“I never told Marla this one,” she said. “That time in Arkansas when she had to go to the hospital? Show ’em your scar, Marla!” Marla showed them her side. “So they were out of blood,” her mother said. “Did you know they used to separate it down there? Fools. They’d only give white people white blood and they’d give black people black blood. That doesn’t sound right even now when I say it, does it?” She laughed. Marla’s aunts and uncles laughed. “Well, either way, they had her blood type, but the nurse told me they couldn’t use it because it was what they called negroid blood. I said, ‘Hell
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