Pale

by Edward A. Farmer

“You know what it is?” she asked.

  “He told me it’s his family stone,” Fletcher said.

  “It is,” she whispered. “That there locket is a kernel that represents this family’s place in the world, its heritage, that last name literally meaning seed or kernel. And now it belongs to you, the seed of both your mother and father. And one day, you’ll bear seeds of your own, and they’ll plant seeds into this very ground and the cycle will continue.”

  Fletcher studied the locket as the Missus spoke, the young man’s thoughts replicating wildly at that moment, as was evident in his eyes that jittered back and forth.

  “You keep it, Fletcher,” she said. “It’s worth a lot of money and could help pay for anything you need.”

  “Thank you, Miss,” he said, more confused than appreciative of her kindness.

  “You’ve grown a lot in these past years,” she said. “I’m just happy to see it so. You made a lot of friends here, even if you don’t know it. You’re a part of this house, a part of this family. Tell me you still think of school?”

  “Not anymore,” he said. “There’s no need to, is there?”

  “There’s always a need if you want it,” she replied.

  “You took it from me, or have you forgotten?” he said adamantly. “And you brought me here. I’ll never forget it. Ain’t no amount of lockets can undo that.”

  “And you done good here,” she said.

  “I’ve done your bidding here,” he replied sharply.

  “Fletcher, all I did was bring you to your family,” she swore. “If that’s my bidding, I won’t apologize for it.”

  “Because it serves your purpose alone, Miss,” he declared, rising from the ground.

  “Young Fletcher,” the Missus soothed, easing him toward her and back to his seat. “You think everyone has done you wrong except for the people in your life who actually have the ability to do it. You live with your head in the clouds, I swear, boy. Now, if I’ve done anything wrong by you, it was to take you away from that school and place you here where I knew you belonged, around your family. Boy, that’s all that matters in this world. So, surely if I’ve done you wrong, then your mother has committed ten times my sin by sending you away.”

  Fletcher rebuffed her lies, seated with a cold expression that did not warm even with the climbing temperature around them.

  “Fletcher, it may sound wrong to you and it may be too late for an apology,” she said, “I get it. But sometimes those hurtful things people do are the best they can do. And breaking your heart was the only way to do it. You see, coming back here was what you needed, but they were never gonna tell you. No, they would rather you wander forever, just as lost and confused as you ever been. Let you wonder why your brother always got the best of things and why Silva love him the most. Why it is she protects him like she do, over you. But some things you just gotta know.”

  Fletcher sat unmoved, and Floyd insisted he almost jumped in at that moment but had no clue what he’d actually say or how the truth could be delayed any longer, and so he allowed it to happen, watching the Missus rise to her knees and stand over the boy while Floyd remained in the trees.

  “Fletcher,” the Missus continued, “George give you that locket because he’s your daddy, and you’re his only surviving child, and so you continue his bloodline.”

  Fletcher’s face was a rehearsed reaction to her words.

  “It’s true,” she said.

  “Miss, my daddy died a long time ago,” Fletcher said.

  “The man you call your daddy did die when you were little but not the man who really was. Just look at your skin, Fletcher. You never wonder why you look so different? All this time, why you weren’t like your brother. Why your mama love him more. I begged them to tell you. I wanted you to know your people and be back in this house where you belong, but they insisted you go away. They wanted you off at that school and away from here so you’d never know. While all I wanted was for them to tell you who you were and where you came from, even if it broke your heart, but they couldn’t.”

  “Why would I believe you?” he said.

  “Because I’m not a friend,” she answered. “You know better than anyone else that I’ve not a friendly bone in my body toward you. But what I did was more of a friend than anything they’ve ever done, because only I was willing to break your heart if it meant telling you the truth about yourself.

  “Fletcher, I don’t have to lie to you. I’m telling you the truth because you deserve to know. Every child deserves to know their mother and father. But Silva and George don’t have the heart to hurt you. They know the truth could make you crazy after all this time. That it would hurt you too much. But you have to forgive them and not be mad. It’s what any parent would do to protect the ones they love.”

  Fletcher looked at her squarely, his eyes set in stone. Yet when he spoke, he sounded far away, lost in some dream he couldn’t shake. “I’m not mad,” he said. His voice drew dimmer. “If it’s true, then I hate them. Just as much as I hate you.”

  “Fletcher,” she soothed, “they both had no choice. George could never come out and accept you as his son. You’re a boy so you don’t understand, but a negra being raised by a white man, well, it just don’t happen around these parts, never mind whether it should or shouldn’t. He couldn’t love you, so he had to turn you away. But he did the best he could. Your mother and him both did by keeping it from you. They had to.”

  “Then he’s a coward!” Fletcher fumed. “And I don’t need him or anyone, and I don’t need his damn presents either.”

  Fletcher removed the locket from his pocket and glared at it with his hand reared back to throw.

  “Don’t give up your home,” she said, grabbing his hand before he could release it.

  “This ain’t my home!” he said. “It’s yours and Mr. Kern’s but not mine. I’ll never live here. I’ll never call this place home.”

  From the Missus’s eyes dripped delicate honey that cleared any saltiness from her face.

  “You have more power than you know, Fletcher,” she said, releasing his hand from her own. “And they can’t take that away from you as long as you live. Only you know who and what you are.”

  Miss Lula stood completely and dusted the blades of grass from her dress as if shaking out an old rug. She then removed her shoes and walked barefoot across the chilly soil toward the house that was some several fields away. As soon as she’d left Fletcher’s side and the coast was clear, Floyd rushed to the boy.

  “Pay no attention ta a word she says,” Floyd insisted.

  Fletcher looked at him with eyes as lost as a single seed planted amongst a world of hemlocks and clovers.

  “Is it true?” he asked.

  “Ya pappy was Mista Johnson likes ya know it,” Floyd said.

  “But was he my daddy?” Fletcher asked.

  “He was all the daddy ya had an’ as close as ya were gonna git,” Floyd said. “An’ loved ya more than a little. The goodest man I ever know’d. Raise ya an’ Jesse till he die. That’s enough.”

  “No, Floyd!” Fletcher said. “It ain’t enough. You see, I got no one. I got no mother. I got no father. I got no friends in this world. It was all a game, and they played me. None of them ever loved me. They would all let me die out here. Each and every one of them.”

  Word reached Silva quickly. She was in the kitchen when Floyd entered.

  “Tha boy knows,” Floyd said. “Missus done told ’im.”

  Silva rushed out the door and found Fletcher still seated by the marsh. He hadn’t moved for some time, shifting his position along the ground to wake his one numb leg in order to allow the other to sleep, firmly settled inside the groove he’d inched deeper and deeper with each passing minute.

  “Fletcher, don’t you go behaving like this,” she said once she saw him. “Your daddy was Mr. Johnson, and you
knows it.”

  “My daddy was a white man who didn’t care about me,” Fletcher protested. “And would have me work his fields until I died and never care a thing about that either. He would curse me for calling his name or even looking his direction. He’d insist on never seeing me again, and you would let him.”

  “Fletcher, you watch your mouth,” Silva said. “You’ve been loved by everyone except that mean witch you go listening to now. You a good boy, and Mr. Johnson loved you till the day he died.”

  “But he wasn’t my daddy!” Fletcher said. “And nobody told me any differently till now.”

  “Boy, your daddy would roll over if he heard you talking like this,” Silva said. “He loved both his boys and loved you like crazy too. And you know it.”

  Fletcher’s eyes muddled like a cloudy day horizon, eavesdropping from one field to the next. His sights appeared haunted as he looked up, saying faintly, “I’m not sixteen anymore, Mama, and I ain’t crying over Mr. Kern not wanting me and making me stay away while Jesse get to come. I don’t want him just like he don’t want me.”

  “Fletcher, you tell the truth and shame the devil right now,” she said. “You only had one daddy your whole life and that’s why you never needed to know. Mr. Kern was never your daddy. No, you had a daddy who gave you everything he could and made sure you didn’t want for nothing. Worked every day out there to gives you food and a roof over your head.”

  Fletcher stared toward the end of the fields. He watched the trees that divided Kern land from wilderness. Then he wiped his eyes, his body appearing hollow, a shell of a man who had no soul left within him. The sky seemed to stretch even wider out amongst the trees as he took it all in. Then he turned to Silva, eyes wide, barely able to get the words out.

  “But you, Mama,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Silva looked around for whatever she could find to garner the strength to put forth her reasons. She then spotted something in the brush just aside from where the two of them sat, although Floyd could not tell exactly what it was she’d seen as she soon closed her eyes and continued softly.

  “You were gonna have a hard life no matter what,” Silva said. “Knowing Mr. Kern was your daddy would only make it worse. Believe me, I thought about it, seeing you always wondering why you were so different, why you didn’t look the same as your brother. I know it hurt you. But how was your life gonna be any easier with people knowing your daddy was white? You had a better life this way ’cause no one gonna see a colored boy and treat him special just ’cause he come from a white man. You can be as pale as you want but you still colored, son. Your skin make them hate you, and they always will.”

  Fletcher sat with these words, drawing from his mouth once enough time had passed for his thoughts to somewhat settle and his eyes to dry of his tears, “Jesse know?”

  “No, baby,” she said. “All he knows is you’re his brother, and that’s all he should ever know. Now, I know you’re mad, but it’s hard for children to understand the ways of this world and how far we go to protect them.”

  “Why Mr. Kern don’t love me then?” he said.

  “He does,” Silva insisted. “He loved you since you were born.”

  “Then he kicked me out,” Fletcher swore.

  “He kicked you outta nowhere,” Silva fought back. “Miss Lula the one that made you leave, and he the one that wanted you to stay. He ain’t never done nothing wrong by you a day in your life, although I know it’s hard for you to see. He give you opportunities you never even know. Now, Fletcher, you choose your lot in life, but you don’t get a second chance at it. And all the things we did, we can’t take back. It’s the best I can say.”

  Fletcher found solace in tears, leaning on Silva’s shoulder as if his head had grown ten times heavier and did not have the muscles to hold it straight. He remained in this position for some time and did not move until Silva indeed lifted him from the ground and with Jesse’s help carried him toward the house. The sun was well on its way, although the sky still sat filled with light and the world seemed at once calm. Silva did not enter the house that evening although her duties remained plentiful. For the first time she left dinner unprepared and the Missus to reheat whatever leftovers she could find, although the Missus’s appetite was not with her at present, and Mr. Kern proved too sickly to eat even a cracker that evening.

  CHAPTER 25

  Fletcher did not show the next day, just as the Missus had hoped. Still, the Missus was not as cheerful as one might expect when she appeared downstairs, as she had suffered a seizure during her sleep that was brought about by that three-day period of her madness when she refused to eat large-enough portions and never took a single pill. She had stayed awake the entire night following the episode, afraid to close her eyes again in fear that another attack might strike during her sleep, that most vulnerable time when her faculties were not with her even if she could somehow fight the monster. The Missus had suffered several more of these episodes by the time I’d returned and indeed lay helpless in her bed when I’d found her, her hair in loose shrivels that fell over her forehead, wet sheets that clung to her body like children fresh out the pool, in her eyes a wildness that I’d never seen from her, although in this state she was susceptible to anything.

  “The medicine’s just gotta build up in her,” Silva insisted.

  “How many has she had?” I asked.

  “Maybe three but not big ones,” Silva replied. “I’ve seen her have worse. Missus just nervous they’ll happen again. She’ll be fine.”

  And with this Silva left the room calmly, her mind a steady focus on circumstances that did not involve the Missus or her health, her tone a return to business as usual. Given Silva’s disinterest, I took charge of Miss Lula’s care alone, easing that sad creature’s concerns of slipping into another episode with constant taps of my hand on her shoulder, assuaging that fear that swore to her the end was near. For during that time the Missus swallowed whatever pill I gave her, no longer a fighting bone in her body.

  That evening I ventured downstairs for more water and the Missus’s supper as she lay asleep in her bed. I would wake her upon my return with whatever food Silva had prepared as I did each night and force the meal down her throat, which she feared would seize up before she could have a chance to swallow. Then I would end with that pill as I always did, and she would close her eyes and drift to sleep, leaving the room silent and dim as nightfall arrived.

  The kitchen was empty when I entered and no dinner upon the stove. I prepared a glass of water then checked the back shed for Silva, but she was nowhere in sight. When I’d returned to the kitchen, the water was still cold and so I carried it upstairs to the Missus’s quarters. The room was dark as I entered, yet just as I slipped past the doorway I saw her there, the shadow of Silva near the window as she pulled an unopened bottle from the top drawer of the Missus’s wardrobe. Silva then removed another bottle from her apron and placed that new bottle atop the dresser. With great precision, Silva emptied the unopened bottle of pills into her apron and refilled the bottle with pills from the new bottle she’d brought with her. She then closed the bottle and returned it to the drawer of the wardrobe and left the room just as quietly as she’d skirted in, as I slid into the corner and away from her sight.

  The Missus still lay asleep in bed when I brought her water. I quickly placed the glass onto the dresser and retrieved the pill bottle from the drawer. There were only a handful of pills that remained in the Missus’s current bottle and matched those same pills now in the unused bottle, useless things I’d been feeding the Missus for days while wondering why she was not improving. There was indeed no chance for the Missus to ever get well, as it was now Silva’s hand that controlled the wheel.

  While it was true that servants often bore a heavier load than others, at no other time did that weight feel so burdensome than when I watched the Missus suffer and slowly die in that r
oom alone as I wondered to myself exactly where my loyalties resided. For truly, there had been lots of suffering in that home, too much to consider in one night’s ramblings as I sat beside the Missus’s bed and attempted to add up all the harrowing accounts that now extended to include me. When the count reached numbers my two hands could no longer tally, and these thoughts turned to nightmares that no sight nor sound could ever resolve, I finally quit my state and sought out Silva in the downstairs area where she stood gathering her purse to leave.

  “Silva, you’ll kill her,” I said when I entered.

  “Bernice,” Silva replied calmly, “God and you both know no man or woman can take a life. Only Him.”

  “Yet you’re trying,” I said.

  “Maybe she deserve to die,” Silva admitted. “You ever think of that?”

  “In God’s time and not ours,” I warned.

  “If He allows it …” Silva said.

  “He allows many things that aren’t His will,” I admonished. “And you know it.”

  “Then I pray He allow this,” she said, leaving the kitchen. “Our prayers are only suggestions to His ears, Bernice. I only pray this suggestion He hears as clearly as any other. It’s all I got left.”

  Silva hummed a gospel as she walked.

  “God help her,” she swore staunchly before she closed the door.

  “God help us all,” I whispered.

  I found Mr. Kern alone in his parlor, his eyes a mix of tragedy and yearning.

  “The Missus’s condition is worse, sir,” I told him. “Seems we might have to take her in.”

  He nodded yet remained quiet, leaving those decisions to me, as convulsions begot hysteria and suddenly we lost her, not to the grave but to the mania that persisted. It happened quickly and within a week’s time the Missus slipped into a period of uncontrolled seizures the doctors labeled some fancy term: Status Epilepticus, a condition which left the Missus bedridden and saw her hospitalized for several weeks at Greenwood Leflore Hospital, some ways from the plantation. The Missus did show some strength as we drove to that desolate place, although feebly, her will allowing her to open her eyes long enough to see that plantation fade and that building where Elizabeth had also lain until the time of her death now emerge at the horizon where the crop was just beginning to grow.