Descendants of Hagar

by Nik Nicholson

  “Did I offend you,” she asks sheepishly.

  “No,” I say immediately, when I realize it’s my turn to talk.

  “What do you think about what I said?”

  “I spect most women be like men to you round here. We work in the fields and you a lady. You use to being inside, reading, teaching, learning and doing paperwork. With all your fancy ways and things, no offense could be taken,” I add on the end when I see ‘a shifting ‘a weight.

  I know what she means. I get this all the time. Most women who been round me long enough say I’m different. Longer than a little while, they all be saying I make them feel like they in the presence of a man. Iain ready to admit that to Coley for some reason.

  “I know what I feel, and you aren’t like other women in Zion. I don’t know,” she put a piece of thread in ‘a mouth and put a loop through it, break it and start again looking off. Her hands concentrating on what they doing, and I see she done got it. Her mind wandering on me.

  This another thing about Coley, she wont me to talk about everything. She bring talking to life. Try to make me think and go over how I’m feeling bout every little thing. I’m in my head a lot, because I know better than to say half the things I be thinking. If I did, people be saying I’m like Miemay, be saying I’m crazy or a witch.

  I love to hear Coley’s stories. She tell everything, the good and the bad. In my family we don’t talk about how we feel. We don’t talk about what’s happening on the inside, cause of what’s happening around us.

  Coley be so open and honest sometimes you be sitting in silence like you there with ‘a. I be happy to listen to anything she got to say, she know a lil bit about everything. She really funny too, and the way she see the world so different than folks round here. Once you get pass ‘a thoughts rubbing you the wrong way, they be something to think about.

  Half the things she be talking bout Iain never thought about. And when she go on and on bout how country people don’t care, I have to remind ‘a our worlds are different. Ain’t that we don’t care, be that we got different concerns on some things, and on other things it be that we ain never thought about it.

  We see how the Klan raid Zion, people get whupped, and strangers get hung if anybody even talk about niggas voting. We just trying to survive. Right now, we always worried, afraid of how if someone even hint at letting niggas vote they lives in jeopardy. So we don’t talk about how us voting might improve our lives in the long run. Shoot, white folks will kill other whites for talking bout letting niggas vote.

  Coley say we don’t care cause she don’t understand we care too much. One nigga could bring the Klan down on the whole town. One nigga could have our whole town burned to the ground and half us kilt. And ain’t no law gone come and protect us or stop it. Ain’t nobody gone write nothing bout it.

  Coley ain never see a man lynched, or cut down out of a tree. I think if she had she’d understand we do care. I don’t wish ‘a to witness no lynching, but I know if she did it would be life changing.

  “You’re not concerned with being pretty. You put a dress on like a hanger, and don’t give anything to it, beautiful as you are. The way you talk to people, men, and expect them to respect you is different. You don’t bow and they don’t seem to expect you to either. You walk in a room like you own it. Even when there are other women around, they respond to you almost the way they would a man. They’re always offering you things and waiting on you, like how they did at Reverend’s house that Sunday. The way you move around, who you talk to, what you talk about isn’t what, you know, other women are concerning themselves with.”

  “I was raised different,” I brush off what she saying. I’m trying to deny it. I’m afraid she might get like Norma Jean. I might scare ‘a if I tell ‘a the truth. I feel something happening between me and Coley. I don’t want to do nothing to stop it. Don’t want to do nothing to undermine how comfortable she feeling with me, and how close we getting.

  Some nights she be climbing in the bed with me, talking bout she heard a noise and she scared. Some nights she say she cold. Other nights she come just to talk. One night she knocked, and I told ‘a she could come in, but she had to be quiet cause I was tired. She seemed relieved, not to go on making up excuses to get in my bed. Lately she been just crawling in bed with me, wrapping ‘a arms round me. On the nights when she don’t come, I miss ‘a, but I know better than to call for ‘a. Been a few days since I slept alone.

  “Linny?”

  “I’m thinking,” I answer. I know what I want to say but I don’t know if I can say this. I don’t know how the words arrive when they start flowing, but it’s starting to seem like if you prepare a reception for anything, they be more than willing to show up. So I say, “I feel different than other women. I feel different when it comes to you. I want to protect you.”

  Then I’m silent, looking at the page in the book cause it’s all I can think to do while I’m waiting for how she gone take that. I’m waiting for ‘a to pry into what I mean by ‘different.’ I’m waiting for ‘a to ask me to explain that word, ‘different.’ What it mean when I say it.

  We silent for a long time, so I know she ain gone press me on it, and I don’t wont to be pressed no how. That’s why I go on, “I don’t have a need to compete with nobody, cause all we can be is who we is. I cain’t be you better than you, and you cain’t be me, better than I’m is.”

  “I’ve never thought about it like that.”

  I’m relieved again, that she don’t talk about what I said at first. Maybe she denying it too. I’m okay with ‘a not thinking bout what’s happening.

  “I’ve been going up against my cousins and sisters for so long in different things. Mama always comparing us girls. Who’s the tallest, who’s the skinniest, who’s getting fat, who’s the smartest, but mostly who’s the prettiest, and the prettiest one is always the lightest. My sisters and I aren’t the lightest, but my sisters are all lighter than me. My sisters are all prettier than me,” she stop, and I can hear the heaviness of sorrow in ‘a throat, threatening to make ‘a cry. I watch ‘a inhale deep, til she get ‘aself together.

  “I think you beautiful,” I say sincerely, not to console ‘a, but I hope it do. I stare at ‘a in a way that she can feel, and I feel ‘a knowing I’m looking, but she don’t look up. She just sniff hard, and keep on sewing like Iain said nothing. Raise ‘a eyebrows like something interesting done happen in ‘a hands, but she sowing the same as before, then she go on talking.

  “Every big holiday, or on some Sundays, they sit around comparing who does what and who married who. I was, am,” she stop, breathing to find the strength to tell it like it is, “an embarrassment to my mother you know. Not being married and all.”

  “I sure know about not being married.” I think about Ella telling me I need a man, and Daddy saying I’m a burden. Then I open up my book and look at it, cause Coley proud like me, don’t like nobody to see ‘a cry. “You done way more than I can hope to in this life, so you sure ain’t no embarrassment.”

  “I’m older than I told you.” She breathe deep like a weight lifted off of ‘a.

  “I know.” I look at ‘a, but I don’t ask ‘a how old she is. I don’t care, unless she care to tell me.

  “Are you ever going to get married, Linny?” Her voice cracking, and she fighting crying, trying to talk like nothing’s wrong.

  “Cain’t imagine it.” I’m looking at ‘a seriously and the mood change. I feel our spirits shift, and she give me this weird look, don’t look like fear, but Ion know what it is.

  “I can’t imagine you married either, especially not to a man.”

  Chapter Thirty

  GOOD NIGHT

  I don’t realize I’m waiting, til I hear Coley knock on the door and ask, “Is you decent?”

  “Come on,” I say, but I don’t know what to feel until she climb in the bed with me. Words fall from ‘a mouth like rose petals to the bed. She cain’t just come in here and get in the bed, she got to c
ome in here talking. Still, I’m relieved she here.

  Coley moving like a sneaky cat. Feel like she hiding behind something waiting to see if it’s safe. She don’t want nothing but to be in here.

  I don’t wanna talk, don’t wanna listen, I just wanna close my eyes and feel ‘a next to me. I cain’t say that though, so I just listen to ‘a talk. Seem like for all the talking she be doing, she talking ‘aself into things, and out of things.

  “Don’t you ever go anywhere? Don’t you ever want to just get out? Aren’t there any shows around? I get antsy, I like to just get out and walk, see some different things. Don’t you ever do anything that doesn’t need to be done? You ever just go in town to have dinner? Ever just go out to the stream and just you know, sit on the edge of it just to sit on the edge of it?” Coley talking ‘aself to sleep like she do sometimes, and talking me awake.

  I been so busy with the fields, the tenant properties, and running the store Iain realize I what’n really doing nothing for the sake of just doing it. I mean, I read but by the time I sit down to do that, it be too dark to do anything else. I haven’t played my piano since Coley arrived. It seem too loud against the silence. Then it come to me, and I know what I do just for the sake of doing it. “I ride Anastasia for the sake of riding her.”

  “How do you feel when you ride?” Coley whirl round like a child in the bed waiting. Before I was tired, but when I think about me and Anastasia, I get excited.

  “When I’m riding, it’s like- I’m flying and I can go anywhere in the world. Feels like I be choosing to be here.” I end kind of sad but don’t know why.

  “You don’t feel like you have any choices?”

  “Where would I go?” I start to think about how I got all this land and the store. “How would I support myself?”

  “There’s a whole world out there,” she answer, like it’s easy.

  “I figured as much, but what I know about the world out there? This my world here.”

  “God made the whole world, and it all belongs to us, to you,” Coley say thoughtfully, holding my hand and laying beside me. “You ever been to another town to stay, or just to be?”

  “Only to work, to sell things, Iain never stayed nowhere overnight.”

  “We should! Let’s get on a train and just go. Maybe we’ll go somewhere close first, like Atlanta. Or we could drive down to Savannah or Florida and see the beach.” She start getting excited and full of ideas. “You ever had dinner at a restaurant?”

  “What restaurant? Ion go nowhere but round here. And I don’t go nowhere hungry. I think it’s wasteful to pay people for food, when you got a houseful of food, made the way you like.”

  “See, you aren’t just paying for the food, you’re paying for service. You’re paying for someone else to do the dishes and clean up the kitchen. You’re paying to just eat, get up and go.”

  “You had a maid, what’n it already like that? What was you paying for?”

  “Well, then you’re paying for different scenery. You’re paying for an experience. In New York, they have all these different blocks of people from different places with different cultures. There is Little Italy, where most Italians live. Then there is a place where mostly Germans, Dutch and Irish people live.

  “Then you have all these different kinds of Negroes; Haitians, Grenadians, Trinidadians, Jamaicans, Nigerians and they all have their different foods they make, they like. There is China town, and Chinese food is so good, Linny.

  “Then you have Spanish Harlem, with the Puerto Ricans, Cubans and Dominicans. Food made by West Indians, Spanish people, Germans, or Italians are all different. We cook different from them, so you get to sit at their mama’s table and eat,” she say all excited and dreamy. “You know what we should do, we should go into town and eat at Mrs. Clara’s.”

  “The hotel?”

  “Yes, it’ll be fun. We could go Saturday evening in our Sunday best, and you could drive.”

  “Why would I want to get all gussied up in some stuffy dress, and give up a Saturday in pants doing whatever I want round my house?”

  “Because,” she put ‘a leg over my thigh, “I’d be really grateful.” She put my hands in ‘a hair, and look in my eyes in a way stir me. Then I understand how it is a man’s wife rule him. Why men be bathing in aftershave and all. If I could figure out a way to make ‘a smile at me way she just done, I’d be hop toing to that beat all the time.

  “What’s your favorite kind of food?” I’m thinking of all the places she must’ve ate and all the things she just named.

  “Your’s,” she answer smiling. Her answer do something to me.

  “Thank you,” I say painfully.

  “Good.” She put ‘a face against the back of my hand. “You’re doing so well, Linny. Look at you accepting compliments. I should just tell you all the wonderful things I think about you.” She turn over looking in my eyes laughing.

  I don’t know why she likes messing with me, but I build myself up for it.

  “You’re beautiful, and strong, and smart. You have a bright smile and beautiful eyes.” She looking in them like she might kiss me.

  I feel how awkward it make ‘a, I feel ‘a pulling away and I don’t want to lose ‘a so I say, “Thank yah” real country. Then she laugh and relax. We quiet while she deciding whether she should go on. I’m breathing easy trying to take it all in.

  “You’re such a hard worker. You are the best cook I’ve ever met. You are the best friend I’ve ever had.”

  “We friends?” I ask instead of saying thank you. When she don’t answer, I add, looking at ‘a in the eyes and watching how she shrink, lie to ‘aself, and try to lie to me. “I think we more than friends.” I interlace our fingers, and pull ‘a hand to my heart.

  “Well, I don’t know what we are, there are no words for us.” She doesn’t duck the question this time. Instead, she scoot closer, take ‘a hand and wrap ‘a arm round me and get quiet. “I know we more than friends,” she resolve, and I feel how uncomfortable it make ‘a. For some reason, the same thing make ‘a uneasy give me peace.

  Iain never knowed nobody talk much as Coley do. My daddy use to say, you can tell a man by his actions, so he ain never been one for words. My family nem ain never really said how they feel about nothing. My daddy ain never said he loved us, or my mama that I can remember. If somebody try to talk about how they feel or what they need, my daddy start speaking over them.

  Men don’t seem to talk about nothing at all, especially not among they women. They don’t want to upset ’em or worry ’em. That’s why women don’t find out they husbands behind on the taxes for years, after they been round here buying new curtains every other season. Most I’ve ever heard men say, is they miss their wives cooking or help when they’re away or just had a baby.

  Ella be the first person in our family, I know, to talk about how she feel. Ella use to sing while she was doing ‘a chores, too. She was always singing, always happy. When she left, she took feelings and singing with her.

  Sometimes she would talk about how she loved ‘a some Prentice. She be saying how his eyes smile, and how he look gentle and kind. She be talking bout how his whole body listen when she talk. Least that’s what she use to tell me while she be folding laundry, or cleaning up, and I be following ‘a round.

  There were church songs she knew she’d sing. Ella has a beautiful deep rich voice. Most times she be making songs up. There was a bread-baking song, a cooking song bout how hot it was, and a song bout how dusty it always was, no matter how much we swept.

  Ella was the only person ever told me I was any good. She use to tell me I was a good child. Use to say, she had never seen a person with such an old spirit. She was the one person in the house use to always tell me I was smart. She be combing my hair and talking bout how easy it was, and that she wished she had hair like mine. What’n like Coley wishing she had my hair, it felt different. She didn’t want my hair for nobody else but for ‘a own life, to get it done easier.


  Ella would call me her lil baby. Her arms are the ones I remember more than Mama’s. I remember my small hand in hers. I remember her telling people how to treat me, and how to treat her. She knew ‘a mind early in life, and has always been a fair one. Even in arguments, upset or hurt Ella can see what’s right and do it, too.

  When people talk about being Godly, I be thinking Ella who they be talking bout. She be the one who told me I need to think about what I’m saying to people, and to consider what other folks going through. Iain saying she ain never whup my tail, but she be feeling bad any time she had to whup any of us. Ella eleven years older than me, and she before ‘a time, too. Ella got married old some folks say; I was almost nine when she got married.

  “Why don’t you ever say anything, Linny?” Coley get up on ‘a elbows reminding me to talk, trying to force me to talk.

  In the dark, the fireplace lighting ‘a face makes ‘a look like a angel, but when she smile full and big, her lips let me know she’s a woman. I just stare at ‘a, until she lays down.

  Lately, I don’t ever respond to ‘a prying when it’s late like this. All that talking ain never helped nothing. I think about all the people I know, how we be silent for hours and just be together. Words ain always needed. Still I like to hear what Coley got to say.

  When it gets late, she be talking crazy, might say anything. One night she told me how she gets fevered and aches inside of ‘aself. Even said that’s why she wants a husband so he can soothe ‘a.

  Coley know a little bit about everything. She the only other person I ever met who read all the time, and ain afraid to tell you what she think. She like to discuss ideas and things, that ain’t gone change nothing. She like to debate and get ‘aself all worked up, like whatever solution we come up with gone mean something. She say we got to change our thinking before we can change our circumstance.

  Not if you starving, I once told ‘a. Iain never knew a man could think on an empty stomach, much less think hisself up some food. She got so mad, and kept waking me up to explain how that wasn’t what she was trying to say. We have very different ways of looking at the world, still it’s nice to hear somebody else’s thoughts.