“Good,” Knot replied. “Leave it right where it is.”
In the middle of swaddling half of a Bundt cake, Knot heard Fran begin to play the piano. It startled her a little, because she hadn’t heard Fran walk into the living room. Fran played a tune Knot didn’t recognize, but she was certain that it didn’t sound like anything anyone played in church. It reminded her of Miss Goldie’s Place and the ’40s, when she would sit at her favorite table swaying her head from side to side while Pratt played some of the most beautiful sounds she had ever heard. People would dance all around the room, holding their drinks up and away from their clothes.
Goldie’s got a lot of damn nerve. Just up and decide to close.
As far as Knot knew, no one had heard anything from or about Pratt. Pep and Otis Lee would have let her know if they had received any word from him. And since Pratt’s sister Pleasant and her twin girls had moved back to Tennessee shortly after Pratt had left town, there was no one around to ask. Knot figured Pratt Shepherd had moved on with his life and was probably happy, with a wife and children. Might even have grand-young’uns. To tell the truth, I don’t think I’d mind seeing Pratt. Just one time, maybe.
Knot decided to have a slice of pound cake and asked Fran if she wanted one, too. Fran stopped playing the keys and sat still, but did not reply.
“Do that mean no?”
Even if Knot had received a warning card from the mailman two days in advance, she wouldn’t have been ready for what Fran said next.
“Did you drink while you was pregnant with me?”
Like a draft sneaking through the space under a bedroom door, the question had come cool and easy. Knot didn’t look in Fran’s direction right away. She couldn’t. She was afraid of the look she might find on the young woman’s face. So Knot kept her eyes on the white-from-too-much-flour pound cake that Johnnie Mae had brought. She thought about Fran’s other questions, the ones that hadn’t been asked, like: Is it true that you didn’t even keep me a whole day? Knot would have said, Yeah, but you see I ain’t fit, don’tcha? And: Who’s my father? To that, Knot would have answered, He don’t know nothin’ about you and I ain’t seen him since before I even knew I had you on the way. So what difference do it make? Where were the cries and the cursing out? Just one time, if it ever came to it, Knot would have stood listening to every hot word. For Fran and for Eunice, she would take it just one good time. She’d let them say whatever they needed to say.
Still unable and unwilling to look up from the slice of pound cake, Knot pinched pieces of it and set them aside. Little pieces, the size someone might give to a baby who had recently begun eating table food.
“I ain’t drink as much,” Knot replied, also cool and easy. Now she was ready to look at Fran—her daughter—in the eyes. And when she did, she saw Pratt looking back at her. “I ain’t gon’ sit here and lie to ya. Pregnant or not, I was still me. So I drank.”
Fran looked up at the wall in front of her—a wall covered with family photographs. Faces of people who had replaced Knot’s family: Phillip’s nieces, his sisters, the one brother, and many others. She went back to playing the piano, and the tunes were different. Much slower, with more church in them than the tunes she had played before.
Knot pinched pieces of cake until the whole slice was two little piles on the napkin. She wondered how long Fran had known the truth. She imagined Lady must have told her very recently, while her lungs were wracked with pneumonia.
Eunice. Fran ain’t said nothin’ ’bout Eunice. Do she know ’bout Eunice, too? Do Eunice know ’bout everything?
Since there was a spirit of asking and telling in the house that evening, Knot thought she might as well ask a few questions of her own.
FOURTEEN
It was twenty minutes past six o’clock in the morning when Otis Lee heard someone downstairs knocking at the door. He knew it wasn’t Knot because she rarely knocked. That was something he and Pep had gotten used to and had come to find comical, years ago.
Pep, Cedar, and La’Roy were all snoring. Otis Lee had been awake for at least an hour, lying there thinking about the previous day. It had been a terrible sight: his most dependable neighbor and longtime friend, lowered into the ground. Phil and Lady, both of them, gone too soon. They had all looked forward to getting old and doing a bunch of nothing together.
The knocks were getting louder, so Otis Lee moved quicker. He got up and noticed that his grandchildren had somehow gotten tangled together and La’Roy’s arm was just inches away from Pep’s chin. Otis Lee had told Pep to put the children in Breezy’s old bedroom for the night and to line the edges of the bed with pillows to keep them from rolling off. But she had refused. She had said they still might fall off the bed, break a limb, and that she and Otis Lee wouldn’t know a thing about it until morning.
It was Knot at the door, after all.
“Where’s Pep?” she demanded, once she was inside.
“Where’s yo’ coat?” Otis Lee asked, closing the door. “I seen enough death for one week.” Knot stood in his kitchen wearing the dress she had worn to Phil’s service—the same one she had worn to Lady’s funeral. Her red hair was standing straight up on her head. It seemed to Otis Lee that every day the hair closest to Knot’s scalp looked more and more like fresh milk.
“I said, where’s Pep, goddamnit!” Knot shouted. She looked as though she were about to head for the stairs, but Otis Lee reached out and tugged on her arm. She snatched it away from him. He was so glad he and Pep had put all their dishes away before going to bed. From the look of things, if there had been a cup or saucer on the table, Knot might have thrown it.
“She still in the bed,” Otis Lee whispered. Pep liked to sleep late on Sunday mornings, especially if she had decided to skip church. And he was not ready for Cedar and La’Roy to be awakened. He would need two cups of coffee first. “What in the devil is wrong with you, gal?”
“Got somethin’ I needs to say to both y’all no-good Judases,” Knot said. “I might as well get it out in one shot.”
“Judases?” Otis Lee asked. “Now, you hold on just a min—”
“Y’all told ’em!” Knot yelled. “Y’all tol’ ’em everything. Maybe I got a thing or two to tell, too!” She looked like she wanted to spit in his face.
“Talk sensible,” Otis Lee pleaded. “Who told who what?”
“Y’all told the girls I’m they real mama,” Knot said. “And nary a one of ya parted yo’ lips and said a word to me about it. Ain’t I got a right to at least know?”
She pulled out a chair and dropped herself onto it so hard the legs squeaked against the wooden floor. And before she had even settled into the chair, she was back up on her feet. It was as though she didn’t know what to do with herself.
Otis Lee was certain that he hadn’t said a word to Fran or his daughter-in-law about Knot being their birth mother. He and Pep had not even told Breezy.
“Knot,” Otis Lee began. He gently touched her elbow and led her back to the same chair she had sat in for less than a second. “Sit and catch ya’ breath, Knot. Please. Catch ya’ breath and then we’ll talk about it. Want some water or somethin’?”
She declined the offer of water but sat. His plea seemed to have calmed her some. But her eyes still bored into him as if she might slap him at any moment, which was why he placed his chair near hers, but not too close.
“The day of that fight they had,” Knot said.
“Eunice and Fran’s fight?” Otis Lee asked. “Knot, that’s been four, five years ago. Why you—”
“That’s when Pep tol’ them,” Knot explained. “And you ain’t said nothin’.”
“’Cause I—”
“Fran ain’t got no cause to lie, Otis Lee,” Knot broke in. “What she gon’ lie for?”
He could hear the pain in her voice. It reminded him of hearing that her father had returned the letters she’d written. Otis Lee knew this was a time for him to be quiet and listen. So he asked Knot to tell him all that Fran had said.
/> After Pep had pulled Fran and Eunice apart by the collars, escorted them to the back of the house, and slapped them both because they had nearly knocked her over trying to get to each other again, she made them sit down on the back porch. Pep lined Eunice, Fran, and Breezy up as if they were little children at school, Fran had told Knot.
“Fran said Pep spit it right out,” Knot told him. “Said: ‘Y’all sisters. Knot’s y’all’s mama.’ ” Knot got to her feet again and pointed toward Busy Street. “That’s why Eunice left town quick like she did.”
If even a soft breeze had come through the window, it would have knocked Otis Lee from his chair.
“And y’all two,” Knot accused, her voice shaky now, “y’all two look me right in my face damn near every day, and neither one of you opened yo’ mouths to tell me that the girls know! I didn’t want them to know, Otis Lee. That’s the best thing I coulda ever done for ’em. Ain’t I got a right to that?”
Otis Lee was about to tell Knot that he was hearing all of it for the first time, but he heard Pep’s voice behind him from the stairs. Her voice startled him because he hadn’t heard her moving around upstairs in their bedroom.
“Whole lot of nerve you got, Miss Centre,” Pep said, now standing in front of them, looking only at Knot. Her tone reminded Otis Lee of the Sunday, back in the ’40s, when Pep had walked up to one of the neighbors—Johnnie Mae—in the churchyard and fussed her out for spreading the silly rumor that Pep was letting Otis Lee lay with Knot. And when he’d made the mistake of telling Knot what had happened, he had to pull her away from Johnnie Mae’s front porch. “Otis Lee Loving’s like a brother to me, you buck-toothed cow!”
Now Otis Lee had to wonder if Pep saw him sitting there. She hadn’t offered him so much as a glance. And as cold as it was in the kitchen, Pep was wearing nothing except her thin nightgown.
“You come in my house talkin’ ’bout yo’ rights? Yo’ rights to any of what them girls get to know and don’t get to know was gone when Lady and Ayra went home with them babies in they arms.”
Otis Lee looked up at his beautiful wife of thirty-three years, then at the woman he cared for as if she were a blood relative, like a sister. Knot had become just that to him. A sister. That’s how he loved her. How could he not?
Now the trouble was that he didn’t know which of them—Pep or Knot—to be most upset with. Was it the one who had kept such a secret from him for the past three or four years—and she musta tol’ our boy to keep the secret, too—or was it the one who had come into their home, angry to no end, as though someone owed her something? As good as me and Pep been to her?
“You made me a promise,” Knot reminded them. “Right here in this room, y’all made me a promise. And ya made it again at my bedside. Twice!”
“But listen to this here,” Pep began. She stepped closer to Knot. “I made another promise to somebody else. To my son. The day I reach ’tweenst my own legs and pull him outta me by his shoulders, I made a promise to him that long as I draw breath in and out of my body, I was gon’ look out for him. Do whatever I got to do that’s good for him.”
Pep said she had believed with all her heart that if Breezy knew Fran and Eunice were sisters, he would stop causing them so much pain with the back and forth. She said she thought she was killing two birds with one stone. “’Specially since they had got to fightin’ and carryin’ on. I’m his mama, Knot Centre,” Pep went on. “I did what I thought was best for my boy. Best for all three of ’em, I thought. Nobody else was doin’ nothin’ to fix it.”
Otis Lee had been looking down at the floor, but he looked at Pep when she said the last part. And their eyes met. La’Roy’s whines and whimpers were the relief he needed. So Otis Lee stood and headed for the stairs.
“Come back,” she said. “I’ll ’tend to him. You stay down here and talk to yo’ friend ’bout her rights. And when you get through with that, you get her out o’ my goddamn house.”
“Penelope!” Otis Lee shouted. He watched her disappear up the stairs toward their grandson’s cries.
From upstairs Pep said, “They’s more to worry ’bout in life than drinkin’ and readin’ them damn books, Knot.” She didn’t say another word. And when Otis turned back around, Knot was halfway out of the door.
He hadn’t liked the way Pep had said friend. She had spoken the word in the same way she would when she meant one thing and said another. Their many years of marriage had taught him to know the difference—although sometimes he needed a direct answer from her. In any case, he liked neither the way she had said friend nor what she had implied.
Had he spent too much time worrying about Knot and her doings? Yes. When Knot was younger and new to Antioch Lane, had Otis Lee stayed up and waited until he’d seen her get home? Yes. That’s just the right thing to do for any neighbor who don’t know her lay of the land yet. Right? Had the eggs, the chickens, all the things he had stolen from Pennington Farm and given to Knot to be sure she ate well—especially with all the drinking—had it been too much? Some folk might say so. Had he shown all of his neighbors as much care and attention as he had shown Knot, and still offered her?
Knot ain’t like the rest of ’em, damn it! She different!
How so, Otis Lee? How’s she different?
She different from them, and she just like Essie.
Had Pep really believed that Breezy would stop wanting both Fran and Eunice simply because they had the same mother? She couldn’t have, he thought to himself. That there’s why Breezy loved the two of ’em so much. They got the same blood movin’ warm through they veins. Eunice and Fran looked nearly nothing alike, but to Otis Lee there was plenty that made them similar: they went after whatever and whomever they wanted, and neither of them had ever been shy with their words.
Otis Lee sat at the kitchen table with the first cup of coffee, of which he had only taken a few sips. Pep came down the stairs with Cedar on one hip and La’Roy on the other. She placed both children on Otis Lee’s lap and got them both a slice of white bread, a dollop of pear preserves spread evenly on each.
Otis Lee watched her every move. Watched and wondered. She went about the tasks as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened just ten minutes ago.
“Bacon, sausage, or both?” Pep said to him.
“Why you tell them gals—”
“I ain’t gon’ talk ’bout that all day.” She put the frying pan on the left front burner.
“It won’t be all day, Penelope,” Otis Lee said. “But we gon’ talk about it right now.”
She got some bacon from the Frigidaire. They had run out of sausage.
Without pause, Pep told Otis Lee that it wasn’t fair. And when he repeated, “Fair?” he said it louder than intended. Both grandchildren turned their heads to look up at him.
“It ain’t fair,” Pep whispered. “Ain’t fair that Knot get to live her life any way she want and ev’rybody else got ’tend to her business, keep her children alive and well and happy.” The bacon sizzled. “Knot needs to hurt, Otis Lee. I know that ain’t right to say, but she need to feel some hurt.”
“Don’t you recall Knot sittin’ at this table, near ’bout crazy from sadness when she had them babies?” Otis Lee asked. He helped Cedar and La’Roy tear their slices of bread into smaller pieces. “She did have some hurt, Pep. A whole lot.”
“That’s what her problem is,” Pep said. She cracked brown eggs one by one against the side of the cookstove and she let their insides drop into the hot skillet. “She did have it. Other people’s still got it. Might always have it. But like I said, it ain’t fair.”
Otis Lee felt as though he were talking to a stranger.
After having told Fran and Eunice the truth, Pep had, for a short time, felt guilty, she admitted. “But when Essie came here and tol’ you ’bout how she got sent off, as hurt as you was ’bout the lies you got told all your life, you was freed up some. You might notta known, but I saw it. You was better when Essie left here.”
“S
tay on the track, Pep,” Otis Lee said. “We talkin’ ’bout—”
“I thought I was doin’ the right thing. And now I’m through wit’ it.”
“Why you keep it from me, though, Pep? And got my son lyin’ to me, too.”
“He ain’t got nothin’ to do wit’ it,” Pep said. “And I say I’m through wit’ it. Ya hear me? What’s done is done.”
The two of them sat at the table quietly. Pep fed Cedar, and Otis Lee fed La’Roy. The children began to refuse the bits of eggs being held in front of their mouths, so Otis Lee and Pep fed themselves.
“Lord,” Otis Lee sighed. La’Roy was now playing with Otis Lee’s nose. “She probably over there ’bout to drink herself to—” He did not want to finish the sentence. “She ain’t want them girls to know, Penelope.”
He waited for a response from his wife. A sign of remorse, he hoped.
“Well, I forgive ya,” he said, finally.
“Forgive me? For what?” Pep asked, slowly laying her fork on the table, out of Cedar’s reach.
Otis Lee turned his head to release his bottom lip from his grandson’s clutch.
“You got nerve enough to ask me that? After you done kept somethin’ serious as that from me for four years? You oughta be glad I forgive ya.”
Pep’s laugh was coated in anguish.
“Maybe I got some things I need to forgive you for, too, then,” she said. “Me and Breezy both.”
“Well, I’m listenin’,” Otis Lee told her, “’cause I ain’t done nothin’ but loved y’all, and worked hard to keep both of y’all happy.”
“Not half as much as you love Essie and Knot, though,” Pep insisted.
“Now, that some crazy talk, there, Pep,” he said. “Ev’rything—ev’ry single thing I ever done for Knot—you got told ’bout it beforehand. Always beforehand, Pep. And you always gave yo’ blessin’!”
“Course I gave my blessin’,” Pep replied. “Wit’ my words, I gave you my blessin’. But don’t you know me, Otis Lee? Sometimes you ain’t got to say a word and I know what you feelin’ and thinkin’ in yo’ head. Can’t you do that for me? I guess not.”
In West Mills Page 14
