars, meetings, all them things can wait. Your womanhood won’t wait. It will just slip away if you don’t use it. You go out there and do what you got to do.

Lil gave in, climbed up on the bed and pressed her head against her aunt’s flabby shoulder. Despite the older woman’s dislike of physical affection, she cradled Lil now. They sat in silence for a long time, Lil thinking about how time had flown, how it didn’t seem that long ago that she was a teenager. At seventeen, she had met Jerome, fallen in love with him, and lost her virginity. That was more than twenty years ago.

That summer brought some of Georgia’s hottest weather, but it didn’t stop her from ridding the moped into town to fetch the mail. When she came out of the post office, looking down at the envelopes she held in one hand, she felt eyes on her. She reservedly wiped sweat from her brow and looked up.

A slender guy with a big afro leaned against a Buick Electric 225, a smoky gray car as long as a boat. His arms folded, he searched her with his racy eyes. She loosened the tie she had made to keep her oversized shirt above her waist and let it fall. She just wanted to cover her skinny thighs sticking out from under her cutoff shorts. For a few seconds, they engaged in a stand-off, before he came over and told her that he’d never seen anyone as pretty as her. She believed him without hesitation and allowed him to enter her mind and her heart like no other boy had done before. After all, she had never had a boyfriend in college.

On her way home, she rode as fast as she could, but not too fast to take in her surroundings: peach trees and plum orchards sailing by her. Patches of previously uninviting weeds were now lush and colorful. She stopped and picked blackberries for Aunt Mamie to make a cobbler.

While her aunt was making the blackberry cobbler, she leaned on the table, staring into the mixing bowl, the mixer whirling and swirling. She cupped her hand over her mouth and giggled like a much younger girl than a seventeen-year-old.

What’s so funny, girl? her aunt asked. Better not be a boy—a pretty one, especially. They trouble, you hear me. She shot Lil a serious stare.

Puleeeeze, Aunt Mamie, times are different now.

Don’t make no difference about times, human instincts the same, her aunt said.

Lil swallowed hard. She knew her aunt was right but pretended not to understand.

When you obsessed with a boy, you can’t think straight. You make all the wrong decisions from dreaming.

It was then she told Lil to keep her love in her hands, not her heart, so she could throw it away when and if necessary. Then she said in a coarse, whisper, Don’t wind up like me.

Although Lil would never forget those words and would hear them again, she felt an anxiousness to get to know Jerome. With him, she had an opportunity to make her own choice. She feared if she didn’t give herself to him, she might never again have the chance to give up her virginity. It might be taken from her. She had heard of that kind of thing happening. And the truth was, over a period of a year or so, almost always at a family gathering, Uncle Mickey had caught her either in the basement alone or somewhere when she had not been expecting him and touched her in inappropriate places, mainly her breasts.

One time, he fingered her, one hand over her mouth, and told her that if she ever told anyone, he would call her a liar. Who would people believe? Him or her? He had a point. She was the daughter of his wife’s sister, a recalcitrant teenager who didn’t really want to be in Ohio, anyhow. And he had not bothered any other girls, he said, including her sisters, so why her? He was a responsible husband and a father. She would be called a liar.

Anyhow, Lil convinced her aunt to let her court Jerome at the house. She couldn’t get into trouble there, she insisted. But the fifth time he visited, she did get into trouble, if sex was trouble. She wanted him and was sure one time was not going to hurt anything. In her mind, it would help her situation— make her a woman, able to make her own decisions.

By the time Jerome drove into the yard that night, she was in a panic, not sure if she looked right or not. She raced from mirror to mirror picking out her curly hair. But when she stepped into the living room and closed the door behind her, Jerome pulled her into his arms and got into her clothes hastily. Although her aunt was in her own bedroom, nearby, Lil didn’t stop him. His passionate, hurried approach seemed right—she ached for him. She would never forget how eager she was to have him inside her. Nothing else mattered, not even the threat of Aunt Mamie catching them.

While they did it, she kept her eyes on the door and a hand over his mouth, muffling his sounds. For hours afterward, her palms ached of his tooth prints, her thighs throbbed in between, and her gut churned. She felt let down.

Sex, that first time, had not been all it was cracked up to be, but she kept going back for more, anyhow, until it got better. That summer she

Reviews for The Barrenness

[oosabookclub · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Too Many Struggles After the death of her mother, Aunt Mamie, her father's sister, was the closest thing Lil had to a mother. On Aunt Mamie’s deathbed she asks Lil to do two things: have a baby and keep her home. Lil desperately wants to honor Aunt Mamie Lee's memory. Unfortunately, at 39, having a baby is somewhat of a struggle. Then with Will, Aunt Mamie's step-son, fighting her tooth and nail, Lil is feeling as if she won't be able to succeed. With so much drama at work, her personal life and fighting back and forth with Will, can Lil handle things? Sonja Lewis has written a good book with a lot of twist and turns. "The Barrenness" will keep you turning the page for more. I hope there is sequel available soon that will continue the story of Lil and Danny. Reviewed by: Carmen