“She’s beautiful, like her mother.”
“You always say the sweetest things, Judea.” I say touching his cheek.
“Because I have the sweetest wife and now I have the sweetest little girl. What are you going to name her?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you name her?”
“What’s her Father’s name? Maybe we should include it.”
“You are her Father.” I look away in shame.
“Hey, look at me.” He says. “We’ve been over this, haven’t we? She’s my child.”
“I want to name her, Yves.” The idea comes to me out of the blue. “Her name is Yves.” I kiss her hair and pass her back to him. Yves looks nothing like Judea.
“You do know it’s going to be hard to explain this bright-eyed child, don’t you? My mother and both of your parents are black.” His eyes twinkle with humor. “You couldn’t pick a man that looks a little like me?”
I laugh aloud. It hurts but I don’t care. He’s cradling her in his arms and looking down at her like a besotted Father. Who is going to tell him Yves isn’t his daughter to his face? Me and Judea are closer than before. He treats Yves and Judi the same. He spoils her a little more because she is his baby girl. She smiles at him at a month old and scoots to him at five. She crawls to him two months later and her first word is da-da. I burst with pride when she toddles after him a few months after that. Judi is two years older and he thinks it means he is a big kid. We farm, we raise our babies and we make love. We make so much love. We don’t have any more children to our disappointment. I took it harder than Judea who never made me feel like it was my fault.
We watch Judi and Yves grow up the way children are supposed to. Our kids marry the spouses of their choice. Hans and Yves were much like me and Judea when we were young. Judi marries two wives but they are love matches. Judi has a son, Aiden. He passes away in a four-wheeler accident when he’s fourteen. Yves has one child, a little girl named Naomi. She was with Aiden when he died. They were the best of friends. Yves and Hans take in a baby boy named Daniel who was orphaned by a flood. Our lives revolve around our family. Judea and me never have a dull moment. I watch my hair turn gray and my face wrinkle with each passing year with joy and sadness. We bury Judi after suffering a heart attack at sixty. Burying Judi before himself took a toll on Judea. I watch my husband age into a quiet old man who still works the land and still holds me at night. I know that he is going to die and it scares me. I want him to live forever. He dies in his sleep at ninety-four. It’s still too soon for me.
Yves and I stand hand in hand beside his grave weeping together. Burying Judea is worse than death. Burying Judea is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I bury everything inside of me with him. I refuse to move out of our house and in with Yves and her family. I belong in the house I shared with my husband. I feel empty inside without Judea. I feel lost. I don’t know what to do without him so I mostly sit in his chair and think about old times. Naomi insists on moving in to look after me. She’s my perfect grandbaby. I stand beside Yves when she buries Hans. I hold her and Naomi when we bury Daniel and his family in our family plot. They died from a gas leak in their house. Me and Yves bury everyone, except sweet Naomi. I am 115 I think, maybe older. Yves lives with us now. We are two old lady’s day dreaming about what we were.
My darling Yves doesn’t wake up one morning. We let her body lay in wake far too long because we couldn’t let her go. I help bury her with bloodied old hands and nothing else to live for, except Naomi. She is still so young spirited and full of life after all these years. At sixty something she does the work, and I stand over Judea’s grave for hours sometimes praying for death. I look like a walking corpse and I am ready to go and be with them. I don’t want to be here without them. I can hardly breathe when I fall to my knees on Judea’s grave. What is my life without him? What am I going to do?
“Dumani.” A voice says. “It’s time to go. You can’t stay here. They are all gone. People will start to ask questions.”
Strong arms lift my fragile body to my feet. It’s been too lone since anyone held me. I look up with hazy eyes that have long since faded gray with time. They’re set into a face that I don’t recognize anymore.
“It hurts, Mino.” I choke on my words. “I loved them so much.”
“I know it hurts, Kitten. It hurts me too. I never met my little girl and missed Judi growing up. It hurts me to see you so broken hearted.”
“I miss them.”
He is so young and still so blindingly beautiful. He didn’t age a year and look at me. I’m an old hag. He holds me while I sob on his shoulder. I miss them like crazy. Judea was so good to me. We had the life that he promised me. I wish I could see him one more time. Kiss him one more time and tell him how much I loved him. Judea.
“I want to see my woman.” Maximino says. “Drop the spell, witch.”
I look down. When I look up again, I am the woman he remembers. I made myself age. I wanted to be like my family. I am not like them.
“There she is.” He kisses me hungrily. I respond in kind because I’m starving for affection. We look up at the angel in the doorway. Her thick, silver hair is pinned atop her head.
“Grandma?” A voice says hesitantly from the doorway. “Is everything okay?” She looks so much like Mino that my eyes water. I drop her spell too. Naomi looks eighteen years old.
“Yes, child. Come here.” I welcome her into my arms. My baby’s baby. “Mino, this is Naomi.”
“Grandfather, we’ve been waiting for you.” She embraces him warmly. “Welcome back.”
“My God, you’re beautiful.” He’s crying. She’s crying. I’m crying. It’s so wonderfully sad. We burn Judea’s house to the ground. It feels like burying him all over again. It represents a lifetime of memories with our family. It’s like we were never born and the church never existed. Naomi has always been a thoughtful, sensible girl. I delivered her. I knew she was like me the moment she looked up at me with my mother’s haunted eyes. We had a long talk when she was a young woman. I told her everything I knew and then I covered her in my aging spell. It was our secret until the end.
“I need to speak with your grandmother alone, Naomi. Please wait outside in the truck.”
We released the last horse and I’m lingering in the barn.
“Yes, Grandfather.”
“She is such a sweet child. You did well by our children, Kitten.”
“What now, Mino? I burned Judea’s house.”
“There were too many secrets in that house. It had to go. You are coming home with me.”
“To be your thrall?”
“To be my wife, Dumani.” He nuzzles my neck. “Come and spend eternity with me. We will raise our granddaughter and get your old pipes up and running again. Maybe pump out another kid or two.” He jerks my head back by my hair and sinks his fangs into my exposed throat. My love.
Epilogue
I write these final words with tears rolling down my cheeks. It was Maximino’s idea to write it down for my personal records now that enough time has passed. It all happened so long ago but writing about it makes it feel like yesterday. I haven’t thought about Judea Hamilton in two hundred years and I am crying for him. He was such a good and handsome man. We had a wonderful life together. I feel hands on my shoulders before my husband leans over and kisses me.
“You’ve been at it for hours, Dumani. Come to bed. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow. Our stubborn granddaughter is finally getting married.”
I smile when I look up into Mino’s beautiful face. He’s always dragging me to bed. I feel better already.
“I’ll be there in a few minutes. It’s finally finished, Mino.”
“Have you decided what to call it, Kitten?”
“Yes, The Doomsday Papers.”
The End
The Doomsday Papers Page 51
