“He dead, Otis Lee,” Pleasant had said. The hard, fast knocking didn’t match the way she had given him the news. It was as if she had just said good morning to him.
“Who?”
“Bo,” Pleasant had answered. “Just as dead as he can be, and I killed him.”
She didn’t need words to ask Otis Lee what she should do, because her eyes had already done so.
“Where the twins?” Otis Lee had asked. After she told him that they were asleep, and that they hadn’t seen or heard anything, he said, “Thank God.”
Otis Lee had put on his coat, wrapped a quilt around Pleasant’s shoulders, and walked her back across the lane to her house. He told Pleasant to sit in her kitchen while he looked in on her girls; they were both snoring quietly. Otis Lee couldn’t bring himself to go into the room where Bo’s body lay, but he could smell it. Years of working on Pennington Farm had made it hard for him to miss that distinct odor of new death. Probably a pond of blood in there. So he took a seat at the table with Pleasant.
“Tell me what happened, Pleasant,” Otis Lee had said, and she did.
“I’ll sit here another minute or two,” Pleasant had said, “then I’m gon’ pack up me and the girls and go from this place.” She said she’d change her and the girls’ names and run away “like Mrs. Guppy did.”
Otis Lee had told Pleasant that, since everyone on Antioch Lane knew that Bo Frost hadn’t been kind or even decent to her—Otis Lee couldn’t imagine that Bo had ever treated any woman with kindness, based on the way he’d often spoken of his family in South Carolina—she would be better off turning herself in.
“Goin’ on the run with them children won’t be easy,” he had cautioned.
Otis Lee had begged Pleasant to think of her whole family back in Tennessee. And after what felt like a couple of hours, though it had only been one, Pleasant decided to take Otis Lee’s advice. The judge rewarded her honesty by sentencing her to only thirty days. And since Bo had cut ties with his family, Otis Lee and Pep made arrangements for him to be buried. Otis Lee, the reverend, one deacon, and the undertaker were the only ones to attend.
Once Pratt had met Knot, going back to Tennessee after Pleasant’s release was the last thing on his mind, he had told Otis Lee.
Now Otis Lee turned to Pratt and said, “Me and Pep seen you run a fella off the other night. So I was sure you and Knot was gettin’ on all right again.”
“Me too.”
“Y’all ain’t making good sense for my understandin’,” Otis Lee said.
“Mine either. She tell me she don’t want me. She meant it, too. She was sober as yo’ hen when she say it.”
Otis Lee picked Ruby up and sat on the wooden bench he had installed just outside the coop. Ruby had a twisted beak; Otis Lee could only feed her by hand with the soggy cornmeal that he kept in a cup inside the pail of dry corn. He used to be afraid that he’d accidentally choke her, but after three feedings he’d gotten the hang of it.
Before he began feeding her, he rubbed her soft, tangerine-colored feathers. She lowered herself onto his lap as though she were warming eggs.
Pratt went on and on about how he wanted Knot to be his wife.
“I want us to be like you and Pep.”
Shit! I’m s’pose to be in there with her right now!
Otis Lee listened to Pratt while he tried to feed Ruby. She usually kept still while Otis Lee pushed the meal into her mouth. But today she flapped her wings and struggled. Pratt was still going on and on about Knot. After a couple of tries, Otis Lee let Ruby get down and roam with the other cluckers. She looked satisfied.
“Stubborn,” Pratt remarked. Otis Lee wasn’t sure if Pratt was talking about Ruby or about Knot.
“Knot don’t know what she want half the time,” Otis Lee said. “You know that. You ain’t got to run off like you doin’.”
“I done told ya what she say to me, man. She know her own mind. And I ain’t on it no more. She love them damn books of hers more’n she love me.”
“Nooooo,” Otis Lee denied.
“It’s the truth,” Pratt said. “Corn liquor, the books, them letters from her pa, and then me. Maybe.”
Pratt was right. Knot knew her own mind, and she knew it well—drunk or not. And the truth was, Otis Lee knew exactly how Pratt was feeling. Try to steer somebody from a harm they love, but seem like the more they get steered away, the more they want the harm.
Otis Lee had tried to steer Knot, just as he had tried to steer his older sister, Essie, who had left home to go north. She was in New York passing for white. Who Essie’s white father was, Otis Lee never knew, and he didn’t care. He had known his own father and he still missed him dearly. He’d drowned in the canal when Otis Lee was a child.
Essie was living a life Otis Lee couldn’t get his head around. It seemed as though she put herself in harm’s way every day. At any minute, if her truth were uncovered, she could be beaten or something worse. Otis Lee didn’t know Essie very well. His mother had told him that Essie was already grown and gone before he could even turn over on his own. But it didn’t matter. From the time Otis Lee was old enough to understand that he had an older sister, and old enough to understand her circumstances, he cared about her.
In ’24, when Otis Lee was sixteen, he’d gone to New York, and with the help of his aunt—the aunt who had adopted Valley—he found Essie. New York City had proved itself to be all the things he had heard about it: nothing like North Carolina, never resting, plenty to offer, and plenty to take away. So Otis Lee was pleased to find that Essie lived in what he thought of as a calm part of town.
Even so, he had wanted so badly to help her and protect her—even knowing of the bad thing she’d done to the family. Ma Noni had told him that Essie had sold her land dirt cheap, for pennies on the dollar, so that she could have money to run away and pass. According to Ma Noni, Essie had caused him, Rose, his father, and Ma Noni to be homeless for a while because of what she had done. Neither Otis Lee’s father nor Rose ever spoke of it. And when Otis Lee once asked Rose about Essie and the land, all she had said was “The past is the past, baby boy. Everythang turn out all right.”
While living in Brooklyn, in Essie’s brothel, Otis Lee often thought of all the things Ma Noni had told him, and he imagined killing Essie. But mostly he just wanted to protect her, lead her away from the danger she was courting. Finally, after some time living with and working for Essie and her crooked policeman husband, Otis Lee saw that she was no longer the Essie his mother often secretly spoke so fondly of. She had become Ellen O’Heeney. And for Ellen O’Heeney, there was no turning back.
That’s what she had told him as he was leaving her house on that cold day in ’27. Otis Lee remembered the sweet look in her eyes when he walked away from her back stoop. That sweet, sad look—a look he wouldn’t understand for several decades, after receiving a bundle of letters—was all he was going to get from his sister, because she didn’t make a move to hug him or even shake his hand. But it had seemed to Otis Lee that she had wanted him to see that sweetness.
Now fourteen years had come and gone since he had returned to West Mills, married Pep, and, years later, become a father. Otis Lee hadn’t heard from his sister. No one had.
Essie knew her own mind, just as Knot knew her own. Otis Lee decided he would be misleading Pratt if he stood there trying to convince him to stay in West Mills for Azalea Centre. So he didn’t.
When Otis Lee came back from his thoughts about Essie, Pratt was picking at a piece of wood from one of the pen’s posts. Ruby had made her way back over to them. He thought she might be ready to eat some more, but when he tried to pick her up again, she flapped her wings and made her fussing sounds. Otis Lee let her be, and he and Pratt bid each other a good evening.
A few days passed and Pratt came to Otis Lee’s house dressed in his only suit—a black one—to say his good-byes. Pratt rubbed Breezy’s head, fluffing up the boy’s halfway-curly hair.
“When you see Miss Kn
ot,” Pratt instructed the boy, “give her a hug and tell her it’s from me. Hear?”
“She ain’t gon’ let me give her no hug,” Breezy said. His face wore a tight frown. Otis Lee smiled, fighting back tears.
“You has to hug her quick,” Pratt explained to Breezy. “When she sit down, you has to get close up on her and just do it. Fast, like. Understand?”
Pep was busy crying. She had fussed Pratt out for days for enlisting himself, and she had fussed Knot in and out, high and low, for being part of the reason he had done so.
After they had done all the handshaking and hugging, Otis Lee watched Pratt walk out of his yard and up the lane toward Busy Street, where there would be a bus to take him to the train station in Norfolk. Pratt’s walk was a hesitant one. If there had been anything Otis Lee could have said to get his buddy to stay, he would have. Going off to war, Otis Lee thought to himself. I don’t believe I’ll ever see Pratt Shepherd again.
“You know something, Pep?” Otis Lee said, standing next to her, his left arm wrapped around her ample waist. “Pratt’s probably the best fella Knot’ll ever have.”
THREE
In December of ’41, Knot accepted the fact that she had a baby on the way. That goddamn Pratt, she thought to herself.
Knowing that she would not be able to visit her family in Ahoskie for a long time—having them know she was to be an unwed mother was never an option—she sat down to write a letter to her father. Knot wrote that she would soon be going north for six months or so, for more training as a teacher—which was what she would have done to hide the pregnancy from the people of West Mills if she hadn’t drunk and gambled away so much of her money at Miss Goldie’s Place. She wrote that, since she did not yet know the address of whatever rooming house she’d be living in, he should send a reply to Penelope Loving. And her pa did just that.
He wrote that he was proud of her, that her two sisters were just as proud of her as he was, and that they all loved her very much. My smart, sensible little Knot, her pa had written. She needed a drink after reading that part. The letter had been written in his handwriting, and Knot noticed that it didn’t have any of the fanciness—her full name written out, the sentences lined up on the paper just so—that it would have had if her mother had written it. So she wasn’t at all surprised that her pa’s letter had no mention of her mother.
As scared as Knot was of being someone’s mother, she was more scared of dying on some old woman’s kitchen table, trying to avoid becoming someone’s mother. She would have to get used to the reality of what her life and body would be like for several months to come. Finding someone reliable and willing enough to take and raise the child was another challenge.
Otis Lee and Pep would have been her first choice if she hadn’t grown so close to them. She needed the two of them for herself. And with Pep constantly trying to convince Knot to keep the baby, the Lovings would probably keep the child for only a week or two before coming up with some reason to bring him or her back.
And there was the freedom—the freedom Knot would certainly lose while the child grew inside her. But the thought of the freedom she’d lose if she couldn’t get anyone to take the child off her hands was far more terrifying. Damn, she thought, I’ll never see the inside of Goldie’s again if I got a young’un in tow.
Unsure as to whether the god her pa prayed to was real, and remembering Matthew 19:14, Knot wanted nothing to do with bringing a sick baby, or a dead one, into the world. She drank far less than she had before—which wasn’t hard, since, for a while, she could barely stand the smell of liquor. For many weeks Knot could barely stand the smell of anything. Sometimes, just looking at the jar of corn liquor sitting on the shelf in her pantry would turn her stomach.
“You better live, goddamnit,” Knot said to the twitching she felt inside her belly. “You better live.”
FOUR
Otis Lee told Phillip Waters, and Phillip’s wife, Lady, that there was a young woman in town who was going to have a baby she couldn’t keep.
“My Lord,” Lady said. She stepped away from the table and put her hands over her mouth. “It’s Reverend Walker’s oldest daughter, isn’t it?” She tapped Phil’s shoulder twice. “Didn’t I tell you this would come to pass? I saw that girl coming from Goldie’s many a night. Many, many a night. Lord, have mercy.”
What in the devil Lady doing on that end of Antioch Lane that late at night? Goldie didn’t open the doors to her juke joint until nine o’clock, Otis Lee had heard. Before he opened his mouth to ask the question, he remembered Phil mentioning Lady’s recent idea to try to minister to Goldie’s customers as they were leaving in the wee hours. I wished she’d gone ’cross the lane and try that ministerin’ out on Knot.
“It ain’t our place to judge, Lady,” Phil told her. “Folk make mistakes.”
“I don’t think I was passing judgment,” Lady said. She sat back down. “Not one bit. Just telling you what I’ve seen, is all.” She put her elbows on the table and propped her chin on one wrist.
Lady was older than Otis Lee and Phil—nearly ten years older. Phil and Lady had met in New York City. Before Otis Lee had found Essie, he, Phil, and Brock Manning were all working in a hotel in Lower Manhattan. Lady wore two hats at that hotel: some days a cook, and other days a cleaning lady. Otis Lee had already known how to clean a house because Ma Noni and Rose had taught him to do almost everything they knew how to do. But Phil’s mother hadn’t shown him much about housekeeping, so Lady showed him how it was done. Before long, Phil was telling Otis Lee that he loved Lady and he’d decided to ask for her hand in marriage. Although Lady had been born and raised in Harlem, she had told them many times how much she loved the calmness of the South—despite its problems. And now Otis Lee looked at the two of them and was glad to see them together and still in love.
“I didn’t mean nothin’ by it, darlin’,” Phil said to Lady. “You ain’t mad at me, is ya?”
Lady said she wasn’t mad, and they smiled at each other. Otis Lee always admired, and was often confused by, how Phil and Lady’s arguments were so quiet and peaceful—the ones he’d witnessed. He and Pep had at least one twenty-minute argument each day. Most of them were loud. And they enjoyed them.
“Is it Reverend Walker’s girl, brother?” Phil asked.
When Otis Lee told them it was their across-the-lane neighbor, Knot, who was in the family way, Lady asked if Milton Guppy was the child’s father. And when Otis Lee asked Lady why in the world she’d think that, she replied, “Well, I saw him coming outta her yard one night. So, I just thought maybe—”
“Noooo,” Otis Lee said. “Milton ain’t got no parts of this. Pratt left somethin’ behind and don’t even know it. And now the fool’s gon’ off to get himself killed in the war.”
“Knot don’t want to write to his people?” Phil asked.
“She say she ain’t able and wouldn’t if she was,” Otis Lee answered. “Knot don’t want to be a mama. And she serious ’bout it. That’s why I’m here talkin’ to y’all.”
Otis Lee wondered what reason Milton Guppy would have to be in Knot’s yard. Maybe they friendly now, and she got him bringing her liquor.
“But wait a minute,” Lady said. “I thought Knot’s taken poorly with the pox. Will that child live?”
“No pox,” Otis Lee promised them. “Just a baby comin’, is all.”
FIVE
Mornings became Knot’s enemy, so she stopped teaching. After she had made amends with mornings, afternoons became the bully. For as long as she could hide herself, she took on part-time house cleaning. Those earnings were stuffed in her feather bed along with the little money she hadn’t blown at Goldie’s. That took care of the rent for the three-room railroad house she lived in—if she counted the pantry as a room—and it kept her fed until she could get back to work. When her stomach began arriving at places before the rest of her body, she didn’t leave her house, except to step out onto the porch for fresh air—something she did only late at ni
ght. The only people Knot believed needed to know of her condition were the two people who were going be there when she gave birth, and the two other people who had agreed to raise the child.
One day in March of ’42, Knot lay across her bed reading and fighting off the urge to rub her stomach. She heard three hard knocks on the back door. Can’t be Otis Lee or Pep. They know the code. She had told Otis Lee and Pep that they were to call out to her before they knocked. She supposed it could have been someone from the lane wanting to order a bread pudding. But since she had told people she was ill, she thought anyone would be foolish to want anything from her kitchen.
Knot waited a minute to see if the person would say anything. They didn’t. But they did knock three more times.
“Come on and open the door, sweetie.”
It was Miss Noni. Knot wondered how such a tiny person like Miss Noni had such a strong knock. Is she throwin’ her whole damn body ’gainst the door? And what the hell she want?
“Knot,” Miss Noni called, “come open the door, sugar.”
“I can’t let you in here!” Knot yelled toward the door. “You might catch it!”
“I done had it. Open this door, child.”
Knot got up off the bed and grabbed a pillow to hold in front of herself. Before going to the door, she stood in front of her mirror and shuffled her hair around a bit. She hadn’t combed it in days, so it didn’t require much effort. She noticed that the copper color of her hair seemed to be fading. Pregnancy was turning her hair brown. She didn’t like it.
Knot opened the door, and Miss Noni stood there wrapped in coats and scarves. It looked as though she were wearing three of each, in various colors. It ain’t even cold out there. Shit! Miss Noni had a wicker basket hanging from the bend of her right arm. The basket looked new, as though it had never been set on a floor or the ground.
“You gon’ welcome me in?”
In West Mills Page 3