The bottom drawer is full of small spiral notebooks. Zera opens the one dated 1979—the first year women were allowed to handle threading needles. Some pages cover a day, some a whole month. Early that year, she and Davida worked for a full month on a quilt now pictured on a line of postcards that are still sold in several Mississippi museums. Odd, there does not seem to be anything written about the quilt in the notebook entries for January, February, or March.
The notes written in the margins of some pages are definitely in the ink of the deputy warden’s fountain pen. Several notes say NICE WORK. Having found a page with her name written on it, Zera sits down on the bed to read.
A while later, Zera is reading her fifth notebook. The guard enters and yanks it from her hands. “Whatcha waiting on, gal, Christmas?” the guard says, tossing the notebook into the box. “Git a move on.”
For the next few days, Zera wakes every morning wishing she had not read those notebooks. She has had some mean thoughts about Davida over the years. But she has never written them down. Could those words have been what Davida thought of her? That she was selfish, cow-headed, stupid? What hurt the most was reading that Davida considered her a sad Ruthbeth.
No way does Zera think she is that elderly woman from the Testaments who drank water at the desert cistern, unconcerned that the flesh of her malnourished children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren was being picked at by vultures. It’s bad enough that Davida had twisted her words to get in good with the deputy warden. But are those other nasty entries really what Davida thought of her?
Zera is thankful she did not show Davida the most recent letters Warner wrote from Vermont. How distasteful it would be to read those letters again if that woman’s arthritic fingertips had tainted the pages. Instead, the letters are a comfort today, especially the pictures Warner sent in his last one. Zera had asked for the pictures. That means she cares about something, doesn’t it? That means she is no Ruthbeth.
The note on the back of one old picture says the young woman standing beside Omar at some outdoor event in Halifax is Kath Ella Sebolt. Warner says this is his grandmother. Zera has heard of her but has never seen a picture of her before. The bracelet on Kath Ella’s wrist in another picture is the reason Zera keeps returning to the letter. This morning in the prison chapel, using the lighted magnifying screen that swivels over the large Bible, Zera examines the picture further. That has to be the herringbone bracelet she gave Omar. Chevy Platt must have given that to the young woman after Omar died.
Flipping pages in the Bible, Zera can feel the years unravel in her head like thread from a faded spool. What was the Bible verse she quoted there in jail after telling her son to take the bracelet with him to Canada? What a fool she is, thinking she might remember that. And what a fool she has been these years for refusing to see a resemblance between Omar and Warner. As a mother she ought to have seen the likeness. But her son was barely six years old the last time she saw him in person. And when had she ever seen a picture of Omar as a young man? If she is starting to believe that Warner is her flesh, what is she starting to feel about his daughter, Jennifer? There are feelings other than revenge buried there, somewhere. She loves her babies. All of them. She is no Ruthbeth.
Over the next few days, Zera wakes up some mornings barely able to contain her anger at Davida. Several weeks later, calling again to see Mrs. Gobe, she arrives at the office, missing her friend badly.
“Did you have anything to do with Brapper Coleman getting his head bashed at the motor pool, Zera?”
When offered a seat this time, Zera drops down into the hard chair. “Why would I know anything about that, ma’am?”
“I heard Randell Payton had a television in the trunk of his car the other day when he left the grounds,” Mrs. Gobe says. “One that belonged to you. Now why would you give Randell a brand-new television?”
“Thing wasn’t working.”
“Don’t play with me, Zera. Not today.”
Zera rubs her hair back with her hands. No use trying to look more presentable though. She hasn’t washed her hair regularly since Davida left the compound. She heard about the scuffle between Randell and Brapper in the motor pool lot. Word was, Brapper nearly got the best of Randell before slipping and busting his head against a truck bumper. If Randell is as smart as she thinks he is, he has already sold the television. It will be a stretch to connect her with the fracas.
“I’m going to ask you again, Zera. Did you put Randell up to that devilment?”
“No, ma’am.”
“What if I told you Randell said you did?”
“Man in the big house makes guards and inmates say what he wants them to.”
“Why must you women insist on continuing this nonsense about some big house?” Mrs. Gobe says. “There is no big house. There is only me.”
“And the head warden.”
Mrs. Gobe pushes roughly back from the desk and stands. Years ago, terror would shake Zera’s body when that fiery auburn-haired woman made the trip around the desk. Something else frightens Zera now. The gray-headed Mrs. Gobe sits in the vacant chair next to her. With her arms crossed, Zera glances at the guard. She’s a pretty young blonde—too junior to suspect the warden is probably lying about what Randell has confessed.
“Your hotshot lawyer has gotten your parole request moved to the governor’s desk,” Mrs. Gobe says, pinching the pleats in her skirt. “Did you know that?”
“Been there before.”
“If Randell is telling the truth, that lawyer’s work will come to nothing. And you will lose some privileges. Do you want to lose your nice living unit?”
“Thank you for your concern.”
“Do you want to die in here, Zera?”
The tart smell of dry-cleaning chemicals wafts off Mrs. Gobe’s blouse. Zera’s silence seems to irritate her. What Zera wants to do is chuckle. Too many administrators have asked her that question. She knows the deputy warden would like nothing better than for her to die in prison. Then again, Mrs. Gobe seems different today. Might have something to do with the story circulating that the girl inmate and the newborn from the motor pool both died at the hospital. Another inmate told Zera that Mrs. Gobe cried on hearing the news. Now that would be a first.
One thing that has come out of all this talk of Randell and Brapper is that Zera believes there needs to be less talk of fathers and sons. Thank goodness she has turned her mind instead to Kath Ella and Minerva. And she has done a deed to show her fondness for her great-great-granddaughter Jennifer—and for another mother and daughter, Davida. She herself, the warden, the guard—every single prisoner in this facility is a daughter. What about them?
“I used to fear dying in here,” Zera says. “Not anymore.”
Saplings for Jennifer
Because he did not want to deliver the bad news over the telephone, Warner had waited until he picked up his mother at the Montgomery airport to tell her that Minerva had lost the baby. At the time he thought it was a good idea to wait until she flew down for his graduation. But now, the day before graduation, at the tree-planting ceremony on the quad, it is obvious that the news has saddened Jocelyn, who is still struggling with what she considers an insult to Etienne.
After the saplings are planted and the speeches are done, Minerva’s parents take Warner to a gathering at their house, while Jocelyn remains behind to voice her disapproval directly to the vice-provost.
Fuming at the vice-provost seems to have improved his mother’s mood, Warner thinks later, when Jocelyn comes through the front door of Pat and Clayton’s home. She wears her first smile since he picked her up at the airport. With her sunglasses sitting rakishly on the top of her head, Jocelyn surveys the living room as if amused by how it is decorated.
Warner hoped Jocelyn’s entrance would shut up Steve, a loudmouth who is married to Minerva’s sister. But as Jocelyn says her hellos, Steve ups the volume as he continues boasting to Clayton about all the time-shares he’s sold since Easter. In a side cha
ir, sipping Scotch, Clayton nods agreeably to every point Steve makes.
“But you’re not selling anything real,” Warner tells Steve.
“It’s as real as what you’re selling at the Kwik Mart,” Steve says. “By the way, the Kwik Mart used to be owned by someone living right here in Woodhaven. But now Udall’s gone and sold the business to the paper company.”
“That’s not true,” Warner says. “He hasn’t sold the store.”
“Not yet,” Steve says. “If the newspaper is correct, production at the plant will require lots of men. What kind of job you putting in for, Warner? Machine operator? Cooker?”
“Anybody can cook pulp,” Warner says. “I’m after one of the manager jobs.”
“I believe you’d need an MBA to get into management at a foreign company,” Steve says. “Although I myself would never work for a foreign firm.”
“Platinum Paper will be hiring American workers to pulp American trees,” Warner says. “And the firm’s money ain’t foreign.”
Minerva’s mother, Pat, enters carrying a platter of salmon minicroquettes. When she’s not delivering news at the television station, Pat wears little makeup. The platter she carries rests on a thick mitten covering the prosthetic hand she’s had since a car accident a decade ago.
Warner puts a dollop of sour cream on a croquette, waiting for Steve to begin performing for his mother-in-law also. Before asking permission to marry their daughter Evelyn, Steve opened a checking account at the bank branch Clayton manages at the Plaza. Warner didn’t open an account at Clayton’s bank until several months ago. Steve’s account comes with all sorts of bells and whistles. The account Clayton opened for Warner has monthly fees and earns half the interest, with no overdraft protection.
When Jennifer starts to cry, Jocelyn carries her around the room humming. “A few of Etienne’s relatives from Canada came down to Vermont for Etienne’s burial,” she tells Clayton, when she sits again with the quiet baby. “Did Warner tell you that?”
“Probably,” Clayton says.
“I learned a little more about Etienne’s mother,” Jocelyn says. “I don’t know how in heaven she managed in Montreal. She probably didn’t speak French well, I mean, being from Halifax.”
“Probably spoke little good English either,” Clayton says.
“Not true,” Jocelyn says. “She graduated college. And tomorrow her grandson Warner will, too.”
Instead of smiling like the others in the room, Clayton picks up his drink. “I heard said the town Warner’s grandmother grew up in isn’t there anymore.”
“It was called something really quaint,” Jocelyn says. “What was it, Warner, Africatown?”
“Don’t sound too quaint to me,” Clayton says.
“Well, it wasn’t exactly that,” Jocelyn says. “Whatever the name, I imagine it was a small town like Woodhaven.”
“You can’t compare that place to Woodhaven,” Clayton says.
Steve returns to the sofa with another beer. “From what Minerva told us,” he says, “Warner’s folks living up there in Halifax were mostly squatters.”
“I didn’t say that exactly,” Minerva answers, her voice rising. “Why do you say that, Steve?”
“It’s what I remember you saying,” Steve replies.
“Folks up there didn’t have things nearly as good as we’ve got here in Woodhaven,” Clayton says. “Why, Woodhaven’s practically incorporated.”
“Africaville was just people trying to make a living,” Minerva says.
Clayton turns to Jocelyn and points off in the direction of the blacktop. “If you want to compare the town in Canada to one in Alabama, a better comparison would be to the colored quarters—Pathview, Union, Cooksville.”
“You don’t get what Minerva was saying,” Jocelyn says. “That town was like this one. It was just folks trying to make a living.”
“Well, it’s gone,” Clayton says. “There’s a difference.”
“No place is ever what it was,” Jocelyn says. “Including Wood-haven.”
Clayton draws in his narrow shoulders and sits back in the chair, the color rushing to his face. “Those were some awfully scrawny saplings donated by Platinum Paper. Do you think they’ll grow?”
Getting no answer from Jocelyn, Clayton turns to Warner. “Etienne never mentioned that town nor his relative in jail,” he says. “Do you think he was ashamed of all of that?”
Even though Jennifer looks comfortable in Jocelyn’s lap, Warner lifts her up and carries her back to the love seat. “Etienne’s not here,” he says, sitting with his daughter held to his chest. “And I wouldn’t pretend to know what he thought.”
With the stress of classes over, Warner turns his attention to trying to work on his marriage. Minerva still lives with her parents. But by the end of June she has been coming by the house several times a week. Still, despite a few romps in bed, he recognizes that she has no intentions of moving back in.
“I’m having good luck with the job hunt up here,” Warner tells his mother on a trip to Burlington in July. “It looks like I might be coming back.”
Warner returns to Alabama, still a bit unsure about his decision to go up to Vermont. One evening, though he is in no mood for another drinking session in which Randy criticizes the mistakes in Warner’s marriage, he decides to go to the Lucky Lounge. It is better than sitting in the house alone.
“I can’t believe it,” Warner says, sitting at the bar next to Randy.
“Well, believe it,” Randy says. “Gerrick Gilroy’s dead as a doornail.”
“No way.”
“Swear on my daddy’s grave.”
“Your daddy ain’t dead.”
“Well it’s the gospel truth anyway.”
“How?”
“Car accident. The brakes went out on that old piece-o-car he had. Can’t say I’m surprised.”
“Wonder who’s taking care of Sibelus. He’s over there at that house alone now.”
Randy’s head jerks back. “Boy, ain’t you heard? That house burnt to the ground. Ain’t nothing but ash and cinder. I heard Gerrick did it—the only way he could get the old geezer out of that shack.”
Warner finishes his beer, unable to believe the news. He orders another beer, trying to recall a happy time he spent with Gerrick in high school. The only memory that comes to him is of the times he and Gerrick clowned around the year they both went out for the junior varsity baseball team. He has recalled that memory before, but now it has a different cast.
Having relatives in Canada is something he and Gerrick had in common. But now one son of Canada has died. Is that what bothers him?
Before Gerrick lost his job at the Kwik Mart, Warner had entertained the idea that he might one day introduce Gerrick to his great-aunt Luela. Now that will never happen. But maybe his sadness is really guilt. He was, after all, the one who fired Gerrick.
Near the end of September, Warner packs up the house and moves to Vermont. Over the next year and a half, he returns to the South often to visit his daughter, each time making courteous talk with Minerva. On one visit she agrees to let him bring Jennifer back to Vermont for a visit.
“Can you believe Platinum Paper has sent Randy’s butt over to Germany?” Minerva says during a visit, as they drive from the airport. “Davey Michelson went over, too, for nearly six months with the college guys.”
“Sounds mighty nice,” Warner says. “And I hear the money’s good.”
When Minerva suggests they stop at the Kwik Mart, Warner agrees. It is no longer a secret that Udall was pretending to do substantial renovations on the store to be in a better position with Platinum Paper. But after the company succeeded in getting Sibelus off his land, they called Udall’s bluff and stopped the negotiations.
Inside the Kwik Mart, Warner looks around at the revamped interior while Millicent, back at the counter, fills him in about all the fighting between Udall and his wife. Through the window Warner sees Minerva at the car, showing off Jennifer to a young
woman he does not recognize. Several coal trucks rumble by on the road. Millicent giggles as she rings up Warner’s purchases, but he can tell she is slightly offended that Minerva hasn’t come in with his daughter.
“Don’t imagine you’re coming back to live in Alabama,” Millicent says. “Ain’t it better for you up there?”
“My mother’s up there,” Warner says. “But my kid is down here.”
Millicent drops two tins of sardines into his bag but holds the carton of Salem cigarettes in her hand. “This looks like what Gerrick used to buy for Sibelus.”
“I’m going to stop over to see him, give my condolences about Gerrick to him in person.”
Millicent takes a draw on her cigarette. “To dust everything shall return, they say.”
“That’s the first time I’ve heard you quote the Bible.”
Millicent chuckles and hands the bag to Warner. “Don’t be a stranger, stranger.”
“Couldn’t if I wanted to.”
Warner climbs into the car, looking back at the store. “I’m taking a ride over to see Sibelus later,” he tells Minerva. “I’d like to take Jennifer, if that’s all right.”
Minerva thinks a moment. “Why don’t we take a ride over there now?”
Warner had called Sibelus some months back to say he would come by to see how Sibelus was doing. Now, Warner enters the house in Cooksville where Sibelus rents a room, wishing he had followed up on that promise sooner.
Sibelus sits in an overstuffed chair by the window, peering into the bag of items from the Kwik Mart. His face has filled out since Warner last saw him. So have his shoulders, which no longer look bony. Finally he looks like a man in his late sixties.
“You wouldn’t believe all the development in Woodhaven,” Minerva says, when Warner has difficulty breaking the silence. “New folks are moving in right and left. I put a hook-and-eye to the back screen door. Don’t want anybody just walking in. Of course, I would have done it anyway, to keep Jennifer from sneaking out on me.”
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