After dinner, there was dancing. Stella had one dance with her husband and the rest with an assortment of civic leaders who suddenly burned to appear on her good side. Meanwhile, as instructed, Jackson worked the room soliciting pledges for Stella’s latest project: a hospice house for AIDS victims. Of his own volition, he bypassed the inner circle of tables for the outer, thinking them the closest route to Katherine Marie. He smiled over at his in-laws’ table every chance he got, making wave motions or holding up a single finger as if to say “just one more minute, I’m gettin’ there, hold on” until Katherine Marie got tired of waiting for him, got herself up, and snuck behind him to tap him on the shoulder as the orchestra played “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” and she said: Dance? That was all, just, Dance? but her voice went through him like a bolt of lightning and immediately he stopped what he was doing to turn and grin and greet and hug hard then guide her to the dance floor with one hand on the center of her back as he had been taught at the age of nine was the proper way to escort a lady to such a place.
Though they were in each other’s arms, face to face, both with full nostalgic hearts pounding wildly, neither knew exactly what to say. It’s so good to see you again, Jackson tried. It’s been too long. Way too long, Katherine Marie agreed, and then they were silent while each remembered the past from separate memory banks, aware their versions differed and wondering what to do about it. Finally, Katherine Marie said: Stella looks wonderful. She hasn’t changed a bit. They both laughed then, with that note of sardonic camaraderie they’d always shared as two veterans of Stella’s command. Katherine Marie leaned her head back and narrowed her eyes. She said she’s forgiven me. Has she? Jackson was never disloyal to his wife. Yes, he guessed, yes, of course. It was a lifetime ago, wasn’t it? And you? You truly forgive her? Katherine tilted her head. If I forgave you, I had to forgive her, didn’t I? Jackson felt a heat rise to his cheeks. And how’s Mombasa? What’s the word? Katherine Marie sighed. There’s another hearing next month, she said, but we don’t have much hope left.
Now, you can’t ever give up hope, darlin’, Jackson said, forgetting himself by using the endearment. He marveled at his indiscretion, although Katherine Marie didn’t seem to notice or mind.
I heard about your daddy passin’, she said. I was sorry about that.
Thank you.
I’ve been wanting to tell you that for thirteen years now.
Her condolence, however belated, touched him. His velvet baritone went deeper yet. Each word was a kind of caress.
It was a blessing. He was never himself after, you know.
Yes. I do know. I do.
The music stopped. The two old friends let go of each other. All of a sudden, Stella was there, putting her arm around her husband and nestling her head against his chest. It was a most unusual public pose for her whose intent escaped no one.
I’m sorry, but I need Jackson to do some politicking with me, girl, and you’re going to have to let him go. We don’t often get all these fat cats in one room feeling as guilty as they do right now. Why don’t you stop by the house tomorrow and we can all catch up?
Of course, Stella, that would be nice, Katherine Marie said. About eleven?
Eleven’s perfect. I’ll make us a nice brunch.
Everybody kissed one another. Katherine Marie went directly to get her coat and pick up her car without saying good-bye to Mama or the brothers or Mrs. Godwin, a fact Jackson was sure he’d hear about more than once the rest of the night.
You think she’ll come? Stella asked her husband while they watched her back.
No. No I do not.
Neither do I.
The party broke up after another couple of hours. It was a dancing crowd, or it would have been earlier. Jackson was working his way through a token dance with each of the female members of the school board when Mama rolled up, parting dancers with her walker as effectively as Moses the Red Sea with his staff.
Well, son, this shindig could go on ‘til next Tuesday, looks like, and I’ve got the phlebotomist in the morning. Bubba Ray will be frettin’ if I don’t get home soon. Where’s the guest of honor? I can’t believe I’ve gone through the entire evening without more than a nod from her. But then you all looked so busy reacquaintin’ yourselves with the distant past.
His mother gave him a squinty-eyed, pursed-lip look meant to rankle him into saying more than he should, but Jackson hadn’t fallen for it since high school. Luckily, Stella stood nearby, chatting up the president of the Federal Credit Union Bank. He signaled her to come on over and see Mama off. The two embraced, but not warmly. They paid each other’s dresses backhanded compliments. It was late, Mama was tired or she might have tried to push a few buttons, most named Bubba Ray. She settled for an easier mark.
And where’s your mama, girl? I’ve been wanting to give her my regards all night.
Oh, you know, she’s not well. She left a long time ago. And it’s alright, she’s not likely to have known you. Her mind’s not right anymore. The boys watch out for her and thank God, she’s quiet. Otherwise, I don’t think she’d travel well. She likes to get out and watch the pretty lights and the colors, but she can’t much add to a conversation.
Looked like she was enjoying one with that Katherine Marie Cooper.
Jackson had enough of her poking around looking to start trouble. He noticed Aunt Beadie’s back a few people away. Oh, look, Mama. Aunt Beadie’s trying to find you. You’d best join up with her now.
Kiss me up then, children.
Jackson and Stella did as they were told. When at last they watched Missy Fine Sassaport’s back, bent as it was, they sighed and squeezed each other’s hands.
Katherine Marie surprised them both, arriving at their front door at ten thirty the next morning, her arms loaded with everything necessary for a hearty Sunday brunch: eggs, juice, bacon, sausage, grits, biscuits, fruit, a plastic container of rich brown gravy, and a little basket of pastries. What is all this? Jackson said, after answering the door in his bathrobe and slippers, newspaper in hand, which he promptly dropped to unburden her. Wuz it look like? I know Stella never has a thing in the fridge. Rather than go hungry, I thought I’d bring breakfast with. They smiled together at that, sharing unspoken memories.
She still asleep?
It was a long night.
Why don’t we just get everything ready, and then you can wake her.
Alright.
Give us time to have a chat.
Alright.
The two of them set about unpacking provisions and assembling the tools Katherine Marie would need to cook everything up. Soon the room filled with homely scents redolent of comfort, family, of times gone by. Old habits resurrected, they worked together seamlessly without words, each anticipating the other’s actions. She put out a hand, he filled it with whatever was needed. She cracked eggs and boiled water, Jackson set the kitchen table. They stepped aside or joined up as was necessary with the gracefulness of dancers long accustomed to their partner’s slightest movements. Jackson’s spirit brimmed with sentiment. Such a simple, silent collection of moments, he thought, a treasure.
This feels so ... he said, breaking at search of a proper term.
Katherine Marie turned from the stovetop to flash him a bright smile: Natural?
Yes. I guess that’s it. Natural.
He took a chance: I’ve missed having you around.
She sighed: I’ve missed you all, too. But you know, things being what they were between Stella and me ...
She put down the spatula she’d been working with to emphasize her next words. Turned toward him and put her hands on her hips. Jackson noticed how slim they were, like a girl’s. Good for you! he wanted to say. Good for you for staying damn lovely. But it sounded shallow or flirtatious or worse to voice such a compliment, and he kept mum waiting for her to speak.
I was angry with Stella, Jackson, but never, never for a minute was I angry with you.
I know.
He failed
to expand on the subject, leading as it would to a discussion about his feelings on the incident in question. For quite some time, after all, he’d nursed a good head of steam about Katherine Marie’s actions himself. Her disagreement with Stella he could understand, the cultural conflicts she’d underscored during their argument he could understand, but the insults, the threats—they were another matter entirely. At the time, he’d nearly raged on over to her place to put some retaliatory hurt on her himself. Only Stella or his breeding or—and thinking about it, this was probably the real reason—the past kept him from it. Oh, the past, the monstrous past he’d been enslaved to one way or another for thirty-five years! That night that colored everything he ever did. That night, that dammed summer night when he was nineteen and Katherine Marie twenty and Bokay nearly twenty-two and Bubba Ray, Lord, he was only thirteen, hard to imagine now that at a mere thirteen years of age he could have been the catalyst of all that misery, thirteen!
As usual when he suffered meditations on Bubba Ray, Jackson got lost. He started off wondering what that no-good layabout would do when he got down to Mama’s last dime. He imagined his brother finding a way to tap him for support. His thoughts darkened then, churned like a twister with violent images. Completely unaware, he set to beating the spoon in his hand against the kitchen counter in a queer rhythm that matched the fantasies he entertained of pummeling Bubba Ray to an unrecognizable lump of blood-streaming flesh. Katherine Marie called him back to himself.
Jackson. Jackson.
Huh?
Where’d you go?
He blushed like a teenager: Don’t matter. I’m sorry.
It’s alright. Know what that spoon banging put me in mind of? Those days when we were kids. When I was first working for your mama after she got laid up. And you were memorizing poetry for school. You used to bang out the meter just like that, with a spoon on the counter, and you used to quote it for me. Remember?
How could I forget?
You were sweet on me, weren’t you.
Well, I guess I was.
Then you might have chosen poetry a little more appropriate. I can hear you now doing Gunga Din. “...with ‘is mussick on ‘is back/’E would skip with our attack/An’ watch us till the bugles made ‘Retire.’” Oh, Lordy, it still makes me laugh. You’d pause there and give me this hooded look—fraught with meaning, I believe is the expression—and continue. “An’ for all ‘is dirty ‘ide/’E was white, clear white, inside/ When ‘e went to tend the wounded under fire!”
Jackson was completely disarmed by her recitation accomplished in proper Cockney with dramatic gestures. He laughed at himself, laughed at her, the two of them collapsed into kitchen chairs with their laughter. Jackson tried to apologize for his young self between gasps for breath. He handed Katherine Marie a napkin and took one himself, as their eyes were running tears they laughed so hard and long.
They blotted their faces and calmed down, and when they could talk, Jackson said: “White, clear white, inside?” I recited that line to you? With romantic intent? Please, I don’t remember ever being quite that stupid, Katherine Marie.
You were worse. Quoting such lines were your idea of racial liberalism back then. You’d get even more serious-lookin’ and say slowly, making your voice deep as it could go: “Though I’ve belted you and flayed you/By the livin’ Gawd that made you,/You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din! “
They burst out laughing again, kept at it until the grits burned and Stella woke up, came flying down the stairs wondering where the fire was and why all the racket. When she saw them so full of their own jokes, she laughed too, without knowing why, and the three of them stood in the middle of the kitchen laughing like idiots as if only in an excess of joy could the pain of the past be blotted out.
SIX
Spring, 1959
SIX MONTHS BEFORE JACKSON’S MAMA took sick at the age of forty-three, Eleanor died of her cough at last. The poor woman dropped dead, coughing up blood all over the Sassaport linoleum before anyone found her. At first, they found no one the lady of the house approved of to replace her, which left Mama on her own in a kitchen soon bereft of greens, legumes, fish, or fowl and awash in bacon, red meat, sugar, sour cream, and chicken fat. A backwoods blockhead could have predicted that she’d come down with diabetes, hypertension, glaucoma, or gout, but not all at once as it happened. The doctor had warned her of just these dangers ever since Bubba Ray was born, engendered as they might be by her dietary habits and family history. She paid no more mind to her husband on the subject of her health than she did anything else. No one foresaw that that powerhouse of will would take to her bed from shock at so much bad news, a cowardly act that threw the household into enough chaos that one afternoon Sukie declared she was too old to take care of things by her single self and nurse an invalid to boot. I am retirin’, she announced, before you all kill me with the ever-flowin’ river of your needs and whims.
Jackson’s mama pitched a tearful fit at the declaration, and Daddy offered a substantial hike in pay, but neither could change Sukie’s mind. She was done with them all, especially that rascal Bubba Ray, she told them, and though she felt sorry to leave Miss Missy high and dry laid up as she was and though she’d miss young Mr. Jackson, her family favorite, dearly, she was doner than done. She had her social security coming, her baby girl had come back home from that hotel she worked in Biloxi with savings in the bank and a hardworking husband in tow, so she didn’t need the doctor’s money quite so bad as she had in years gone by when she’d lowered her pride and begged for some, even though she knew he was tight as a nun’s bedsheet with a dollar, she was that desperate. Despite the family’s pleas and offers, she packed up her things the same day and was gone for good.
Once the dust of her leave-taking settled, Dr. Sassaport looked his wife in her panicked, cloudy eye and said: I can’t quite fathom where all that sass comes from, can you? Weren’t we always good to Sukie? Didn’t you always give her your castoff dresses and the boys’ toys for her children? It’s not like your frocks were in tatters or the toys broken. Nothin’ we ever gave her was but barely used. We gave her days off when she asked most of the time, as I recall, and presents on her birthdays and Christmas. Sure, she slept here four nights a week, but we wanted five, and dammit, we paid her well for that duty, didn’t we? We paid her promptly a fair rate and never once cheated her out of her due. Call me stupid if you like, but I was attached to that woman. I thought she was attached to us, too. Well, I guess it goes to show. With Negroes, you just never know what they’re thinking. Don’t you worry, honey, I’ll find someone to take Sukie’s place. I’ve got a number of patients that owe me money, we’ll find a bargain in the process, you better believe.
It took a month. The first candidate struck Mama as slovenly from her first step through the back door. The second she thought had the darting eyes of a thief. The third appeared too weak to handle the workload, and so their maidless weeks dragged on. During that time, Jackson was required to take over, to vivify the domestic skills he’d learned from Mama during their golden year before Bubba Ray was born. He cooked, he swept, he laundered, he polished and scrubbed. He ran up and down the stairs ten times a day before school and after to make sure Mama had her pitcher of tea, her medicines, her magazines, her fresh towels. His grades suffered, but as he’d already enjoyed early acceptance to college, no one cared. Meanwhile, Bubba Ray lay about on the couch with his hands down his pants like the great adolescent slug he’d become and laughed at him. He trailed crumbs through the house, wadded up filthy paper and shoved balls of it under the couch, puddled his milk on the countertops and yelled to his brother: Miss Jackie, you missed a spot over here! Jackson slapped the brat the first time he played such tricks on him. He didn’t use anything close to his available force. It was a firm but slight slap to the shoulder such as one might deliver to the hind end of a toddler who was squalling because those fascinating matches had been taken away. Bubba Ray screamed like a woman and tore upstairs to
hurl himself onto their mama’s bed where he sobbed out grandiose exaggerations of Jackson’s intemperance, presented his chubby cheeks streaked with tears, made his lying eyes round with damp pathos. Horrified, Mama rang the little bell she kept on her end table to summon the older boy to her side. Within minutes, he stood in front of her, hangdog, knowing what was coming while Bubba Ray sniffled amongst the bedclothes where he lay half-buried in Missy Fine Sassaport’s lap, his one visible eye twinkling with victory and revenge.
Jackson, I know my convalescence is hardest on you, Mama said, breathing heavily with emotion and fatigue. I know what a trial keeping this old house in one piece is under normal circumstances. I know with your schoolwork and these new responsibilities, you’re no doubt pushed to the limits of your endurance. But some things cannot be helped. And a man, a real man, bears with the frustration of the inescapable without resorting to violence against a hapless child.
Wide-eyed, Jackson opened his mouth to protest. There was absolutely nothing hapless about the unruly, mean-spirited creature in question, he wanted to say. He was as tall as Jackson was and thick around the middle. He looked like an Ottoman warrior, for Lord’s sake. Jackson considered his brother’s long, simian arms, his thatch of thick curly hair, the heavy-lidded eyes and lips like a fish. There was something not right about him, something barbarian. As if listening to his thoughts, Mama raised her arm with her palm held flat up to heaven like a Baptist.
No, no, no. Don’t even try, Jackson. I will not hear a word against your baby brother. Whatever monkey business he may be up to, it cannot possibly excuse you from abusing him. Now, I want you to apologize this instant and swear before me, Bubba Ray, and God Almighty that you will never bully him again.
Oh, it was difficult. It might have been the most difficult task ever set before Jackson Sassaport, but he humbled himself to please his dear, sick mama. After choking out a much-detested apology, he vowed never to lay a hand on Bubba Ray again. It was the first of only two vows of his life that he ever broke.
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