Effie tried to still her, but Adeline’s hands worked free, turning now to the gag that hung about her neck. She tugged and twisted at the dirty cotton to no avail. “Dégage-moi! Dégage-moi!”
“Shh!” Effie reached behind Adeline’s neck and untied the gag. “There. You’re safe. You’re free.”
Adeline slung the gag away as if it were a cottonmouth. When she turned back to Effie, the madness in her eyes had begun to settle. They stared at each other a moment. Tears built on Adeline’s lashes. Effie’s too. The last time they had spoken—that afternoon in Jackson Square—seemed like an apparition, a storyline from someone else’s life.
“I’m sorry. I wrote you to—”
Effie pulled Adeline into her arms before she could finish the words. They held each other as if the winds of a hurricane blew.
A gunshot, far in the distance, startled them both, Effie to her senses, Adeline to a frozen panic. The man Effie had killed lay cooling beside them. Night’s blackness had overtaken the sky.
Effie gently loosed herself from Adeline’s clutches and stood. “Give me your hands, chère. We’re going to find our way out of here. Someplace safe and better.”
EPILOGUE
Effie dipped her rag in the sudsy water and wiped the blood, fluid, and sticky whiteness from the limbs. She washed the face and stomach and behind the ears. The hair was dense and matted, but sprang into short, soft curls once wetted down and cleaned.
“Fe vit, Effie,” Mrs. Carrière said, coming up behind her.
Effie frowned. She was hurrying. Bathing a body was far easier with the dead than the living. She tried to wash between the tiny toes, but he kicked and wiggled. She tried to clean his palms, but he kept his chunky fingers closed in tight fists.
Mrs. Carrière put her knuckle in Samson Jr.’s mouth and he suckled. “See, he’s hungry. Let’s bring him to Maman.”
“Almost done.” At last, she tickled opened his hand, but he closed it just as quickly, trapping the tip of her finger. His grip was strong, his golden-brown skin soft and warm. He stopped his squirming and stared at her, his dark eyes wide, his little fingers never loosening. Effie laid aside her rag and let him hold on a few moments longer.
The midwife had just finished packing up her supplies when Effie brought the baby back to Adeline. “Spandy-clean and ready to nurse again.”
Adeline flashed a tired smile. “Thank you, chère.”
The midwife said something to Adeline in thick Creole patois that Effie—yet too enraptured with baby Samson—didn’t bother to understand. Only when Adeline snickered did Effie become curious.
“She said you’ve a steady hand and stout constitution.”
“Some faint at the first sight of blood or birthing fluid,” the midwife said in accented English. “You’ve a talent for it.”
A look from Adeline, and Effie refrained from commenting how embalming the dead and delivering babies wasn’t all that different. Both required a sound understanding of human anatomy, a patient and unflappable disposition, a—
“You might consider helping me at some of my other deliveries,” the woman said at the door.
“Yes, I’ll think on it.”
When the midwife left, Effie fussed about the room, opening the shutters for a spot of light, balling up the soiled linen to be washed, freshening Adeline’s tea.
“You don’t have to stay,” Adeline said. “I venture your Tom and les autres hommes are itching for news.”
Effie sat beside her on the bed, fluffing the pillows and smoothing the quilt, hoping Adeline didn’t notice the pink flush that surely colored her ears. “They can itch a moment longer.”
“Mamm and Madame Carrière are here.” Adeline glanced at Samson Jr. Her smile turned wistful. She swallowed and said with forced levity, “We’ll be fine.”
Effie felt the pang too. His eyes were the same shade his father’s had been, just as clear and arresting. He pursed his little mouth into an O, chasing back her tears. Effie kissed them both. “I know we will.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
In writing my first novel, Between Earth and Sky, learning about the experiences of my husband’s family compelled me to explore the mistreatment of Native Americans during the boarding-school era. Similar stories of injustice drew me to Reconstruction. No people strove more valiantly or suffered more greatly than African Americans in this era. I didn’t want to come at this truth indirectly, but to immerse myself and the reader in their lives. There’s hubris in believing I, a white woman, could capture that experience, but also faith in our shared humanity. I hope it is the latter that shines through.
The characters in The Undertaker’s Assistant are all fictitious, but the backdrop of their lives is based on real experiences and events. Numerous black officeholders served in state legislatures throughout the South during this era. Men like Caesar Antoine and Oscar J. Dunn rose to become lieutenant governors. P. B. S. Pinchback became the first African American governor in the United States in 1872. Others, like Hiram Revels, Blanche Bruce, and Robert B. Elliott, made it all the way to Washington.
The violence and intimidation depicted in the story are based on historical fact as well. White “redeemers” terrorized black men and women throughout the South in a systematic campaign to erode their newly won liberties. The 1873 Colfax Massacre in Grant Parish was one of the largest mass killings in U.S. history. The events of the final chapter are patterned after a barbecue-turned-bloodbath that occurred in Clinton, Mississippi, in 1875.
Not even Mardi Gras was immune from the political strife and terror of the day. The parade floats Effie and her friends witnessed are amalgamated from several well-documented Carnival parades of that era.
To those readers keen to explore Reconstruction further, I recommend the following: Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, by Eric Foner; Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery, by Leon F. Litwack; Chained to the Land: Voices from Cotton & Cane Plantations, edited by Lynette Ater Tanner; Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War, by Nicholas Lemann; The Portable Nineteenth-Century African American Women Writers, edited by Hollis Robbins and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.; Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory, by David W. Blight; The Souls of Black Folk, by W. E. B. Du Bois.
And these brilliant works of fiction: Red River, by Lalita Tademy and Beloved, by Toni Morrison.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many people helped bear this book from the first flickering story idea to the finished product. My thanks go out to all of them. In particular:
Jenny Ballif, April Khaito, Angelina Hill, Wendy Randall, and Tonya Todd—my early readers who pushed for more from the story. More heart. More nuance. More direction. All in fewer words.
My agent, Michael Carr, and my editor, John Scognamiglio, who gave me the freedom to follow wherever the story led, then helped me strengthen and sharpen it.
Paula Reedy, Lulu Martinez, Kristine Mills, and the entire team at Kensington, who transformed a simple Word document into this beautiful book and helped bring it to the world.
The staff at the Williams Research Center in New Orleans and Amistad Research Center at Tulane University, whose vast collections of primary source material brought me closer to Effie’s voice. Thank you for your commitment to preserving our history.
Fran Lipowitz, my friend and former teacher, who corrected my rusty French. Merci! Any errors are my own.
My family. I’m ever so grateful for your love and support!
And Steven. Always Steven, who challenges me to be the best version of myself, while loving me as I am. Thank you.
A READING GROUP GUIDE
THE UNDERTAKER’S ASSISTANT
Amanda Skenandore
ABOUT THIS GUIDE
The suggested questions are included to enhance your group’s reading of Amanda Skenandore’s
The Undertaker’s Assistant!
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Did the experiences of Effie and her friends align with you
r assumptions about post–Civil War Reconstruction? If not, in what ways did they differ?
2. Effie spends much of the novel searching for her kin. Though she doesn’t find any blood relatives, do you think she’s found family in the end?
3. What is it that draws Effie to Samson? Have you ever fallen in love with someone without fully understanding why?
4. Do you think Effie and Adeline’s friendship blooms in spite of their differences or because of them? In what ways are they similar?
5. What did you think of the character of Samson? Is he a hero in the story or a villain? Did he ever really love either Effie or Adeline?
6. Effie is confident in her skill as an embalmer, Adeline in her beauty and charm. Were there areas of their lives they seemed more insecure? Did their confidences and insecurities change over the course of the novel?
7. Death in the nineteenth century was a more common and often more intimate occurrence than today. How do our modern customs affect the way we experience death and mourning?
8. Effie remarks that no matter what Mr. Whitmark does he’s “ever a traitor to one cause or another.” Do you agree? Did you feel pity for him in the end?
9. There are many incidences of betrayal in the novel. Which, if any, surprised you, and which felt the most egregious?
10. What did you think about the character of Jonesy? Are there people in your own life whose imprint far exceeds the time you spent with them?
11. What if the racial equality Samson and Effie fought for had endured beyond Reconstruction? How would today’s America be different?
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