Descendants of Hagar

by Nik Nicholson

  “How she the smart one?” Jenny jump right on that. “Twenty-two and ain’t got no man or children of ‘a own. Shoot, Grit, seem like you oughta know when ya baby coming, it’s only the third one,” Jenny fuss at us both, looking over my shoulders at Grit.

  I turn around and look at Jenny crazy.

  “I’m just sayin, I be glad when she push it on out so I can git back to my own house and bed. We been here almost two days now. What’n even close to ‘a time when she called us. Shoot, I got six of my own, maybe one on the way, and ain trying to have this one waiting on-”

  “Why don’t you shut up and sit down somewhere. Stop runnin ya mouth. You wouldn’t wont nobody to be on yo nerves while you goin through it.” Our eldest sister Mariella, we call Ella, chastise Jenny when she come in with the hot water. Mozelle behind Ella with some wash bowls, and Mama hot on they heels.

  “You best go git that midwife, gull. This a life you playing wit,” Mama fuss, hitting me on the arm to get moving.

  “This women’s work,” Jenny spit at me, annoyed.

  “It’s bout twenty chillen tween us all. If we cain’t figger how to git this baby outta Grit, it ain’t Linny fault,” Ella reason.

  “Linny ain’t even got none! What she know bout birthin babies?” Jenny making a case, and starting the war of words. And I expect Mama to back ‘a up the way she always do, but I don’t stop moving. Ella pouring water over my hands while I’m washing up, cleaning under my nails with the orange stick and rinsing the razors. Then I get another bowl and soap Grit up.

  “Need more light?” Ella offer as we both concentrate on shaving Grit.

  “Please,” I accept, pushing Grit gown back and moving the cover out the way, and putting another thinner pad beneath ‘a tail to catch the mess I’m bout to make. The oil lamp better than the electric one but it’s pushing off more heat. Feel like the heat making me tired. I’m so tired. We all tired.

  We ain slept much since the midwife went home yesterday, saying Grit’s pain was false. Said she would be back, but then again she’d just come from delivering another baby, so she mighta said anything to get outta here and home to ‘a own bed.

  Then Grit husband, Granger, went to get the midwife again but she sent word she was already with another expecting mother in ‘a house. Said she be here soon as that baby come. Granger done left fore the midwife come back. It’s a mess, but we gone make due cause we have to.

  Grit pains ain’t coming close enough together no how, and she ain open enough to have no baby, but I can tell she opening. She just in the first part of labor, so I go down stairs and contemplate taking a little nap while waiting for the baby.

  I try to be invisible, as I move the coffee beans I done peeled from over the fire in the fireplace where I was roasting ’em. Then I go in the kitchen, where I done started some milk boiling in one pot, and water in another. Drop a little nutmeg, and vanilla flavor, and sugar in the milk. Put the coffee beans in a big flour sifter that kinda fit in the pot of hot water. After the beans boil, I fix some mugs of coffee and pour a little hot milk in them. I drops a little cocoa powder in the bottom of my mug.

  “Put a little cocoa at the bottom of mine, too.” Ella come in the kitchen and watch me. “You always did make the best cup of coffee. You make a lot of things really good. You one of the best cooks I know.” Kinda laughing to herself she continue, “Ain got no man or chillen to cook for. Gone figger dat out! Miemay taught you a lots of thangs, didn’t she?”

  “Yeah, she did.” I agree thoughtfully, turning round and leaning against the counter watching the fire on the stove.

  “How you been gittin along round here by yahself?” She examines me the way Mama should, but never does.

  It’s common knowledge nobody in the family will make the ride out here to help like they use to, since they feel I done took Uncle Victor’s inheritance. Other folks don’t help, cause it’s easier to be against one rather than a whole family.

  Looking at the ground, biting my bottom lip, I’m feeling my chest heavy and anxious to tell Ella the truth. But my pride won’t allow me to admit Iain able to clear enough ground to keep the crop from failing. Or that I’m lonely and sad. Instead of answering what she really ask, I say like it ain’t nothing, “Might have to hire a few outside hands to help me round here.”

  The heaviness of how I really feel become a wall of tension between us. Ella know I’m shrinking from the question, but out of pity she don’t challenge me. Still, she worried and that makes ‘a uneasy. So she start moving to ease the worry, cleaning clean counters, and pouring out the water from the bath pots, we fixed earlier when we thought the baby was coming. Then taking down some more mugs for others.

  “How were we all raised in the same house, but I what’n never in the house even if I was home? I saw Miemay, Reverend’s wife, Daddy and you more than I ever did Mama. I remember how you use to comb my hair if Reverend’s wife didn’t.”

  With a sad smile Ella say, “Mama just a person, too. She was finding her own way when you were born.”

  “Seem like Mama left me to find my own way, too.”

  “Sometimes life is hard on us, and we do our best to love the souls God gives us to protect, but because we working through our own situation we still fall short,” Ella defend Mama, like always. Then she step over to the stove and turn the milk so it don’t get skin on it. I see she deep in thought. “You’re strong. Smart. Guess you’ll be alright,” she surrendering, and not gone try to dance me round in my feelings.

  “I will,” I assure her, solemn and relieved. Just above a whisper as the day settles in me and what is going on becomes humbling, I say, “Pour that milk over them coffee beans, that coffee done.”

  She does, and pours us both a cup. We stir it with our cocoa on the bottom, blow it and drink the rich thick goodness. We drink all of it like some secret pact, then drop more cocoa to the bottom of our cups, make us new mugs of coffee. Then we prepare a tray of mugs so everyone else can have some.

  Chapter Thirteen

  WOMANHOOD

  Folks done had a few babies since Miemay passed, but this the first baby in our immediate family since she been gone. In the past, lots of folks come to Miemay house to have they babies, and that’s where my sisters use to coming, too.

  I miss it sometimes, taking care of the new mothers while Miemay out delivering babies somewhere else. Til ‘a last year alive, Miemay was always on the go. One time she had three new mothers in the cabin with ‘a. One went into labor travelling, the others lived in too poor of conditions to safely have they babies at home.

  Most midwives here only go for a day, and women usually come back home to they mama’s house to have babies. Just depends on where you live when you get married. Like, my Daddy live on his daddy’s land, and his daddy on his daddy’s land. We like beehives or something, slowly branching out over different parts of the same plots. The kids got tons of children to play with, cause their cousins all over. And working together fun, you know, but I’m getting off on to something else, missing feeling part of the family.

  When it’s like that, the mother go back to ‘a mama’s house to have the baby and the in-laws look after ‘a house, husband and kids. Usually the woman’s sister-in-laws, or the mother-in-law helps until she gets better. When my sisters got married, they moved to their husband’s families’ land. But we was always so close to Miemay, they use to just come to ‘a house to give birth, less Miemay got a full house. Then she would go stay with them.

  Anyhow, I explained all this, maybe for myself to understand how my baby sister arrived at my front door, heaving. Iain never been allowed to stick around when they was having they babies.

  For some reason, cause Iain married, they always treat me like a child. Like it’s things I cain’t see or do, or know. Even though living with Miemay all the time, and helping ‘a out mean I done seen lots of babies born. Shoot, I done helped deliver lots of babies to tell the truth.

  I’m glad Grit here though. Always
been protective of Grit, and it broke my heart when I what’n allowed to be there for ‘a first baby. That was the first time I wondered, if this what’n how helpless husbands feel. When all them women get to swarming round they house, busying they self, barking orders, and telling ’em how much they need ’em to do this and that, and then how they need to get lost, too.

  I’ve boiled water and even chopped wood a few times. I always waited like a husband and not a woman with sisters, with the birth of all they kids. I was sent to do some task, wash laundry, or watch children, or cook, or boil water, but never just to be there, to watch them move into motherhood. Seem like it was sacred, and cause I what’n married I was being punished or condemned.

  Sounds dramatic, felt dramatic every time it happened. Being unmarried, I’m like some eternal child, less than a woman, less than a man and always at odds with everybody.

  Then again, may not have nothing to do with none of that. Mama was always hovering over my sisters, and I was always running behind Daddy when he what’n pulling me with ’im. They always use to tease that he raised me like a boy, and that I would grow up to think and act like a man. They say that’s probly why I’m so stubborn and ain’t got no respect for men. I know all they know and can do all they can do, so it ain’t no place for one in my life. That bother Daddy, don’t bother me. Didn’t bother me none til Mama shut me out of the room with Ella, then Jenny and finally Grit, saying, “This women’s work.”

  Mama done said it so much, til Jenny start to say that about anything got to do with having a family, and then anything to do with being grown. Jenny start to treat me like a boy child to be mean. Sometimes I don’t care, cause I don’t want to hear or talk about what they think is important anyhow.

  I was always outside their little circle of womanhood. Miemay or Reverend Patrick’s wife, Mrs. Harper, always helped me with things. Mrs. Harper had eight sons and no daughters, so she always doted on me.

  When Miemay bought me this big, beautiful, lilac dress for the spring formal, it was Mrs. Harper who sat me down for hours pin rolling my hair. Even then, Mama said my ways were too ugly for me to be pretty. Ella had said it was the prettiest she’d ever seen me. And whenever someone comments on my looks, and they do all the time, if Ella round she always say, “You shoulda seen ‘a in that lilac dress.”

  Honestly, I only wore all that stuff to make Mrs. Harper and Miemay happy. I coulda cared less bout a spring formal. I was already tired of people staring at me all the time. Tired of men’s breath shortening and other women going on and on bout my hair, and hating me at the same time.

  Folks never talked to me, they always talked at me, or about me. Made me so uncomfortable with all the attention folks was giving me.

  Miemay promised she wouldn’t ask me to go to nothing else. Seem like she always knew me, understood me. Somehow, she even realized I didn’t like dresses and things, so she got me tools, lots of tools. When Daddy noticed, he started telling me to tell Miemay I needed this or that for some project.

  Miemay was sharp as a nail. Cause one day when Daddy came to get me, she say, “I got you that tool you said you needed.” When Daddy’s face lit up, she added, “And I got ya daddy one, too.” Which made his smile weaken, but it didn’t stop him from asking me to ask ‘a for tools.

  Now Reverend Patrick’s wife, Mrs. Harper, was always after me bout acting like a lady. Mama, on the other hand, was hands off. She was always helping my sisters with things, teaching them things, and combing their hair. If it weren’t for Ella and Mrs. Harper, I wouldn’t never have got my hair combed.

  Shoot, one summer Mama was so tired of my hair she cut it off. Which was fine with me, cause it was probly the best summer I ever had, not having to deal with prying hands pulling me every which-a-way. All that hair use to get in the way, and be hot, too. After that, Daddy ain leave me home with Mama no more. And Miemay had Ella or Mrs. Harper comb it, whenever it got long enough to catch. Seem like it came back in no time, too soon really.

  Now that I think about it, Ella and Grit was always too busy having they babies to say who could be there or not. They probly wouldn’t have minded me being around.

  That’s why I’m so glad Grit chose my house to have this baby. It’s hard not to prance around like a race horse finally getting a chance to stretch its legs. After folks been treating it like an old mule and underestimating it. I cain’t imagine nothing going wrong, but I don’t want to be too green, like Iain watch cows, horses and pigs giving birth all my life. Like Iain helped Miemay deliver too many babies to count now. Still, it’s different when it’s Grit, and when she in my house. Feel like I got something to prove.

  “Linny!” I hear Mama call from upstairs.

  Me and Ella both rush up the steps, but when I get to the bedroom door Mama coming out.

  “Grit just calling fah ya, ain time or nothing,” Mama spit, looking at me, and then at Ella with me.

  Ella look in on Grit and go back down stairs with Mama.

  “How you doing?” I grab Grit hand and fawn over ‘a like she a new baby. This sister of mine I adore and protect, always have. Ella protected me from Mama, I protected Grit. Ella took beatings for me and on account of my protecting Grit, she done took a few for Grit, too. Always felt like Jenny was on ‘a own, always in competition with me. She took all the trouble she could find and couldn’t blame on me for ‘aself. That’s another story though, we talkin bout Grit.

  Grit, almost five years younger than me, just seventeen years old now. When she was born, Grit was my baby. She the last of the bunch, and I gave ‘a all the goodness I could cause she was all good. She was always such a happy baby, laughing and full of light. Mama use to make me watch ‘a like it was some kinda punishment, but I use to love holding Grit in my arms. Whatever treasures or treats I got while I was gone with Daddy during the day, I brought back to Grit.

  Grit was the most beautiful brown bundle in the world. Like a fresh loaf of bread with a little butter to add. She grew to be a lovely woman, who likes seeing ‘a loved ones happy. This makes ‘a easily led and eager to please. So when Granger came saying he wanted to marry ‘a, even though she was in love with a certain Davis Lloyd from outside Neville town, she didn’t protest.

  Davis had come on the night before she was to wed Granger, asking ‘a to run away with ’im. But she knew Daddy and Mama nem woulda never forgiven ‘a. Plus Davis’ folks was poor sharecroppers, who ain even own the land they was working. Davis ain have no way of taking care of Grit. If she married Davis, they would have said she threw ‘a life away.

  Now I’m staring down in ‘a eyes, looking at the pain of childbirth in disbelief that she just seventeen and already on ‘a third child. Then again, that’s how it go round here. Soon as you get bout fourteen or fifteen years old, men start wanting to marry you.

  One came for me like they came for her, but I refused. I went so far as to run away. Miemay the one stood between me and my spose to be husband. Some man, Iain never looked at twice, decided he wanted to take me away from Zion, my family and everything I ever knew, to some other town where he built hisself a house for a family.

  Shaking my head, I take Grit in, thinking. It ain’t never one of the boys you mighta liked from school. It have to be somebody older, who done figured out how he gone take care of you and the family yall might have. And Lord please don’t be barren, that’s a whole nother way to make a woman feel like she ain’t nothing. But that’s something else Iain gone get into right now.

  Anyhow, you lucky if you get a husband bout in his early twenties. Cause usually they late twenties, early thirties, and in the worst cases early forties. Sometimes they done had one wife, who got sense enough to run off. Or the worst done happened, they wife died in childbirth or something else, and they looking for somebody to come in and take up the slack.

  By the time Davis came that night, Grit had already gotten over the romantic notion that she wanted to get married for love. Daddy had beat us both. I’d tried to shield Grit fr
om Daddy’s rage, and he’d hit me, too. She’d cried beneath me, and he’d cursed me and cursed her, that she didn’t want to end up like me.

  Me being unmarried seemed like the worst fate a woman could imagine, but it didn’t seem so bad to me. Still, my particular predicament and the threat of Daddy nem never speaking to ‘a again, convinced Grit she had to marry Granger.

  I remember what it felt like, each step as Grit came closer to the end of that isle, closer to the alter, and closer to marrying that old man. I counted inventory in my head. Didn’t seem right, that Daddy would turn ’im loose with Grit.

  Granger seemed too old to come calling for Grit. Still he and Daddy had laughed and talked. They had taken walks together and went fishing as the wedding day approached. Granger had come to dinner, and sat next to Grit.

  Even Mama had pushed Grit to make ’im plates, and wait on ’im. Mama taught Grit to be silent, while Granger and Daddy talked current events and local affairs. One time Mama said it was a woman’s job to smooth out ‘a man’s rough edges. With that, she taught Grit this fake laugh women do when their men tell bad jokes, or say inappropriate things.

  Mama barely spoke to me, so she never even tried to teach me to be a lady. I was learning different lessons. I was being raised by the only woman allowed in town meetings. Even women whose husbands had died, sent their eldest sons to represent them. Miemay was the only woman who spoke for ‘aself in all matters of business. So she wasn’t teaching me silence. In fact, I was being encouraged to find my voice. I was being taught to hold my ground, and to fight.

  Sometimes Miemay argued, and caused meetings to go long by refusing to accept one thing or another. She argued facts, and had lived so much longer than many of the other men; often times there were a few older men standing with her. They all stood together against the younger men, who’d assumed their fathers’ and grandfathers’ businesses and land.