“Seems like it’s gonna be a cold one,” Miss Lula acknowledged, morose in her delivery as she looked up to the sky.
“Yes, Miss,” I said. “Ain’t no running from it, although you can try.”
The Missus and I were close after that, a closeness I would use to purge the secret from her plagued heart. This, I swore.
CHAPTER 17
The next day the Missus and I walked by the marshes, as the warmth had surprisingly lasted another morning and afternoon and could be seen in the retracting frost on the rye and fescues.
“How’s Jesse been?” I pried as we sat amongst the turtles and water moccasins whose splashes could be heard behind.
“Very good, Bernie,” she said. “He’s really making that place a home. Done everything I asked for.”
“That’s nice, Miss,” I said.
“Reminds me of a boy I once met on the riverboat cruise in Memphis,” she said. “Beautiful, Memphis is. You been?”
“No, ma’am,” I said.
“Well, I promise it’s gorgeous,” she declared. “Anyhow, the Queen II it was called, that boat. Had a nice fella working there who smiled a lot. He was a nice negra and made our trip the most pleasant I’d ever had.
“The Mississippi,” she lamented. “It runs wide and mean, but we didn’t feel a thing on that boat. We didn’t even feel it rock at all really. And they had all kinds of seafood for us to eat, and we ate like kids, sure did. Cotton and cotton and more cotton for as far as you could see on either side.
“I think I’ve never had so much fun, riding up and down the river on that boat. You feel like you’re going nowhere, but you know you’re going somewhere, and then you look up and you’re in Tunica or back in Memphis where you started, with those lights from the buildings all around you. I never seen something so special in my life.”
Her head fell to these thoughts, bobbing like the lights on the water she’d described. Then she looked up again and caught sight of me there with my legs crossed.
“But Jesse’s doing just fine,” she returned. “I swear he just like that boy.”
“That’s good, Miss,” I said. “I hope he stays here a mighty long time.”
“Well, where’s he going?” she said sharply.
“Nowhere as far as I can tell, but who knows the workings of young boys’ hearts.”
“Ain’t nowhere else for him but here,” she demanded. “We always treats our negras good. And you know this, Bernie.”
“I agree, Miss,” I said. “I just worry Mr. Kern sure gonna grow tired of that noise all the time. He’s getting older and his health ain’t good like it used to be.”
“That noise will be done soon enough,” she said, her eyes alive with thoughts that failed to fall from her lips or impart the sights she’d seen all those times when she’d sat alone inside her room. “And Jesse can return with Floyd in the fields soon enough,” she added.
“Mr. Kern may tire of him before that time,” I said.
“No!” she admonished. “It’ll be done sooner than anyone thinks.”
And then she was quiet, her heart not attached to Jesse or the Mister or any devotion to a decent home. She seemed to care for nothing at all, and I was convinced it wasn’t love for the boy or some deep-seated wish for a pleasant life that struck her heart, because at least those ambitions required she still love or feel desire toward any of those plans. No, it was hate that hit her as she sat before me detached from the world, unable to love or even care for her own situation. And I knew right there that vengeance controlled her heart. That it guided her actions and motivated her to press forward with her schemes, using Jesse to whatever ends necessary to complete her vision.
“You got me thinking of old times, Bernie,” she said somberly. “You sure got me thinking.”
These thoughts led into Christmas. The Missus had done a fine job on the house that year with Silva’s help, hanging decorations the Missus hadn’t seen since Little Rock, pointing out to me the chipped elf, the wobbly Santa, and that galloping Rudolph who’d fallen from the tree so many times that they joked each year of his attempts to fly back to the North Pole. Of all the holidays, Christmas was by far the most pleasant around the plantation. Lights strung up around the main house and stable, those scant decorations placed above the servant quarters by Floyd that hung low from the already low ceiling yet were still festive. For a second it seemed we all quit our petty quarrels and allowed those grievances to heal. A feeling of connectedness joined the house, as Jesse completed the final tasks for that downstairs area, and Mr. Kern marched around happily now that this work was over. Fletcher prepared to leave for school, having been accepted to some program up north, his impending absence bringing a heaviness to Silva’s footsteps when she walked. Still, if only for this short season it seemed as if we all could be happy at the same time, as Silva’s lonely heart could not sustain a lick of anger toward anyone with the realization that her son would indeed escape Mississippi.
Once Jesse had completed that final downstairs room, Silva and I watched from the doorway as the Missus inspected it. She then sighed and turned to the window and the threat of freezing rain.
“You must love me more than I thought,” she whispered, the softness of her voice doing nothing to stop its ringing in our ears.
“Miss?” Silva said.
“Jesse,” Miss Lula replied louder, now turning away from the window and toward the boy. “He must love me more than I thought.”
“Why, Miss, we all love you,” Silva said impatiently, turning to Jesse who looked away guiltily.
“Your boy maybe more than others,” Miss Lula said. “I think he might actually be fond of me. I’m just happy this little project of ours is over so he can return where he belongs and stop chasing me like he’s gone mad.”
“Miss, I don’t understand!” Silva protested.
“Please, please,” Miss Lula explained, “Silva, you’ve done nothing wrong but I broughts your boy in to work and not spend all day harassing me.”
“Miss, I never,” Jesse said.
“Jesse!” Silva demanded.
“Don’t be worried,” Miss Lula said, looking at the boy tenderly. “I never showed Mr. Kern your letters.”
Silva wound her body like some untamed beast loose inside the forest, her sights a living promise to kill whatever it was she saw moving next.
“Jesse, you answer me right now,” Silva said.
“I never …” Jesse said.
“Jesse,” Miss Lula soothed, “I’ve given you my word that I’ll never tell a soul. You can believe me.”
Miss Lula removed her hands from the pockets of her dress to reveal the letters Jesse had indeed written over those past months in secret. She held them to her chest just as she did that night at the train station before leaving, and suddenly I knew what that look in her eyes had meant all this time. She breathed a sigh of relief then glanced around when she suddenly spotted me.
“It won’t leave this room,” she promised kindly, smiling in my direction.
She now turned to Silva.
“But,” the Missus demanded severely, “I ask that in forgiving Jesse, Silva you also forgive me for what I did to you all that time ago and allow Fletcher to return to this house immediately.”
“Miss, there’s no need for me to forgive you,” Silva said.
“Yes, Silva,” she insisted. “You must forgive me for sending him from the house and away from his family, yourself and Jesse for all this time. A boy needs his family. It’s all we got.”
“Thank you, Miss,” Silva said again. “But you owed him nothing.”
“A mother can’t help but want to make it right,” Miss Lula said, grinding her teeth and seething some exasperated tone that spat and popped from her lips like splintering wood.
She turned a stiff eye to Silva.
“I hear
d word he was to leave for school,” Miss Lula said.
She watched Silva stand stock-still.
“Funny how fast word spreads around here,” she continued. “I would just hope to make it right before he leaves.”
“He’s already gone!” Jesse interrupted.
“Now that’s strange,” Miss Lula said looking around her. “I could’ve sworn someone just told me he was still here, or that he might be here soon. But I tend to forget. Things often get lost in translation.”
Miss Lula turned to me, then turned her sights toward the window, bringing both Silva and Jesse’s eyes directly to mine. She then heightened her attack, saying, “One day we’ll get it right.”
She breathed deeply.
“One day,” she lamented with her sights on that nothingness that existed outside the window. “One day, I swear. Speaking of, one day Mr. Kern almost found Jesse’s letters. I can’t tell you how much I worried about what he’d think or say and about that anger of his and what he would do to know a negra he’d employed had done him wrong. Once he left the room, I hid them somewhere I knew he’d never see, and I’ll place them there again now. And Silva, I will never tell. I promise. But Fletcher can never go back to that school. He belongs here, and he will always be here with his family and those who love him.”
Miss Lula returned the letters to her dress, tucking them far from sight.
“Bring him tomorrow so I can apologize in person,” she said. “I know it’s only a small gesture, but it’s the least I can do. After so many months, I don’t even think I’ll recognize him.”
Miss Lula smiled as she turned and left the room, understanding Silva’s silence to mean that her son would never leave Greenwood, working unquestionably for the Kern family for the rest of his life. That in the likeness of that server whom the Missus had met on that riverboat cruise, Fletcher, too, might think he’s going somewhere but wake only to find that he’s returned to the same place he’d just left, having merely traveled up and down that same river to the same ends.
CHAPTER 18
Silva did not bring Fletcher on the next day or the next or any other subsequent day that followed. Silva held to her defiance, emboldened by that apparent refusal on the Missus’s part to stand against it. However, from what I had seen of the Missus, she knew exactly when to strike and the manner in which to do so. And so instead she waited, a serpent in the grass who was never anxious or worried as she watched her prey, a lioness who would pounce, but only when the time was right, never in fear that those months of preparation would suddenly fall apart now that victory was in reach. She anticipated the boy’s arrival as she would a cake to rise in the oven, checking on it every so often until the moment finally came.
The first of spring seemed to come earlier and earlier each year, and that spring was no different, although it was still a ways to go before the heat truly descended. The plantation still saw no sight of Fletcher as summer began, although the Missus remained in good spirits and did not show signs of concern. It was during this time of standoff between Silva and the Missus that Floyd pulled me aside one day and revealed a crinkled letter that bore Fletcher’s name at the bottom and had been addressed to both Jesse and his mother. Right away I grabbed the letter and started to read.
“Dear Mama and Jesse,” it began. “You would never think this country looks any different than home, but it does. There’s not a flat spot up here and most of my walks to class are either uphill or downhill but never straight. We all dread it as much as the next. It’s already cold, and the first snowstorm brought at least ten inches to the ground. Last week when it melted, there was a social and we all dressed up and met inside the school’s gymnasium. I wish I had pictures to send. Some of my classmates and I get together once a week to talk about what’s going on back home. They’ve never been to the South and want to see it for themselves how life really is. I can’t say I blame them for their shock every time they read a newspaper or hear one of my stories. I miss you all terribly. And, Mama, please tell Floyd and Miss Bernie I miss them as well and Aunt Joanne and Cousin Marcus and Lilly, too. Always, Fletcher.”
I held the letter as if that crumpled piece of paper were the actual boy inside my hands. Floyd had several of these letters, letters he had transcribed personally before returning the originals to Jesse. I read each letter alone, tales of late buses through the dead of night, en route from Greenwood to Maine, the stench of sour toilets during a rest stop, the curiosity on a stranger’s face who had seen one of Fletcher’s books and wondered what black boy could read such heavy works. His words came to me like Bible verses from my childhood when those foreign places seemed almost too strange to ever exist, and so they existed nowhere other than those pages. I saw Fletcher’s every footstep in those accounts, where a passing thought at night could so easily bring to mind that library with its moving stacks that slid noisily across the floor or the bells from the chapel that awakened by the simple thought of morning as the sycamore twirled its leaves.
Fletcher wrote to us weekly, the last of his letters coming nearly three weeks before that summer was to start, just preceding the influx of bees and horseflies around the plantation. It arrived right amidst the swells of smoky air from grills that seemed to define this time of warmth and kick-started a feeling of prosperity in people. And although I typically enjoyed these occasions, my contempt for that end to Fletcher’s stories made it impossible for me to smile even once as the smoke imbued the air, and I sat down to read that final letter as it was presented to me.
Dear Mama,
I will surely miss this place over the summer, although my greatest hopes are of seeing both you and Jesse as soon as possible. I cannot say how much I miss your cooking and the smell of cinnamon and nutmeg in the house. The food here is almost like something outside of the United States, and I’ve lost at least ten pounds from not eating it. My classes are soon to be over and my grades are good, although there’s one professor who seems intent on making my experience harder than the rest. There aren’t many other negroes here, and so the few of us stick together as much as possible, and they’ve each had their own experiences with that teacher. I’ve also made a few new friends, white boys from California. They’re different from anyone here and especially anyone I’ve ever met back home. But I mind my manners when I’m around them. I can’t wait to return next year as a sophomore. They say it gets easier then. Can’t wait to see you both soon.
Yours,
Fletcher
This last letter was old by the time I’d read it, and my thoughts possessed me to believe the boy had been home for some time by the time I’d actually seen it. Inside the house, the tension still stirred between the Missus and Silva—passive, though soon capable of boiling over. Yet each letter from Fletcher placed my thoughts at lengths far away from the madness, elevating me to some height only experienced by the cloud walkers, as we called them in those days, those tall women who left their presence down the aisles of planes, giving off whiffs of rose water and vanilla when they passed, their charm able to captivate any man and leave them stupefied in those women’s wake.
That summer would prove to be of a milder nature than the previous year, yet there was still no guessing as to how long the calm could last. The Missus had once again resumed her throne as the honeysuckles and jacarandas made their presence known, their sweetness lingering into midafternoon despite the humidity. There were tidings of cooler air that poured in from the base of marsh trees and sent that coolness directly to our doorstep. The air held hints of pond water and tree bark in its sting, and the Missus took it all in from her perch, exhaling loudly as she looked around at the restoration this summer brought, as though a vibrant energy descended through the greenery and blue skies that penetrated the Missus as well.
“Bernie!” she called forcibly, as if I were not seated mere inches away and could not land my hand directly on her shoulder with nothing more than a simple re
ach.
“Yes, Miss?” I replied.
“See I should get a handful of those awful treats you all love to eat,” she said.
“Some fruit, Miss?” I asked.
“Yes,” she replied. “I wanna taste them. See what all the fuss is about.”
Knowing Floyd would never pick a single bud for the Missus unless it be poisonous, I stood and gathered the fruit myself from the back tree, picking the small crabapples that had just ripened and blushed a deep red with green underbellies. When I’d returned, Miss Lula had already forgotten my mission and looked about her wildly to see me hand over a cleaned piece of fruit to taste.
“How do you even know where to begin?” she fussed.
“Just bite it, Miss,” I said.
Following my instructions, she did, immediately spitting the sour flesh from her mouth for Silva or myself to clean up. In truth, Floyd had never brought crabapples to the house because of their bitterness, yet the persimmons were not yet ripened, and my concern over the Missus’s mood had all but vanished since she revealed her plotted revenge. Like the others, I cared very little if she experienced more heartbreak, as she gave it quite well. The Missus shooed me away, and I smiled, hearing her curses follow me inside the house.
The Missus sat quietly for several more hours before she found the energy to stir again, the sun just descending and the bustle that had started the day now diminished into a mere simmer of tractors performing final rounds in the fields. A few birds chirped passively as closed windows dampened the crickets’ calls.
“Silva!” the Missus shouted from her sunken chair.
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