Call Your Daughter Home

by Deb Spera

  Berns stoops over his work. Berns Caison the Third was what we always called him. He wasn’t ever no third of nothin’, but we called him that ’cause he liked school and was good with words. My oldest girl, Edna, stretches her arms in the air just like she does when she wakes up in the morning. That’s when she sees me. She brightens and I see the girl in her. “Mama!” she yells and runs to me from across the field. My Lily watches from where she stands, hands on both her hips like she’s looking for a fight. Berns lays his hand across his brow and squints just like Daddy used to. For a minute I think I’ve seen a ghost. He’s a stringy man but he’s got grit, even if he ain’t much bigger than a woman. He gives me a hard look, sees I’m alone with my young’uns and his shoulders stiffen. He knows why I come.

  There’s only one good way to kill a gator with a shotgun. If it’s to be quick it’s got to be to the back of the head, a round spot upward where the broad of the back and head meet. You got to get up behind without it knowing. That ain’t no easy task. Daddy says he once saw a gator eat a deer he was tracking along the banks of the Edisto River. Said the gator jumped out of the water, grabbed that deer by the throat, and took it into a death roll. Now I know that’s a lie—Daddy always did like tall tales. He taught me well enough to know that no gator’d waste energy on food as skittish as deer. No, it’ll go for a pig, or a coon, maybe even a bobcat, but deer are too nervous, too prancy. If a gator gets you it’s ’cause you’re lazy or stupid. I’m neither.

  Berns gives the girls some bread and butter, and sends them out to sit under the willow tree in the yard so’s we can talk, then pours me a cup of coffee left from the morning. He sets the percolator back on the stove and joins me at the kitchen table, then slides the sugar bowl toward me, but I shake my head. I can’t stomach the sweet.

  “Did you get my letter?” he asks.

  “Alvin burned it ’fore I finished, but I saw about the job at the Sewing Circle.”

  “Mrs. Walker died, so the job is open and her house is for let. Ten dollars a month.”

  “I ain’t got ten dollars, Berns.”

  “You would if you had that job.”

  “I got Alvin to worry about.”

  Berns looks at his hands, the knuckles practically worn to the bone.

  “I don’t see Alvin worrying none about you and yours.”

  I can’t speak to that, so I don’t. I drink my coffee and look out the window to my girls in the yard. Mary, poor sick baby, lies with her head in Alma’s lap. Edna’s going on about something—that girl talks so much she could make paint dry quicker. Lily sits off to the side. She’s got her daddy in her.

  “Why’d he do it this time?”

  Berns is on me now.

  “He was drunk.”

  “Drinking a lot, is he?”

  “Like he’s going to prison for life. He wants Lily to go live with his daddy. Be his slave for when his new baby comes. Says he can’t say no, so I did.”

  Berns gets up and washes his cup in the sink. He is a good husband. He and his wife, Marie, have a good marriage. She suffered from swamp sickness two years ago, and lived to tell it, but now she’s lame and needs a cane to walk. Yet she gets up before the sun, and walks five miles every day to the Sewing Circle outside town where they sew burlap bags for seed. They’ve got no babies but Berns don’t care. Having a baby would likely kill her. He’s a different kind of man and gets no sympathy for it.

  “Marie says Mrs. Coles might hold the job for you if’n you ask.”

  I stare at my brother. “I can’t go over to the Coles family house looking like this.”

  He comes to sit across from me and sets his elbows on the table before saying, “Gert, we barely got enough to eat as it is, and we can’t raise these girls. I don’t know nothing about girls, and Marie don’t have the energy for them. Lily’s hanging with that Barker boy. He’s no good, but if I tell her so, she says I ain’t her daddy and she don’t need to listen to me.”

  “I’ll talk to her.”

  “That ain’t it, Gertrude. She’s right, I ain’t her daddy, and Marie ain’t her mama. These girls need you.”

  I sink my head to my arms just for a minute’s peace. Berns exhales loud before he scrapes back his chair and stands.

  “I’ll take Alma. That’s all I can do. I can’t take care of a sick child, Gert. I can barely see after the healthy ones. You got to sort this out with Alvin.”

  Before he leaves to finish the day’s work he tells me to get Mary to a doctor and then closes the door. The room is quiet. Mama used to hold my head in her lap on the sofa and stroke my hair until I’d close my eyes to sleep. I was always afraid of what the night might bring. If I shut my eyes and stay still, I hear her voice inside my head singing in her wobbly way the same song I sing to my girls, “The old gander’s weeping, the old gander’s weeping, the old gander’s weeping because his wife is dead.”

  When I lift my aching head there sits two dollars Berns has left on the table before me.

  Under the willow tree by the road I tell my girls the news. Mary cries for her sisters until I separate them and tell Alma and Edna to go on back to the field. They each give me a kiss and do what they’re told. Lily goes to follow, but I yank her backward by the hair and tell her if she sasses anybody in this house she won’t have a hide left to sit on. I slap her to make her look at me and say, “Lily Louise, if I hear word about that Harlan Barker, I’ll let your daddy deal with it. You know what that’ll mean?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She’s stone-faced.

  “You know what your daddy will do to that boy and likely you, too?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Say it.”

  I want to know she understands me.

  “Mama, please, I won’t see him no more.”

  “He comes ’round, what will you tell him?”

  “My daddy will kill him.”

  “He comes around, you tell him your daddy will cut his throat. You tell him that.” She’s crying now and I’m glad.

  “Mind your aunt and uncle. Go on now.”

  I shove her to the field where Alma has nearly cleared a row of cotton, perked by the bread and butter she’s eaten.

  I carry Mary in one arm and the gun under the crook of the other. We are a sight for anyone on Main Street who cares to look, but my head is down so as not to invite stares. The Coles family owns the Sewing Circle and most of the land in Branchville. Maybe they own the whole town. Can’t say for sure. My daddy worked for them and his daddy before him. We worked leased land from the Coles, but that was before the boll weevils cleaned us out. After, the Coles took to making the tenants raise chickens. Daddy worked that land all his days, and early on when times was good, the Coles family give us a store-bought fruitcake soaked in rum every Christmas, all wrapped up in red cellophane. That was a time of plenty.

  Once, when President Taft come to town to speak at the railroad depot, everybody got off work for the day. We got to go and hear him, whites and coloreds alike. Folks come from miles around. I was eight years old, and Mama and Daddy walked Berns and me by the hand to town. When the train come it looked like a live animal, squirting water and belching columns of black smoke. One colored girl, in from somewhere far off, had never seen a train. She cried out, “It’s the devil, I see the fire and brimstone! May God save us all!” and then she passed out, sure hell was upon us. I asked Daddy if that was true, but he laughed and said, “No, that’s just nigger talk,” and put me on his shoulders so I could hear the president.

  The only thing I know about hell is what’s writ in the good book. Mama thought if you talked about hell it could be visited upon you, so she kept a spirit tree in the front yard to keep the demons from the house. For many years the only trouble I knew was what a young girl’s mind could conjure, ghosts and monsters, nothing like real life.

  The Coles
family house is pure white and grand as the entrance to heaven. Old oak trees grow up on both sides of the walkway all the way to the front porch, where rocking chairs sit waiting for a body to rest in the cool of the day. Walking through those trees and up those grand steps makes you feel like you’re on the path to glory. The columns hold up two stories of house fit for a king, and the wide door is a blue I’ve only ever seen on a robin’s egg. I put Mary behind an oak tree and tell her to stay while I tend to business. The brass knocker on the door is so heavy I fear to lift it, but the sun is high in the sky, and I don’t have time to waste. I’ve got to get home before Alvin does. I knock twice, then step away so as to be polite.

  Old Black Retta comes to the door in her maid outfit, crisp and white. She’s as old as I know and been working for the Coleses since she was a girl. Her own mother was owned by the family, so she’s got no cause to put on airs, but she takes one look at me and hisses, “You need something, go ’round back. This door’s for proper folk.”

  I look her in the face and say real strong, “I’m here to see the Missus.”

  “You got business, go to the back.”

  She’s about to close the door in my face when I hear Mrs. Coles ask from the grand hallway, “Retta, who is it?”

  I holler out so she can hear, “It’s me, Gertrude Caison, Missus. I’m here to see about some business.”

  “Step off this porch, you’re not fit to stand on it,” Retta whispers. She only uses her sugar voice around the Mister and Missus.

  I do as she says and scramble back from the porch and onto the stone path. I lay my gun to the ground and smooth the hair from my face. Retta holds the door open so Mrs. Coles can come out on the porch to get a look at me. She’s a fine old lady. Her hair is done up, and she wears a green dress with white pearl buttons at the neck. I know some about her. I know she’s got electricity in this house. She’s registered to vote and raised five kids, but one hung himself in the barn when he was still a boy. I know her daddy was from New York and that she owns the Sewing Circle. There’s no grandkids, and I hear tell the Mister and Missus have supper on china every day with cloth napkins in their laps even though it’s just the two of them.

  Mrs. Coles steps out, looks down at me and asks, “Gertrude Caison?”

  “Yes’m. It’s Pardee now, but it was Caison ’fore I got married.”

  “You’re Lillian Caison’s daughter?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “She was a good woman.”

  “Yes, ma’am, she was.”

  “What happened to your face, Gertrude?”

  “I fell, Missus.”

  She gives me a hard look then says, “State your business.”

  “I come to see about a job at the Sewing Circle and the let on Mrs. Walker’s house.”

  “Can you sew?”

  “Oh, yes, Missus. I’m good with sewing. My mama taught me.”

  “Your mother could sew anything.”

  She clasps her hands under her bosom when she talks, just like Mama used to do. Retta steps out on the porch and stands behind the Missus.

  “Yes, ma’am. I have two dollars as deposit for the house, and if you can give me that job at the Sewing Circle, I will see to it I’m here by the middle of next week.”

  “Why, what if we needed you to start tomorrow, Gertrude?”

  “Ma’am, I can’t start tomorrow. I’ve got to sort things out with my husband and get my four girls moved. But I can start work come Wednesday.”

  I walk up a step and hold the two dollars up to her. She looks at that money and asks me again, “What happened to your face, Gertrude?”

  “I got hit, Missus.”

  “That your girl?” she asks me.

  I turn to see Mary scoot back behind the tree.

  “One of them,” I tell her. “That one there is Mary.”

  “Come out here, Mary, and let me see you.”

  But Mary does as I told her and stays put behind the tree.

  “I’m sorry, Missus. She’s shy with folks.”

  Mrs. Coles drops her hands to her sides and looks up into the oak trees.

  “Redbirds in the yard all day today,” she says. “Retta doesn’t like that, do you, Retta?”

  Retta shakes her head. “No, ma’am, I don’t.”

  “Don’t expect nobody likes to see that,” I say.

  Everybody knows redbirds in the yard mean a death will be visited on you.

  “I don’t know,” the Missus says, and I know she’s meant that for me.

  “I’ll work hard, Missus. You won’t ever have cause to complain.”

  “There’s no running water at the Walker place. How will you wash your children?”

  “I’ll wash them on Saturdays in the kitchen. We’ll boil the water on the stove. They’ll be kept clean.”

  The Missus seems satisfied for she finally takes my money and tells me she’ll hold the job and Mrs. Walker’s place, but the first month’s rent will come out of my pay, which is fine with me. The job pays twelve dollars a week. We can make a go of it on that kind of money. When she gets to the door she turns back and says to me, “You come to my front door again looking like that and I will put you on the street, you hear me?”

  I say yes, ma’am, and wait ’til she goes before I pick up my gun and pull Mary ’round to the side of the house where no one respectable can see us. I hold the child in my arms and give her a squeeze before we start the walk home, but then a screen door slams and there’s a loud “Pshhhh. Pshhhh.”

  When I turn around there’s Retta coming at me with her purse thrown over her arm and a parcel tied up in a dish towel.

  “Gertrude Pardee.”

  She’s mad at me for not listening, but I don’t care and aim to tell her so when she shoves that parcel at me.

  “There’s some dried beans and biscuits in there. Some meat, too.”

  This is a woman who don’t give something for nothing, but my need’s outgrown my sense. I take what’s given.

  “Come here, child,” she orders Mary.

  Mary does for Retta what she wouldn’t do for the Missus. She obeys. Holding on to my skirt she steps in front of me.

  The old woman looks down at her and says, “Let me see your tongue.”

  Mary does as she is told and Retta peers down at it. She looks in Mary’s ears and turns her around, inspecting her arms and legs and feet. Mary buries her head in my side and trembles.

  “This child’s riddled with worms and burning up with fever.”

  She talks like I’m a fool. I feel the fire in me.

  “She needs a doctor,” she tells me, like I don’t know.

  “No money for that.”

  Retta looks off toward the Coles family’s house, and I turn to go before she can go back and talk the Missus out of what she’s already decided.

  “If your mama could see you, Gertrude, it would break her heart. You meant the whole world to her.”

  “I know that,” I tell her.

  “You’d never know to look at you.”

  I fear for what I’m about to say, but I mean to say it anyway. I know the consequence of what I aim to do—the talk it will stir. The sun is already on the west side of the sky. There is nothing for my child but the certainty of death in that swamp.

  “Keep Mary for me. I’ll be back in four days,” I say.

  Retta opens her mouth and lets it hang there.

  “No, Mama, no!” Mary cries, and grips me ’round the legs. “I’ll be good.”

  “Shut up, girl. Shut your mouth before I shut it for you.” I give her a shake. She stops wailing, but don’t let go. “She’s a good child, and she don’t eat much.”

  “Why me?” Retta asks, staring at me through squinted eyes, like I’m going to steal what she already gave me.

  “Mama u
sed to say if you don’t ask for help, nobody will know to give it,” is what comes out of my mouth. I don’t know for a fact Mama ever said that to me, but there it is all the same.

  Retta puts one hand on her hip and looks from Mary to me. She didn’t expect that.

  “It’s the Christian thing to do,” I say.

  She makes up her mind, and she steps forward, putting out her hand. I pry Mary off me while she whispers, “I’ll be good, Mama, I promise. I’ll be good.”

  Once Retta sees Mary ain’t letting up, she yanks the child free of me and marches down the road that goes through the center of town where everybody will see her leading a white child home with the Lord as her reason. Not even Retta’s husband will speak against that. I set my sight on the sun, though it warbles through the water of my good eye, and head for home.

  * * *

  The sun casts long shadows on the land. Won’t be long now. All the night creatures have started their call like it’s a contest, so loud I can’t make one noise out from the other. It’s a wonder any mother can hear her babies crying in this rumpus. Even if her young was ready for the world, this gator won’t turn her back to me.

  The nest sits sprawled to the south of the footpath. Every kind of plant sits atop it, like a grave covered in haste. The dying day is upon us. Before he rounds the bend, I hear Alvin coming up the trail. I know the stomp of his feet when he’s drunk, the sound of his long belch.

  My mama’s voice calms my nerves. “The goslings are crying, the goslings are crying, the goslings are crying because their mama’s dead.”

  I scoot up slow alongside the tree, and the gator moves at me. I lift my gun. Alvin is upon her before one takes notice of the other. Too late, the gator swings her head to Alvin and away from me. He hollers and jumps back. I step out from under the tree to the clearing on the ridge and take aim with my good eye. When I pull the trigger, there’s a splash and her tail disappears into green moss. Alvin weaves, like he’s stood up too fast from a heavy bar stool, then falls forward into the murky dark of the water.