by Deb Spera
“This is your room now,” she said. “Do with it as you see fit.”
It’s small but has a window looking out to the backyard where the barns and outbuildings sit off in the distance, and you can see the old slave cabins through the trees. I swear sometimes I still see smoke comin’ up from those chimneys though it’s been more than thirty years since anybody lived in them.
I rub the child dry and strip her down to her underpants ’til her dress can dry. Her teeth’s chattering, and she’s shaking from fever so bad I got to lay her under a pile of blankets and hope for the best. I fetch a glass of water and promise to check on her.
“You got to rest while I work. Don’t make no noise, you hear? I don’t want to cause no trouble for Miss Annie.”
“Yes’m,” she whispers.
Odell is right about the child not belonging in this house, but what was I to do? We got Homecoming over at Indian Fields Camp the first week of October. Every farmer in the territory will put down their work and gather for worship and communion for a whole seven days. That’s less than six weeks away. Camp takes time to get ready for, and I still got to get the canning done, beans dried, pudding made, kitchen and bedding packed. There’s much to do.
I just finish putting on the coffee when Miss Annie comes through the swinging door, surprising me so that I jump high enough to scare the both of us.
“Lordy be!” I say and clutch my heart.
“I’m sorry, Retta,” she says and sits at the table with a list before her.
“You’re up early.”
“I’ve made a list of things we’ll need for Camp,” she says. “I want to do something special for Saturday jubilee. I get so sick of all that fried chicken.”
I talk as I pour the coffee and mix it white with milk and a teaspoon of sugar just the way she likes it.
“What about Frogmore stew for Saturday supper?” I say, “The boys can bring shrimp and crab in from Edisto, and we got enough smoked alligator and sausage left from last winter.”
I set the coffee in front of Miss Annie, and she says, “That’s just the thing.”
I pour myself a cup and lay it on the counter where I do my work. Miss Annie gets quiet and scribbles more to do on her list.
I got one ear in this room and one in the next as I pour flour in the bowl and make a hole in the center with my fist. I fill the hole with lard and milk and mash it together until it’s good and thick, then snake it up and choke it off at the top to set on the cooking sheet. Mr. Coles likes my biscuits, so I make them fresh every morning. There’s a creak from the bed in my room, but Miss Annie don’t notice. I gather eggs from the icebox but my hands shake when I crack them open. Eggshells fall in the bowl and I got to dig them out with my fingernails.
I break the quiet. “What you thinkin’ so hard on, Miss Annie?”
She waves her hand like she’s swatting away a bothersome fly, so I shut my mouth. She takes up her coffee and blows before taking a sip while I fry bacon in the skillet.
“I guess I’m just thinking about the girls,” she finally says. “Wondering if I invite them, whether or not they’d come out to Camp. They could bring their husbands. They had such a good time when they were small. Remember?”
“Sure do.”
I reach ’cross the bowl to take a sip of coffee. Miss Annie’s girls, they’re women now, ain’t come ’round to see their mama for over fifteen years. Last words Miss Molly said was she was never coming back and she ain’t been. The older Miss Molly got, the more fiery she burned, just like her mama. Miss Sarah wrote some in the beginning, but that tapered off. Last letter she told Miss Annie that Molly’s working a proper job for a woman named Clelia McGowan. She’s causing a ruckus in Charleston with her fight for women’s rights. When Miss Annie heard about the job she went down and registered herself for the vote. She wrote and told Sarah knowing that news would get to Molly. But Miss Molly still ain’t wrote back, and after a while, Sarah quit, too.
“Why don’t you call them on the telephone and ask?” I say.
“I’ve considered it.”
“Time has a way of softening folks.”
“I wish I understood how it came to this. I’ve tried. I’ve gone over and over it in my mind. It hurt me worse than when Buck died.”
“What hurt you worse than when Buck died?”
Mr. Coles steps into the kitchen and comes to the counter to pour his own coffee like he does every morning. I see the surprise on Miss Annie’s face. She’s spoken her mind, and now she’s got to answer for it.
“I just miss the girls.”
He loads two teaspoons of sugar into his cup and stirs.
“Our daughters aren’t girls anymore, Mother. They turned their backs on you, the woman who birthed and gave them life, a good life! I have no use for such ingrates. The sooner you put them from your mind, the better off you will be—we’ll all be.”
“Oh, Edwin, you don’t need to defend me,” she says.
“Just stating facts, Mother.” He picks the morning paper off the counter and points it at her. “Impudent behavior doesn’t deserve attention. Of any kind.” Then he kisses her forehead and leaves the room.
Miss Annie sighs before pushing back her chair and standing.
“He’s worried about the tobacco crop. He’s counting on that tobacco.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Maybe you’re right about the girls, Retta. I don’t know.”
“Can’t hurt. Breakfast will be ready in just a few minutes.”
I pour the eggs into the skillet and scramble them in bacon grease.
“Take your time. I am moving at a snail’s pace today.”
She leaves me with my own thoughts. The day is young. I used to be calmed by the promise of a quiet room. I set aside a small plate of eggs and a biscuit for the girl. I will feed the child and she will eat. All will be well.
After Mr. Coles leaves to survey the tobacco hanging in the barns and Miss Annie has gone to the Circle, I unlock the door and pull the chair up to the child asleep on the bed. I touch her to wake but she don’t rouse, and I am heartsick for a moment thinking the worst. When she finally opens her eyes and looks at me, they are glassy with fever.
“I want my mama,” she whispers.
“Your mama has business to care for. She’ll be back in three days’ time. Come on now, sit up and eat.”
“What if she don’t come back?”
Lord, this child, asking questions that don’t need to be asked.
“Your mama knew you ’fore you knew yourself. Mothers don’t leave. She’ll be back.”
I take a spoonful of eggs and hold it to her lips. She takes them in her mouth, then gags and spits them on the bed. She starts crying again. Mourn so strong it gives rise to my own.
“Stop that crying, stop it.”
She quiets but her body heaves. She’s lost inside herself. I crawl on the bed and hold her ’til she gets it out. Finally she eats a bit of biscuit with honey, but not enough to sustain. After, I get her wrapped in a blanket, set her in the chair by the window and pull away the curtain just a little ways so she can see the garden and beyond to the barn. The horses are in the paddock. I tell her to give them names while I get the bread kneaded and pull the door closed. I am at the sink when I hear boots stomp. The screen door opens at the same time the door to my room does. Mary stands there just as Mr. Coles steps across the threshold and into the kitchen. He’s come back early from the fields but for what I cannot say.
“What’s this?” he asks when he sees her.
I am caught. The child scurries away from the open door backward toward the window, and I hurry to her side talking as I go.
“This here is Mary. I’m taking care of her while her mama is away.”
I lay my hand atop the child’s head to steady her tremble.
“A
re you being paid to care for this child, Retta? Earning a dollar off my back?”
“No, sir. The mother needed help for a few days is all, and I thought it the Christian thing to do. I’m real sorry not to check with you first but it happened yesterday after I finished my work. I had no way to ask.”
“A white woman asking a favor of you?”
“Yessir, I believe I was last in line for the asking.”
He stares at Mary, who clutches my skirt.
“Does Mother know she’s here?”
“No, sir, I didn’t want to trouble nobody. She’s a quiet child, shy with people, but no bother at all.”
“How long are you tasked with keeping the child?”
“Three more days, sir.”
He stands there, looking at her, fiddling with the change in his pocket.
“I don’t want you worrying Mother with this. Understand? You keep her hidden away.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mary’s your name?” he asks the girl.
She nods, watching him.
Mr. Coles pulls out a hand full of change, sifts through and finds what he wants. He holds out a nickel.
“You ever had a nickel of your very own, Mary?”
She shakes her head no.
“This one has your name on it. Come over here and see.”
She pulls away and walks to the door, where he stands holding out the shiny coin. When she gets to him, he places it in the palm of her hand and points to the lettering.
“Right there is your name, do you see?”
She shakes her head no, and that gives him a good laugh.
“What do I get for that?” he asks.
She shrugs her shoulders.
“I think I ought to get a hug for big money like that, don’t you?”
He puts out his arms. She is a good girl and does as she’s told. Mr. Coles swoops her up. The child hangs limp in his embrace like a lamb in the mouth of a lion.
6
Gertrude
I rise early on the day the Lord has made before the sun takes its rightful place in the sky. I put a pot on the stove and soak the beans Retta gave me. In them, hidden like a Christmas surprise, is a bit of pork back. I ain’t had a good butter bean in many years and a bite of pork in twice that time. I think of my girls, safe with Berns and Marie getting what I can’t give. They’ll have something in them by now, a bit of toast and butter, some coffee maybe. They’ll be wiping sleep from their eyes. I think of Mary and all the times I said I’d give her to the ragman if she weren’t good, then I hand her over to the ragman’s wife like she was yesterday’s garbage. Oh, my head, my head. I wish I could slice it off and store it on a shelf ’til it’s healed. But I cannot. There is work to be done.
I scrub the whole place clean, even the walls, then gather and take stock of all we got and lay it on the springs of the bed. It’s paltry, not enough of a dowry for any one of my girls, but if they can find their way together there’s enough to start a home. There’s some kitchen tools, dishes, my cast-iron skillet, a big pot, two pieces of brown crockery with lids, some silverware and a knife with a wooden handle big enough to cut watermelon. There’s my Bible, frayed and half ruined from water damage, and a meager amount of quilts and linens, but the girls will be kept warm enough to live. I find a metal toolbox underneath the house in a corner next to the pilings. I’m surprised since I never did see Alvin use the tools. Inside are a hammer, some nails, a screwdriver, wrench and pliers. In the middle of the box is a clear glass bottle laid flat against the bottom—more than half full. He must have been drunk when he hid it and forgot it was here. The liquid inside is pure gold. I hold it to the sun. It tints the trees amber, making them seem like something out of a dream, but that’s deceiving. I know the treachery it holds.
I do all the washing, including the dress on my back, and then, naked, pin it all out on the clothesline. The storm has helped some with the heat, but August is August no matter which way you turn. All we got hangs on the line. It’s dusk when I sit down to the supper table. The heat’s tolerable naked, so I stay that way. No sense in worrying about my body and who sees it. No one comes here that don’t have to. I hated my body and what was demanded of it for the longest time. It just seemed to me like something I didn’t fit inside. But then I gave birth to Edna, and I remember thinking how sorry I was to have thought so poorly of it. My body did everything it was supposed to. It built the child in my arms. I never gave a thought to what it could do until a baby latched on and fed from me.
I got a feast of beans and corn bread—enough to last three, maybe four days for one person. Wouldn’t last but one with the girls home. I taste what I got like they’re sitting at the table with me. The butter beans are the best I ever ate, and the corn bread is so sweet I don’t miss the butter. I allow one bowl and place the rest in the crockery to store in the cupboard for tomorrow, then wash my dishes under the clear night sky. Tomorrow I will give myself to what comes. But tonight, I fill a glass of what Alvin left behind. The gold swirls as it reaches the top. The smell burns the inside of my nose. I sit on the bottom step under the night sky and let the bugs feast on skin I ain’t never willingly shown the outside world, and take up the glass and drink. The fire slides down my throat and warms my belly. It takes hold and loosens the pain. There is the virtue. I lift the glass again, drinking into the night, drinking ’til it’s gone, swallowing all of what swallowed my husband.
Come Monday I am dressed and matching the corners of the bed blankets when I hear the creatures in the swamp yell to one another like they do when danger is upon them, and I know Alvin’s daddy is coming through the woods even before I hear his stomp and bad temper.
“Alvin! Alvin!” he hollers. “Goddamn it, Alvin, get your lazy ass up.”
I lay the shotgun along the inside of the screen door and step out to the top of the steps and wait. A bull coming through a herd of chickens would be quieter than this man. I know I ought to be scared, but I ain’t. We’re on Alvin’s daddy’s land. He’s got plenty of it and uses the trees for timber. That built him a nice house with indoor plumbing over in St. George. It’s a pity Alvin’s mama didn’t get to see the high living. She caught the swamp sickness in this very house and died when Alvin was a boy. Alvin said her death changed his daddy, and I do believe it took its toll on Alvin, too. There was another marriage so Alvin could have a mother, but she run off after a year and nobody’s heard from her since. Now there’s question of the legal state of his marriage to the third wife, being no divorce was ever had with the second. It makes me wonder what Alvin’s daddy knows that we don’t.
Wife number three is no more than sixteen and pregnant with her first child. Can’t imagine the likes of being married to such an old man, but she acts like he’s the king of St. George. I know he likes that, so he’s lookin’ to give her everything she wants, including one of my girls to order around.
When Alvin’s daddy catches sight of me, he turns his head away and hollers over his shoulder, “Go fetch your good-for-nothing husband.”
He stands at the edge of the yard, his back to me, looking over the property like he’s a plantation owner surveying his slave’s house.
He jumps when I say, “He ain’t here.”
He didn’t expect me to talk back, but he still won’t turn to face me, and I realize this man ain’t never looked me in the face, ain’t never called me by my given name. Not once in all the time I’ve known him, like I was less than a dog in the yard. If he looked now, he’d know. If he stepped inside my screen door he’d see I’ve scrubbed his son from this place. Even so, I cannot hide what I done. My rage is such that I don’t want to anymore.
Alvin’s daddy turns toward the house and looks around like he can’t make sense of what I said. “Where is he at then?”
“Don’t reckon to know. Never came home from work on Friday.”
Th
e quiet causes him to still. He cocks his head to one side like he’s just come to his senses and looks around like maybe somebody is playing a joke and will pop out from behind a tree. There ain’t no joke here.
“Where’s your brats?”
“With my brother. I took them on Friday. We got nothin’ to eat here, Otto. Nothin’.”
Otto is his name, but I never before called him by it. I was always too scared. He knew my daddy. Heard him tell a man down at the sawmill once about how he knew Mama was sick—that he and Alvin did the Christian thing and took me off my daddy’s hands. I’ve come to hope maybe Daddy was thinking he was the one doing Otto the favor by helping a wayward son with a daughter not afraid of hard work. Why else would Daddy give me in matrimony to such a man? Unless he thought that was my worth. Then why teach me what he did? I learned. I wasn’t stupid. It must be something I don’t see, don’t know, won’t ever know. A man’s thoughts are a stranger to me.
There are crows flying in lazy circles above us—first two, then three more join. Five crows’ cries cut through all the sounds in the swamp. Caw-caw-caw. Otto grunts like he’s made up his mind and walks across the yard toward the steps. I guess he’s aiming to prove me a liar and see for himself. I put both feet on the next step down to meet him should he come.
“He ain’t been home, Otto. Last I seen him was with you.”
He’s upon the steps, but he don’t come up. Instead he works himself into a fit, kicks over my washtub and tries to rip the wood rail from the stair.
“Goddammit, goddammit.”
Above, the crows call so loud and fast it sounds like laughter. Otto stamps and yells ’til he runs out of steam—a red-faced fool. He puts one hand on his hip and another on his big belly and tries to calm his breath. The truth of his boy is standing right here in front of him, only he don’t want to see, even if it’s to accuse. He don’t want to see the mark his son left on me—the old and the new. I want to tell him, I put your boy down, Otto, but I don’t. I see the man for what he is. No worse, no better than his son. He is the root of the tree he grew.
