Call Your Daughter Home

by Deb Spera

  I wait for her to acknowledge what I’m saying, and when she finally does, I leave her there leaning against the cabinets, spent.

  Out in the lane a group of men from Shake Rag has gathered. Mabel is the only woman among them. She’s come running to the street with her hair half combed out, standing in the middle of all them men like she’s one of them. Beyond her on front porches, wives stand in nightdresses surrounded by children, listening, trying to see in the dark. Shake Rag ain’t used to trouble.

  “Everything all right, Retta?” Mabel asks.

  “Everything’s fine.”

  “Ya’ll go on home, ain’t nothing here to see,” Odell tells them and they do.

  Odell and me lean on one another. A half-moon lights enough of the world around us to see our way home, enough so the stars seem less bright in the sky. Night promises to pass quiet, now that everybody’s gone back inside. No more noise comes from Mrs. Walker’s house, but now I’m restless as can be. Things are shifting. I can feel them. At home I lie next to Odell, my head on his chest. I like the strong beat of his heart. I never grow weary of the sound.

  “Retta?”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “You got to promise me while I’m gone to go easy.”

  “You the one that needs to go easy.”

  “I’m serious. Don’t get messed up with that white family. No good can come of it. I’ll know if something happens to you, Retta. I’ll feel it in my bones.”

  I look up at him. “I can’t have you worrying, now can I?”

  “No, Sister, you cannot. It won’t be good for me.”

  He grabs me around the waist and squeezes me like we’re forty years younger.

  “Odell, promise me you’ll come back.”

  “I’ll be back quick as you know. Now you promise me.”

  “I promise.”

  He kisses me and I give myself to him.

  After he’s asleep, I go out of doors to sit in the still of the night on the porch swing. Mrs. Walker’s house lies quiet in the dark. I look for my friend, but she ain’t there. It’s too late to be out in the lane, I tell myself. But I know different. Now I’m just telling myself stories.

  16

  Annie

  Every day the telephone bells have rung between the one and two o’clock hour. And each day I’ve stood by waiting for them to stop. I’ve had countless imaginary conversations with Sarah. She either begs my forgiveness, professing love and sorrow for her betrayals, or with cold assertion tells me there is no child, there never was, it was just my mind playing tricks on itself. That is the talk that wounds me most deeply. These torturous imaginings have robbed me of valuable time. An unseen force has me in its grip. These endless conversations I’ve had in my head with Sarah these past few days are what finally prompt me to answer the damn telephone with a simple, “Yes?”

  Both Lonnie and Eddie are in the field with their father, checking and rechecking everything before day’s end. They will all sleep here this weekend in preparation to leave on Monday. I’ve organized their childhood bedrooms so they’ll be comfortable, and Retta has prepared a picnic for me to bring to the barn for dinner. They won’t stop to eat unless food is brought. Edwin is relentless before he leaves town. Always anxious about leaving, he sees to every repair before he goes. Only now his time is limited, so he is on edge more than usual. We all are.

  “Hello, Mother, you finally answered the telephone,” my daughter says. Only it’s not Sarah on the other end, it is Molly and she’s already got her dukes up.

  “What is it, Molly?” I ask.

  “Straight to the point,” she says.

  It’s no use responding to Molly. She loves a fight, always has. The child would get so angry when she was small, she would hold her breath until she passed out.

  “This isn’t your business, Molly. Sarah is the one to reconcile her lies.”

  “Sarah and I wanted to tell you,” she says, ignoring me. “We debated over and over what to do, but in the end decided against it.”

  Molly takes a breath. Someone in the room says something, but it’s muffled and I can’t make out the words. Nonetheless, I know the voice. Sarah is there. Molly tells her sister, “She deserves to know.”

  “What is it I deserve to know, Molly?”

  “You have three grandchildren, Mother. Sarah has Emily and James, and I have Willa. James and Willa are fourteen and thirteen and Emily is eight.”

  She pauses, waiting for my response, but I fix my eyes to the grandfather clock opposite me, and watch the pendulum swing for two full minutes before she speaks again. Only this time she’s crying.

  “They are wonderful children, Mother. Willa is very much like you, strong-willed and determined.”

  “You thought it best for my grandchildren to think me dead?”

  There is a click on the line. A man’s voice interrupts.

  “Hello,” he says.

  “This line is taken,” I say.

  “Sorry,” he responds and hangs up.

  “We didn’t want to tell them that,” Sarah says into the telephone. I imagine them sitting or standing with their heads together in some room of the house. I strain to hear past them, but there is nothing else to give a clue as to where they might be. “We’d like for you to meet them, Mother.”

  “But not Father,” Molly says, “just you.”

  “And why not your father?”

  “We feel it best,” Molly says.

  “Sarah, is this coming from you as well, or have you been swayed by your sister?”

  “From me, as well,” she says.

  “Why? You both know good and well that your father worked hard to provide you with enormous opportunity. He doted on you.”

  There is another click on the line, and I shout, “This line is taken!”

  “Mother, please,” Sarah says. “Let’s not do this over the telephone.”

  “And this is how you repay him? You’re spoiled, and I’m ashamed of you both. If you think I am going to deprive your father of the knowledge of his own grandchildren, you are wrong.”

  “Then we can’t have you see the children,” Molly responds.

  “Suppose I do what you stipulate, Molly, who will I be? Some long-lost forgotten auntie? Am I to engage in these lies upon lies to children? What sort of mothers are you?”

  The line clicks again interrupting us. Before Molly or Sarah can say another word, I slam the telephone down. It rings once more before I am out the back door.

  There was a time I remember thinking how big and fine our house was, how we would raise our children here, and once grown, they would bring their wives and husbands to our dinner table, and later bring their own children for visits. But that dream changed when Buck died. His death brought forth the worst in everyone. I thought that might change with time, but it hasn’t. Misery, like illness, is insidious, and my daughters have the virus. Some people need to blame others for their unhappiness. Parents are always easy targets.

  * * *

  Edwin, the boys and I eat ham sandwiches standing in the long shadow of the barn alongside one of the horse wagons, one of six loaded and ready to go. Men, women and children stand wherever there is shade, hastily eating sandwiches brought up on platters by the yard boys. Twenty wagons in total sit one in back of the other as far as the eye can see in various stages of readiness. Eighteen wagons will carry five hundred pounds of tobacco and two wagons, supplies for the trip. There is so much left to do it seems impossible they will be finished in time. What should’ve taken a week must be finished in days, but it must get done. The tobacco must be brought down from the rafters, tied together, loaded, lashed down and covered with tarp. Each man will be tasked with providing their own bedding and medicines, but two meals a day will be on us to provide. We need satiated men. Come Monday everyone will be gone.

  I’ve
brought each of my men a bottle of cold soda pop, and Edwin drinks in long gulps. Both boys do the same. Eddie and Lonnie reflect their father in stature, though neither boy has the strength of him. They stand the same when they drink, legs apart, head tilted in the same manner, a postural echo. Edwin finishes his meal first and moves down to inspect an already loaded wagon, double-checking each knot in endless strands of rope that tie down brown tarp sitting atop a mountain of yellowed tobacco. They’ve got to keep it dry. The least bit of moisture could cause rot or mold.

  “How long will you be this evening?” I ask.

  “After dark,” Edwin replies.

  “Shall I ask Retta to run hot baths?”

  “I’m n-not staying,” Lonnie says.

  “Why not?” Edwin asks.

  Lonnie looks at me as if expecting me to answer for him.

  “Don’t look at me,” I say as they all turn to me for explanation. “I’m sure I don’t know.”

  “I’ve w-work to do y-yet for the C-C-Circle,” Lonnie says. His face turns red from the effort.

  “What work?” I ask.

  “The s-stitching on the c-collars isn’t r-right.”

  Edwin shakes his head and sighs.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” I respond. “The stitching is fine. Your father needs you here. Do you expect everyone else to carry your load?”

  “I don’t mind handling things,” Eddie says.

  Eddie relishes being the older brother. He spoke on behalf of each sibling long before they developed language skills. He never stops to think of himself. His hands are raw from work, and red and open from incessant washing. He most certainly needs the help, but to ask for it seems some sort of weakness. My sons are men in the prime of their lives, with the whole world at their doorstep, but they are like two crippled old bachelors. If one blinks, the other is blind.

  “I think I can handle whatever work needs to be done for the Circle,” I tell him. “Believe it or not I know a little something about running my own business. You’ll go where you’re needed.”

  Eddie looks at his brother, but Lonnie has trained his eyes to the ground. Edwin wraps his arm around my shoulder, kisses my cheek and says, “Relax, Mother. He’ll stay and help, won’t you, boy?”

  Lonnie looks down the long line of wagons and nods his head yes.

  17

  Retta

  I see Odell in the distance before I come up from the backyard. I made six pitchers of fresh squeezed lemonade for the afternoon and aim to take it up to the barn myself instead of sending Nelly. Nelly’s swelling has worsened. I can’t feel the baby under all that flesh, so I put her in the bed by the kitchen to keep her off her feet. She fought me to get up and work, but I told her if she did she wouldn’t have a job come Monday, so she listened. I gave her a passel of green beans to pop for supper. That satisfied her. I know the signs for trouble and she is carrying them.

  All the workers in the fields, Odell, too, started before sunup and won’t likely quit ’til after sundown. They’re in a hurry. I don’t take favor in hurry. Never have. That’s how folks get hurt. The yard boys help me haul the lemonade. They’re like puppies hoping for leftovers. Odell is working in a hot September sun, sweating alongside every man, woman and child. That old cuss has taken his place in a long line and figured out a way to lean on his crutch and use one arm to help load tobacco crossways on the wagon. I told him just last night to stay in the wagon while they loaded that tobacco. Don’t nobody expect him to do manual labor. They’re lucky to get him at all is the way I see it, being as how Mr. Coles was in need and Odell helped him out. But he don’t listen.

  On Thursday Mr. Coles had two fresh horses brung over from the neighboring county for O’s wagon, and when Odell ain’t been up here sweating his sorry ass off, he’s been working the horses in the lane. He’s not driven a fresh horse in twenty years, but he sits in that wagon holding himself as upright as I’ve seen him in a long time, reins in hand ready for the spirit that is not yet known in those creatures. A young horse spooked is a dangerous thing, but Odell is a steady man and they calm under his sure hand. As much as I worry for him, I see him with fresh eyes and want him the same way I did when we was just married. My worry and desire is a back and forth that bothers my day.

  Eddie hollers across three wagons loud enough for everybody to hear, “Odell, we need you to come to market every year so Retta will make us fresh lemonade in the afternoons. She doesn’t take good care of us when you’re not around.”

  “Mind your manners,” I say and smack Eddie’s rear end with my hand harder than I rightly should. He laughs longest of everybody, crazy man. I save enough for Odell who waits at the end of the line. He thanks me when it comes his turn. His hand trembles against the wet glass so hard he needs both hands to hold on. I don’t look him in the eye. I can’t get ahold of myself.

  After the long Saturday, I’m grateful to finally hear the horses coming down the lane, their bells clanging before them. After Odell eats the grits and crawfish I cooked, I run a hot bath in the kitchen while he rests. I gather the soap and washrag in my hands to help scrub and rub the dirt-tired out of his body, but he takes it from me and washes himself. I can’t reach him no matter what I do or don’t do, say or don’t say. Truth is, since being asked, he’s been good as gone in his mind, itching for the road and ready for what lies beyond the next bend.

  “You got a young man’s notion in your mind, Odell, and you best come back to the facts.”

  “I know what I can and can’t do, Retta,” he tells me, “as much as you know your own mind. You got to let me be.”

  “I ain’t doubtin’ you, Odell,” I say back.

  “Yes, you is doubting me. You act like I’m a crippled up old man who can’t wipe his own rear end. I can do, Retta. It’s you that got me better, I know that, but I got real work left in me and I aim to do it.”

  “What about me, Odell, you think about that? What will become of me if you lose your sense?”

  “I ain’t going to lose my sense. I got sense. I always had sense. More than you, Retta. Have some faith in me. Lord have mercy.”

  Odell takes care of his own leg before bed, says he needs to get practiced at it, while I finish my nightly chores. When I am done I sit out on the swing and stay long after Odell has snuffed the lantern in the bedroom. The rest of the night yields nothing but my own fear of what has not yet come.

  There is light glowing in Mrs. Walker’s house, the only light on the street. Mrs. Walker and me said, as we got older, the night might as well be day for as much sleep as we got. Neither of us was good sleepers. I told her we should meet up in the middle of the night for a talk. We never did, but some nights I looked.

  She’d have to get up and walk to work every day. It weren’t good for such a big-framed woman. No amount of coffee can keep a body going day in and day out with no sleep. The tired in her grew, but I didn’t think it nothing but a lack of sleep and age. I was wrong. There was something else in her I didn’t see, but she did and never said. After I found her dead on the floor, after I run from that room for help, after I sat in the back of the funeral parlor with all them white women talking about Mrs. Walker like they knew her best, after all that, I wondered if there were things in my own self that lay hidden, and if they are there, these unseen things, who can see them? Not Mrs. Walker now that she is gone. And now Odell is leaving, too. There won’t be nobody left to pull me from the edge but me. But I can’t see what is to come. I cannot see. I fear I will stumble over the edge without knowing, and tumble to the sharp rocks below, too late to save my own soul.

  When I finally retire for the night, I keep to my side of the bed. Though I want him to, Odell does not reach for me.

  18

  Gertrude

  It was after Circle this afternoon when I finally had time to walk to the Barker house. Lily came behind me at my heels. We ain’t spoke once in
the three days since I found her secret. She mended her own dress, but it hung crooked on her body. She don’t know nothin’ about the world or how to live in it. I reckon I got some blame in that, but she made her choice and it ain’t us. She’s turned womanly in a little girl’s body with a little girl’s mind and no idea what’s about to happen. Ain’t nothing or nobody can stop it. Her life is laid out in front of her like a dark sky, only she’s too dumb and headstrong to know what hand her actions have dealt.

  Lily always was a troubled child. She didn’t learn good. Couldn’t hold her thoughts together and had nightmares so bad she’d wake up screaming. I’d take her into bed with us some nights when she was small just to keep her quiet. But one night when she was only six years old Alvin hit her so hard I thought he killed her. After that she got headaches. Some days they’d be so bad I’d have to cover her eyes with a cold wet cloth to ease the pain and block out the light. Not long after that she turned on me.

  “Dirty cow,” Alvin called me.

  He’d knock me to the ground and say to our girls, “Your mama is nothing but a dirty cow.”

  “Say it,” he’d tell them. “Say what she is.”

  The others wouldn’t, but Lily did whatever he wanted, to escape his wrath. He stopped letting me touch her until she stopped reaching for me.

  Berns and Marie wouldn’t know the signs of Lily’s trouble, what with all the work they got on their plate and no child of their own to learn from. But Edna knows better. When I asked Edna if she knew her sister was with child she lied and said no. I know her lies. She bites at the bottom of her mouth like she’s punishing the words that come from it. She’d lie even if the truth would suit her better. I won’t ever tell her that I know. She’ll try to hide from me. Better for her that I know the lies. I can help what I can see.

  Lily and me trudged through a field of sweet grass to get to the Barker house. They’re sharecroppers, like Berns is and Daddy was. They got a field to the right of the house, but the cotton looked worse than Berns’s crop. There was a good-sized garden in the back. Had some tomatoes hanging low and heavy that needed picking. The house itself was covered in vine and looked like it might collapse under its own weight. I couldn’t tell if that was from age or neglect. The roof sagged, and I didn’t need to see the inside to know that on a rainy day there’s pails everywhere to catch the leaks.