Buddy and Franklin wave and head across the street. Your pa rushes back and kisses you on the head, brushes his dry lips against my cheek. They stroll over to a group of men.
“Next time that husband of yours sees you you’ll be looking like a wife,” Sable says.
Tempe laughs.
Before I can say nothing to either one of them, Sable’s push-pulling me up the stairs into the house. Up one flight of stairs to another, there’s a room for everything. Up another few stairs, across a landing it’s room six, our room. I ain’t never had my own anything. As long as I can pay the rent, this is our home. She unlocks the door and fresh air smacks me in the face. The window is wide open. Thin lacy curtains snap and blow on the breeze. I can’t wait until we’re alone. I put the bundle down by the door and hold my arms out for her to hand you over.
She’s inside the room pointing out back. “The outhouse is right there next to the washhouse,” she says.
Over the top of her head I see two wooden shacks, side by side. There ain’t no fence but I can tell where the backyard ends. The grass is bright green, soft looking. I can’t wait to run barefoot out there.
“I’m gonna get this little one fed while you get yourself settled. What’s he—a month?”
I nod. The milk’s curdled. I know before I check but I give it to her anyway. I’m ready to tell her why I ain’t got no milk, how I’m the mama you got now but not the mama that birthed you.
“I’ll dig up something I had from when my boy was his age,” she says. “I kept just about everything, you know, for grandbabies.” Then she’s telling me what time dinner is, and not to eat in my room. That reminds her to tell me there’s no smoking or drinking or gambling except when there’s a party. She’s talking about how she can’t wait until I meet the girls and chattering as she closes the door behind her.
All the sound goes with her. I ain’t never sat on no real bed before. I press it with both hands just to feel it push up against my fingertips. I practice sitting on it, crossing and uncrossing my legs like I’m Mrs. Leyland. I lay back slow. The bed squeaks. The mattress is firm beneath me. I lay flat on my back, then on my stomach, on one side, then the other. It squishes and bounces. I love it more than anything until I feel the pillow and I love that even more. I’m never getting up.
Across from the bed, there’s a big bureau full of drawers and cabinets. I start imagining it’s full of treasures: dresses and shoes, coats and just maybe, in one of the little ones, something pretty like a necklace, a ring, or a shell. I run over and open each drawer. Other than scattered, dried flowers, there ain’t nothing in them. I empty the bag of clothes the church gave us. I hang up two dresses and put one thing in each drawer. There’s a door on one side of the cabinet and inside, there’s a mirror. I’m staring back at me. My dress is stained. It looks like I haven’t washed in months. Mama would kill me for walking around looking like this. I shut the door quick. I put the book on the top of the bureau.
I’m sitting on the edge of the bed, bouncing up and down soft-like. It starts feeling good. I’m smiling and giggling and before I know it, I’m standing on the bed jumping up and down trying to touch the ceiling. I’m laughing. There’s a sharp knock on the door.
I get down quick and answer it.
“You got somebody in there?” Sable asks. We both know ain’t nobody up here but me.
I hear giggling and shushing from just below the steps. I’m out of breath but I answer, “Why, no,” in my best Missus’s voice. She peeks her head around me. She’s staring so hard I look too. Black footprints all over her white linens. She’s mumbling about grown-up children playing while babies trying to sleep. She strips the bed. She don’t seem mad but I don’t never jump on her furniture again.
I’m back sitting on the edge of the bed waiting till the laughter dies down when the room gets hot. I got the book on my lap. I’m fingering the grooves in the skin. I look up and Tempe’s watching me.
You sure got a way of messing things up, Tempe says.
I jump.
You look just like pa when you do that.
We ain’t never had no pa, I’m about to tell her, but she’s already shaking her head.
Did too. Who you know born whole without no mama or papa? Tempe sits down on the bed. This is nice. Smoke comes out her mouth when she talks. I’m worried Sable will charge me for smoking in the room. She won’t believe I ain’t. By now the room smells of charred wood. Tempe’s laughing so hard she can’t hardly tell me. But she’s talking about how our father, Little James, escaped Walker’s. He almost got North when he got caught by patrollers and sent South. He run off again and joined a rebellion group. Lived off a little patch of swamp. By now she’s wiping her eyes even though I don’t see no tears. All that and know how he died?
I don’t even know how he lived. How would I know? I shrug. I’m getting used to her sitting next to me. Wispy and thin. You been eating? I want to ask. She’s beautiful, even now. Her body is like one long question mark. Her neck curves slightly when she leans down to talk to me. I don’t remember her being so much taller than me. The rest of her body pulses in time with her heart. I know it’s rude to, but I’m staring at her heart bump-bumping in her chest and watching her skin blow like air: in and out, in and out. She don’t seem to mind. Always did like being the center of attention.
He fell in a ditch, broke his neck and snap, he died.
It takes me a second to get what she’s saying. We had a father and now we don’t but I ain’t had no father before now either and I won’t. I’m crying. She’s tickled. She’s laughing again and smacking her thigh. I’m waiting for a knock on the door, wiping snot and tears from my face and trying to catch my breath and wondering: Are we both crazy? She’s cackling like death is about the funniest thing she can imagine. Will they put me away in one of them asylums? What will happen to Edward?
She stops laughing just like that. She’s staring at me. He and I laugh about it but I can see why you wouldn’t think it was funny. She says it like she’s feeling sorry for me for not being dead.
Here I am free and don’t have to be dead to be it. I got a family, a husband, a baby. And she’s feeling sorry for me? Then because she’s all in my head and it don’t matter no how I tell her, “You ain’t nothing but a haint and there ain’t no such a thing. You ain’t even here. I’m here, that baby here. And he’s mine. Like it or no, I’m his mama and he ain’t gonna know nothing about you. I mean it.” I get up and put the book way back in a drawer. I slam it shut. She’s gone when I finish but I’m holding my breath, waiting for her to hit me or set me on fire. Do something. I’m setting here shaking when Lillian comes in.
“You better not let Sable catch you smoking in here, she’ll double your rent,” she says.
By the time we get to the back door, Lillian’s telling me to act surprised. She swings open the door and there’s you in a dressing gown in Sable’s arms with at least half a dozen women gathered around you.
“It’s your welcome party,” Lillian says. She grabs my hands and leads me to the group.
There’s musicians playing and somebody singing. Someone’s frying up fish, another’s turning a corncake. I’m trying to make my way over to you but each time I get close, somebody stops me. You look just like so-and-so, one says. You sure you not related to the Jones or Watsons or Smiths or Fowlers? I hear it all. I ain’t sure about none of it. I tell them I don’t know who my people are or where to find them. They look at me like they know what that’s like. So many of them are lost too. They ask who’s looking for me.
I don’t know what to say. What’s the newspaper say about Walker? How do folks back home think he, Tempe, and Edward died? What they think happened to me? They think I done it? Got ’em all shot and set the place on fire? Are they looking for me? Patrolling the woods, lanterns shining, dogs barking, sniffing me out? How long until they lose my scent? Do they think I�
��m dead? Think it’s Tempe running around with her feet in this soft, Philadelphia grass? Did they bury me? Go around the house separating soot from bone and throw me in a ditch out back? What if the whole house is gone? Burst into fire like a dry piece of wood. Or swallowed whole and sent straight down to hell. Is that where Tempe is? Is that why she’s burning? Next time she comes, I’ll ask her. Lillian plucks me free from the women and delivers me to the washhouse. She hands me a bucket of water, some soap, and a scrubber. “These yours,” she says. She’s pushing me inside. “Scrub your hair too. Take your time.” Can’t be but a few minutes later when she’s banging on the door talking about it’s time to get dressed. I ain’t bring no clothes down with me. She pops the door open and hands me a towel. I got about a minute to dry off before she opens the door again and trades me the towel for some undergarments and what feels like a soft piece of fabric. It’s too dark to make nothing so I’m not sure what she’s expecting me to do.
“You got it on yet?” she whispers through the peephole.
I know I don’t have long before she throws the door wide open with me buck-naked standing in a washhouse for the whole world to see. I feel for the holes and slip it over my head. It’s a dress. It moves when I twirl and kisses the back of my legs. I open the door and step out.
“Looks good on you,” she says.
She winds the towel around my hair and leads me to a woman on a stool. I don’t catch her name but she’s pushing me down, so I sit between her legs with my back to her. “It’s May-Belle,” she repeats her name loud, in case I can’t hear her. I feel like a child. She pats my hair dry, then she’s twisting and oiling. My scalp tingles and soaks up the moisture it’s been missing. My head smells like lavender. I reach up to touch. Maybelle swats my hand and giggles. Out the corner of my eye I see you passed around and kissed, cooed at and cooing. You’re laughing. For a second I’m jealous till I remember, youse mine.
Sable pulls up a chair to sit next to Maybelle. “Your boy still looking for work?” she asks.
Maybelle snatches up some strands of my hair. She’s pulling too tight. “Still looking,” Maybelle says. “He can’t seem to find nothing. With all these country folk coming to town, there’s no way for decent folk to make a living. Sorry, honey.”
I don’t know if she’s sorry for talking bad about country folks, cuz I’m country folk, or for pulling on my hair so tight my head hurts.
“Maybelle, ain’t nobody coming here taking no job your boy wants. He mop floors, muck stables, clean outhouses? Work seven days and seven nights for pennies? Until he’s ready to do that, he can’t say nothing about nobody taking no job from his bony little hands. There’s work enough for everybody, everybody who want to work.”
“Who gonna hire him? They making all sorts of laws and regulations against hiring colored folks. I ain’t saying it’s cuz of them. I’m just saying it wasn’t like that before them.”
“My boy got a job lined up before he left, a good job,” Sable says. “A nice factory job working two shifts a day, six days a week, just waiting on him to come home and fill it.”
Maybelle’s twisting my head down in a way I’m not sure it’s supposed to go. I’m thinking my neck’s about to give way. Even if my neck snaps she’ll still be holding on to the braid of hair she’s been pulling on for the past minute. Finally she releases it. I just about got my head where I want it when she turns me to the side, my head on her lap. She’s wetting a fingertip in her mouth. She aims it at the side of my hair, smooths down baby hairs around my ears.
“What makes you think Christian’s gonna come back to Philadelphia after he done seen the world? He ain’t come back yet. Maybe he found himself a wife and they settling somewhere down south near her people.”
“Don’t be spiteful, Maybelle, it ain’t becoming.”
“By the time he gets back, one of them old slaves will have snapped up his job. Wait and see. Everybody wanna hire a ‘yes-sir-er.’ Any job you set them to, them fresh-out-the-fields Negroes will do it. They be so happy to get a job, probably end up paying the bossman for giving it to them.”
Lillian rescues me. “The baby needs his mama,” she says. She’s standing there grinning and you laying in Lillian’s arms just sleeping.
“Just a second,” Maybelle says. Another finger in her mouth, she smooths the other side of my face. “Done.”
“Maybe she don’t mean no harm,” I say.
You’re asleep in my arms. We’re sitting in the grass under the apple tree, sharing hot fried fish and a steaming slab of corncake.
Lillian starts tapping her feet to the music. “Oh yes she does,” she says. “She just don’t know half of what comes out of her mouth. I blame the drink. Not that she touches it. But if anybody could use a stiff drink, it’s her.”
We’re laughing when Mrs. Leyland sets down. “You girls ready for class?”
Don’t know how long we sit there reciting sounds and words. By the time Sable comes to collect you, we tracing numbers and letters. Lillian’s faster than me. Tempe too. She sits real close to Mrs. Leyland, shouting out answers nobody but me can hear. Mrs. Leyland says I’ll catch up in no time. The party’s over. We blow out the lanterns and clean up the backyard. The women leave me with presents: combs for my hair, my first bracelet, a scarf. You sleeping with Sable since she “got the little dumpling washed and fed and can’t stand to wake you.” I let her get away with it. There’s a candle in my room when I get there. I light it and lay on the bed watching shapes creep up the wall. I can’t sleep none. I sit by the window. Bats fly through the night. The city’s as loud as the country. Across Sable’s yard, there’s a whole other row of houses. Beyond them another row and another. We all shut up tight.
I climb back in bed and just lay there thinking about watching you grow up and wondering will you look like your mama and praying you don’t hate me for making you mine. I wake to the smell of coffee. It’s Sunday morning.
Your pa’s already downstairs with you in his arms. We sit in the parlor a spell; you, me, and Buddy. He’s been talking to Sable about fixing up the house next door. I ask him if we a family for real.
“Don’t see why not,” he says.
I want to love him. He’s reliable, a good provider, and a good man. Sable brings us eggs and toast and lets us sit in the parlor and eat it. She takes you after breakfast so we can get started next door. We standing in the doorway, with one hammer between us, wondering how we gonna fix all this with four hands.
“Gonna take a whole lot of Sundays,” your pa says.
He gets started. He’s pulling at nails. I’m piling moldy bed things and curtains in the middle of the parlor. While we busy working, folk just start turning up. Franklin’s first. Next, men carrying tools tip their hats to me and look for Buddy or Franklin, whichever’s closest. After brief discussions, some go on up to the roof, some to different parts of the house. Some get to banging on walls, others are pulling up floorboards. It’s a choir of sawing and hammering and talking and laughing. It’s a wonder they get anything done at all. After the men get a good rhythm going, women come with buckets, scrub brushes, and washtubs. Some drop off children next door, some set them to work.
Above the scraping and scrubbing, clipping and cutting, sweeping and digging, they talk.
“You got work lined up?” someone asks.
I tell them I think so.
“Keep your head about you,” a woman says.
“Don’t look none of them in the eye,” someone warns.
“Just keep your mouth shut, your head down, get your work done, and make sure they pay you,” someone else says.
“How am I supposed to do that?” I ask.
There’s plenty of advice.
“If somebody don’t pay you, don’t complain about it,” a woman says. “Go right next door to the neighbor and do a better job there than you did for the first. Get them to
start competing with each other. Sooner or later they’ll be paying you more than you ask for.”
It sounds like a lot of work to me. How am I supposed to get two jobs when it’s hard enough to get one? It’s even harder to keep one. A few of the women had been slaves from further south. They swap stories over soapsuds. Every so often somebody shares a tale of whippings and lynchings. There was one about slaves getting up to whip the overseers, another about bodies swinging down from trees and chasing the would-be murderers. I keep my stories to myself. Once in a while, a story bubbles too close to the truth. Tempe helps me push it back down. She watches me work, pointing out specks of dirt and chasing off broken spirits only she can see.
“I ain’t never gonna find my baby,” a woman cries.
I want to say she might, to tell her stories about folks finding one another in the same town, on the same train, through newspaper ads and church grapevines, but I don’t know any. I could tell her about Buddy finding Franklin and me finding him or about men in the woods with names on their tongues waiting on people to ask about them. About women staying behind, searching for their mothers. It don’t seem like enough. I can’t look her in the eyes and tell her to hope or pray or wish harder than she hoping or praying or wishing right now. And with Tempe standing there shaking her head no, I know that woman’s baby is gone. Because there is nothing I can say, I say nothing.
The silent ones scare me the most. They scrub floors, beat carpets, chip at old wallpapers, and I can tell they doing more than just fixing this house. It’s almost dark when warm hands lift me up from the floor. My knees ache, my back hurts, but that floor sparkles. By the looks of the sky we’ve been at it for hours.
Remembered Page 20
