In West Mills

by De'Shawn Charles Winslow

  Pep stood up, put Cedar on Otis Lee’s other thigh, and went upstairs.

  “Penelope!” Otis Lee shouted. “Penelope, come on back.”

  FIFTEEN

  Burning the books, and using liquor to do it, had crossed Knot’s mind several times between the time she left the Lovings’ house and now. But to whom, or what, would she turn when people—real people—let her down? And even though her pa—the person who had shared her love for the written word—had become one of those real people, the books were all she had left of the Pa she had known before he abandoned her.

  Life is funny, ain’t it? I got two grown children—even got two grandchildren—and I’m sittin’ here, thinkin’ about bein’ somebody’s child.

  Knot heated a pot of water for a washup. And after she had mixed it with a few jars of cold water, she added the last bit of perfume oil that Pep had given to her before Lady Waters’s funeral. She stood in front of her barely standing vanity and scrubbed herself from head to toe. The funeral dress lay draped across the chair next to her bed. She thought she had tossed it haphazardly when she’d taken if off. Instead, it looked as though someone had laid it out carefully for her to wear again.

  Now dressed the way she might if she were going to inquire about an advertisement for employment, Knot stood far back from her mirror and looked for anything that might cause offense.

  All right, Knot. Just as well go on and get this over with.

  Knot hadn’t been to the apartment since Valley had moved out of it. Although she hadn’t made it inside yet, she could tell it would look far different from how she remembered it. The staircase leading up to it was new. The wood used to build it reminded her of the schoolhouse. And there were potted plants—she was not able to identify them, but Dinah Bright might have—on the right end of every other step.

  The door opened and Breezy came down, running almost, looking around as if he were dodging a loan shark.

  “Hey, Knot,” he said. “What you need?”

  “You ought to have somethin on yo’ chest, boy,” she scolded.

  He asked again, “What ya need?”

  “I come to talk to yo’ wife,” she said.

  Breezy told Knot that she didn’t need to worry about apologizing to Eunice about the past. “She got a good life,” he said.

  “I know she do,” Knot said. “But I figure she might want to say somethin’ or ask me somethin’. No better time than the pres—”

  “She don’t, Knot,” Breezy cut in, his nostrils flaring.

  It was not fear that forced Knot to take two steps back; it was concern. “Eunice made peace with you bein’ her real mama years ago. She fine. We fine. But if you go up them steps, it might bring on trouble ain’t nobody lookin’ for.” He looked up toward the door nervously. “Eunice said she grateful it had all happened the way it did. Good for everybody.”

  “And you don’t think she got nothin’ to get out?” Knot asked.

  “No, Knot,” he replied. He glanced up at the door again. “Trust me on this. Let the past stay where it is.”

  “Well,” Knot said, having studied Breezy long enough. “I’m goin’ home. But don’t you ever forget I tried and you got in my way. Hear?”

  “I won’t forget,” he reassured her. “Thank ya, Knot.”

  Before turning to walk away, Knot looked at him once more. This time she saw the eyes that had looked up at her the day she had gone into labor and sent him to get his mother. And she had called on him again, just hours before his wife had been born. Two times. Breezy always wanted two. Two of everything. His big, tea-brown eyes had been full of wonder in those days. But now they seemed to be full of worry.

  Just after noon, Knot was back at her house. She pulled off the brown-and-white dress and tossed it in the corner of her bedroom. She poured a drink—a short one, just enough to loosen the tension she had been carrying in her neck all morning—and opened the letter that had come from Valley a few days earlier.

  December 20, 1964

  Dear Knot,

  I’ll be glad when you folks get some telephone lines on Antioch Lane. I’m tired of writing these damn letters. I’m in New York. Been here about a month. I don’t care much for it anymore. I thought D.C. was busy and loud. NYC is nothing but noise. I must be getting old. I know because noise never got on my nerves so bad. I got some loose ends tied up though.

  You know I turned 51, don’t you? Anyway, I’m writing to tell you I’ll be heading to West Mills in a couple of weeks. And I want you to make me a bread pudding when I get there. I’ll be there around the 10th or 11th. Planning on staying a good while.

  Knot, if you don’t mind, will you go to Gertrude’s house to sweep and dust a little bit for me? I’m bringing somebody with me. His name is Mitchell. From England. He’s around my age. Well, that’s what he claims, but I swear I think he’s 60 or 65. He looks nice though so I’m ok with it. He’s nice and he wants to see North Carolina. You going to love how he talk, Knot. You’ll get to hear what the people in them books you read talk like.

  Anyway sister, do that for me, please. And I’ll pay you when I get there. See if you can get your hands on a jar of the good stuff for me. Check with Max first. He made a nice batch before I left. It was not half bad for it being his first time at it.

  Ok. Love you. Bye.

  Valor

  Reading the letter made Knot feel good. And she was glad he would soon be home. Course he want a bread puddin’, Knot thought to herself, smiling. Before Mary and Onslow had shown up in West Mills, dressed in all black, Knot had been trying her hand at making various types of new cobblers. Peach. Cherry. She had made one with peach and cherry. The cobblers had turned out well enough for her to try again.

  Knot thought she might make one for Valley and his new friend—to go along with the bread pudding, of course. But what she wasn’t going to do was go and clean up the place he still referred to as “Gertrude’s house.” Many times, Knot had told Valley that she would never go into that house alone again. Because the last time she had agreed to have it ready for one of his homecomings, she could have sworn she smelled sassafras in the air. Otis Lee and Valley had once told her that Gertrude had loved sassafras tea and other uncommon root teas. Valley had always hated them. And after Gertrude died, he purged the cupboards. So when Knot thought she smelled it, she left the cleaning bucket where it sat. It was Otis Lee who went back to make sure she had locked the doors.

  “Valley can sweep his own damn floors when he get here,” Knot said to Fran a week later.

  “What loose ends Valley got in New York?” Fran asked.

  “Probably somethin’ to do with Es—” Knot began but stopped herself. “Ain’t no tellin’, and it ain’t none of my business.”

  Knot was glad she hadn’t spit Essie’s secret out at Otis Lee when she had gone to his house, mad, the morning after Phillip Waters’s burial service.

  Fran offered to go along with her to Valley’s house, but the day before they planned to go, another letter from Valley came in the mail. Mitchell from London had invited Valley to travel back to England with him—just for a few months, Valley’s letter said. And Valley had said yes. He assured Knot that he would stay there no longer than three months—even less if Mitchell got on his nerves. Write me back, Knot, he had written above his signature. Mitchell from London’s address was a curious-looking stack of numbers and words penned at the bottom of the paper.

  Now Knot felt a twinge of loneliness. She was happy to receive more regular visits from Fran. And Otis Lee made his rounds. Whether Pep knew or approved, Knot didn’t know. But Knot missed Valley more than she had realized. And when she replied to his letter, she was sure to mention it.

  Filling Valley in on the recent deaths, the betrayal she had suffered from Pep, and about Fran and Eunice knowing the truth about their births would not be right for this letter. His knowing would not change any of it. She wanted him to enjoy himself. The dead rest with the dead, she thought as she got toward the end of
her note to him. And as a postscript Knot wrote: Bring me something signed by the Queen.

  SIXTEEN

  On a Saturday afternoon in January of ’66, Otis Lee walked across the lane to Fran’s house. He needed a laugh. For that, he could count on Cedar. Much like both of her parents had been, Cedar was a happy, agreeable child.

  While on the floor playing with Cedar and the lettered blocks he and Pep had bought her for Christmas—Sears, Roebuck had offered the most affordable price—he noticed that Fran’s belly looked round and hard. She must have seen him when he’d taken the fourth glance because she gave him the answer to a question he had been taught never to ask a woman unless she was his wife or his daughter.

  “You didn’t know?” Fran asked. “Pep gave me a piece of her mind about it last week.”

  Lecturing Fran about her ongoing affair with his married son would have been a waste of his time. He had done that already, to no avail, it would appear. The more you try to steer ’em from somethin’, the more they go to it. They ain’t gon’ be satisfied ’til they drive me crazy!

  Damp-chested from the sweat of frustration and from the overbearing heat of Fran’s woodstove, Otis Lee marched home to confront his wife about keeping yet another secret. She knew how he felt about her keeping things, important things, from him. He had made himself clear about that. Who had Pep become? he wondered.

  The faster he walked, the farther away his house seemed.

  There was a new-looking, shiny black car driving by, and it slowed down in front of him. Otis Lee waved the driver down.

  “Yes?” the driver, a middle-aged colored man, asked.

  “Essie send you to spy on me?”

  “I’m sorry?” the man in the car said.

  “Ellen,” Otis Lee corrected. “Ellen O’Heeney. She send you to spy on me, ain’t she?”

  “I don’t know what you talkin’ ’bout, brotha man.”

  The gentleman rolled his window back up and drove toward the dead end of Antioch Lane, where Miss Goldie’s Place stood empty. Otis Lee watched the car turn around and head back up the lane, toward up-bridge. Otis Lee went inside and looked out the kitchen window. He was sure the shiny black automobile would come by again.

  “Otis Lee Loving,” Pep said, “what’s ailin’ you?”

  And then he remembered what his mission had been when he had left Fran’s house, before he had seen the car. He turned to her and declared, “I ain’t tellin’ you nothin’!”

  “Fine,” Pep said.

  “When you start tellin’ me stuff, I’ll start tellin’ you stuff. How ya like that?”

  Pep walked to him and held his face in her soft hands.

  “We got grandbaby number three comin’,” she told him, smiling. “Happy now?”

  Otis Lee felt himself relax, though against his will.

  “What we gon’ do with that boy of ours, Penelope?”

  “Nothin’,” she replied. “Tol’ you years and years ago that I felt sorry for whoever was crazy enough to marry him.”

  Otis Lee felt sorry for Eunice, too. But it didn’t seem to him that Eunice was feeling sorry for herself. Now it was Fran for whom Otis Lee felt the most concern. She love Breezy that damn much?

  Otis Lee could not help but think that maybe Knot could talk Fran into moving on, finding love elsewhere. Surely there were other men in West Mills whom she could have—if only she wanted anyone else. Now a second baby was coming. What’s done is done. But he thought, just maybe, if Knot might speak with her daughter, they could prevent a third Breezy-Fran baby. He would have to at least ask Knot. She gon’ sure as hell say no, Otis Lee thought, but I’m gon’ ask her.

  So Otis Lee was surprised when, the following day, Knot said, “Well, what you want me to say, exactly?” She was standing in front of the counter Breezy had built for her, rolling out dough for a cherry pie order.

  “I don’t know,” Otis Lee said. “You her mama. Ain’t you got some kinda gut feelin’ or somethin’ ’bout these things?”

  Knot rolled her eyes. And as she sprinkled flour over the dough, she said, “Go to hell, Otis Lee.”

  “You gon’ talk to her or what?” Otis Lee asked. “Fran’s gon’ be the one hurtin’ behind all this mess. Breezy ain’t gon’ leave Eunice. I can tell you that right now.”

  “Why you so sure ’bout that?” Knot said.

  “’Cause he’s mine,” Otis Lee answered. “And I know him. Know him well.”

  Knot went about her work as though he were not there. He was thinking about their conversation when he noticed a book on the corner of the kitchen table.

  “The Old Curi … Curi-oh—”

  “Curiosity,” Knot said.

  “The Old Curiosity Shop,” Otis Lee read aloud.

  SEVENTEEN

  Later that year, in June, Fran brought forth another little girl. Knot decided to wait almost two weeks before visiting. Since Fran had not sent for her—nor had she complained to Otis Lee about Knot’s absence—Knot felt certain that Fran understood.

  But Fran must have grown tired of understanding, because she showed up on Knot’s porch one day, one daughter in her arms, the other standing next to her. Cedar held a fat pencil in one hand and a notepad in the other.

  “I needed to get out o’ the house awhile,” Fran declared. “And don’t you think it’s time you meet my new baby?”

  “Otis Lee say you named her Lady,” Knot said. “Bring ’em on inside. The heat.”

  Once they were seated, Fran said, “Lady Sequoia Loving. Cedar done started callin’ her ‘Coy,’ though.” Knot looked at the sleeping baby, then at Fran’s pretty smile. The new child looked like Breezy. So much so that Knot wondered if Fran had had any part in it at all.

  “Lady Coy,” Knot said. “This one’s gon’ be moufy and uppity. I can see it in her lil frown. I think I’ll call her ‘Lady Coy.’ Y’all call her what ya want to call her.”

  Fran smiled and yawned. Then she said, “Show me yo’ new room. Finished now, ain’t it?”

  Knot had forgotten that Fran had not seen the finished room that had been added to the back end of the house. Clara Pennington, Riley’s youngest daughter, had come to Knot’s house one day to pick up the ten pies she had ordered. Knot hadn’t seen Clara survey the rooms, but she knew Clara Pennington well enough to know it was happening.

  “Miss Knot, I’m just gon’ be right honest with ya,” Clara said, “and I hope you won’t take offense, but I just don’t know how in the world you do it.”

  “Do what, Clara?”

  “Live in such a cooped-up ol’ lil place such as this.”

  “Well,” Knot said, biting her tongue, “I like my lil ol’ cooped-up place. Nobody livin’ here but me. I’m fine.”

  “Okay,” Clara said. “Well, I sure do hope my granddaddy sold it to you cheap all them years ago. Should’ve just given it to ya.”

  That’s exactly what he did, Clara Pennington. I told him he won’t get no more money outta me for this shack. So he gave it, and this lil block of land, to me. I ain’t paid nothin’ but taxes. But that ain’t nobody’s business but mine and his—God rest his soul.

  “He gave me a fair price,” Knot said instead.

  About a week after that, Clara came to Knot’s house again—this time, not to pick up baked goods. And her brothers had joined her. They were holding pencils, small notepads, and measuring tape.

  “Now, Miss Knot,” Clara Pennington began, “don’t cuss us out.” She wanted to have an addition built on to the back of Knot’s house—“For all your service,” she explained. “Please let us.”

  At first, Knot did want to curse Clara Pennington out. But another idea came to her mind.

  “Naw, I don’t believe I want y’all to build me no room,” Knot had said. “I thank ya kindly for the thought, though. Now, y’all go on home or somewhere.”

  That evening Knot went into her pantry and pulled down the old tin can where she kept her money. She counted it twice.

  Well, Clar
a do make some sense, don’t she?

  Knot asked Valley and a few men with whom he got along to build her a new bedroom. The old bedroom would be her living room, she told them.

  “Looks good, Knot,” Fran admired. She had propped Lady Coy on her shoulder. “Looks real nice. I’m proud of ya.”

  She say she proud of me. Well, I’ll be damned.

  Now back in the kitchen, Fran yawned again.

  “Felt like the walls was closin’ in on me over there,” she said. “And these two want every lil bit of energy I got.”

  Knot’s saying that she understood would not have been the right thing, though she did have some understanding of what Fran was going through. The difference was that Knot had gone through it without the children, which was the reason she had decided several months before, when Otis Lee asked her to have a talk with Fran, that she would not get involved. I ain’t got the right.

  Knot opened a bottle of pop and poured some for Fran and a little bit for Cedar. “Since when you start drinking pop?” Fran asked, smiling mischievously.

  Knot took Fran’s meaning and she didn’t like it.

  “Look here,” Knot said. “Don’t start. You want it or not?”

  Fran took the glass and drank the cola without pausing to breathe.

  Just a week earlier, Valley had taught Knot a trick to make her brandy last longer. The brandy-pop mixture had taken her by surprise. Now she made sure to have a few bottles of cola in her pantry at all times.

  Cedar did not take a single sip of hers. The child was not keen on sweets, Otis Lee had once told Knot. She had forgotten. Cedar was the only child Knot knew who loved to drink water and eat raw carrots.

  There was a perplexing look on Fran’s face when Knot looked at her. Fran looked tired as she rocked the infant. But Knot also saw something that resembled peace. Cedar was on the floor, on the yellow quilt Knot had laid down for her, writing capital letters and naming them out loud. She moved her legs as though she were swimming, her hair divided to form three ponytails: one on the left, one on the right, one in back.