——————
The clicking noise worked Beatrice’s nerves.
“Now, Mama, you sure you want to do this?” Lis depressed the button on the pen, in and out, in and out.
“Gal, I ain’t got time to be changing my mind. ’Course I’m sure.” She snatched the implement from her daughter, reached into her pocket, and took out another. Beatrice removed the cap and handed it to Lis.
“Okay, well, you know there’s not much I would refuse you these days, but I’m the one who’s gotta live with Evelyn.”
“You mean after I’m dead and gone?”
Lis rolled around the pen in the silence. “So what do you want to say?”
Beatrice looked out toward a scraping noise across the road. She waved at Velma Johnson dragging her garbage cans. She’d decided to write this letter days ago.
“Mama?”
“You just like that chile of yours. In a rush to nowhere. How is she anyway?”
“Rounding out by the minute.” Her lips curved into a smile. “Beautiful. We could just send a photograph. Let the picture tell the story.”
Beatrice played with the end of her braid and chuckled. “Ain’t that the truth? But I got more to say than that.” She watched Velma return to her house. “Get that paper. I’m ready.”
“Mama, I’m sitting here with the paper and pen. You just start talking.”
“All right. Dear Kevin . . .”
Chapter Eighteen
MILTON, AGE 4
“You’s a bastard!”
“You take that back!”
“I won’t! It’s the truth!”
“No, it ain’t! You take it back!”
“I won’t take it back, and it is true! That’s what I heard Daddy say, and he’s big, so he knows better.”
Milton didn’t know what the word meant, but he didn’t like the sound of it. And if his brother was saying it with such spiteful confidence, Milton knew it had to mean something real bad.
He flung himself at Thomas. Thomas threw a wild punch. Milton grunted and wrapped both his short arms around his older, yet clumsier brother, locking his hands in a fist. Thomas struggled to break free, dragging Milton all around the backyard, but the smaller, wiry boy wouldn’t let go. Thomas tripped. Both tumbled to the ground. Milton’s head landed square in the middle of his stomach. All Thomas’s breath exploded from his lungs and escaped through his mouth with a loud “Woopf!” Milton’s clasp loosened, and Thomas’s arms broke free. Immediately he grabbed Milton’s ear and pulled. Then the real fighting began.
“Eee!” Milton screamed. He drove his knee into Thomas’s thigh.
“Oooohhh.” Thomas rolled Milton over and plopped onto his brother’s chest. He squeezed his knees together and Milton kicked and bucked, but Thomas held on. Milton pounded on Thomas’s back until he pinned Milton’s arms down.
Tears streamed from Milton’s eyes. Pure rage drove him to buck violently one last time, knocking Thomas to the ground. With a guttural roar, he leaped onto Thomas and drove his brother’s face into the dirt. “Take it back! Take it back! Take it back!”
His cries drew the others from the nether regions of the woods. Little Ed ran up and yanked Milton off his older brother.
He struggled and kicked. “Mmmpf . . . let me go!”
Mary ran to Thomas and helped him up. His face was smudged and dusty, his nose red, already bruising. He didn’t fight to get at Milton. Thomas stood strangely quiet, staring at him.
Milton refused to be comforted by Little Ed or Sarah.
“Shh! You gon’ get us in trouble.” Little Ed shook his brother. “Hush up, now!”
Milton pointed at Thomas. “Make him take it back!”
“Take what back?” Little Ed and Mary asked in unison.
“He—he—ca-called m-me a bas-bas—” Milton choked on the word.
“A what?” Ruthena had just joined the fray. She set a basket filled with ears of corn and peas by her feet. “A what, Milton? What’s got you so riled up?”
“A bas-bas—” Milton’s voice hitched. Actually, he couldn’t remember the exact word, but deep down, he knew it was something awful.
“A bastard,” Thomas said without inflection.
Little Ed squinted at Thomas. “What’d you do that for?”
Mary cupped a hand over her mouth and leaned toward Little Ed. “What’s that?”
Little Ed trained his eyes on Thomas.
“’Cause I wonted to. That’s why,” the normally docile Thomas responded.
Little Ed smirked. “That ain’t no kinda reason.”
“Well, it’s my reason.” Thomas tried to walk away.
“He said he heard Daddy say it a long time ago, before he left. He said Daddy and Mama was fussin’ and he heard Daddy say I’s a bas-bas—”
“Bastard,” Mary supplied.
“And that it must be true ’cause Daddy big and all.” Milton hiccuped.
All the children suddenly chimed in. Some pointed a finger at Thomas. Others told Milton to hush up. Only Little Ed said nothing. The rest just agreed with Milton. It sounded like it was something bad, and if Henton had said it about Milton, then it was something really bad.
“But just because Daddy may-a said it don’t mean you can say it, Thomas.” Mary tried to put a stop to all the arguing.
“It mean I can say anythang I wont. It must be true.” Thomas poked out his chest.
“What must be true? You know what that word mean?” Little Ed finally offered his two cents.
Thomas put his hands on his hips and sneered. “It mean he ain’t got no daddy. Matt-a-fact, that’s what he said, somethin’ about Milton not havin’ a daddy and all.”
Little Ed narrowed his eyes. “But that don’t make no kinda sense, now do it? Henton Milton’s daddy. Just like he my daddy and yours. But then ain’t none of us got no daddy no mo’. Whatchyou got to say about that, Thomas?”
Milton suddenly stopped hiccuping. His eyes lit upon each face—Little Ed, Mary, Ruthena, Sarah, Thomas, and back to Little Ed. The thief, troublemaker, liar, and bully had gained another title in Milton’s eyes: hero.
Thomas’s mouth dropped open slightly. “I ain’t no bast—” The word died on his lips.
“Well, then I ain’t neither.” Milton looked at Little Ed for confirmation.
“Are you sho’?” asked a voice that didn’t belong to Little Ed—or Mary, Thomas, Sarah, or Ruthena.
At the sound of it, everybody took a step away from Milton, the heart of the action. Everybody except Little Ed. He put a hand on his younger brother’s shoulder, and it shored him up in the face of this new, unrelenting opposition.
“I said, are you sho’, boy?” Beatrice stood behind the small circle, holding a paper bag of dry goods. Her eyes, searing-hot coals in her narrow face, rooted Milton to the spot. “Well? What y’all got to say? Is you got a daddy, or aintcha?”
“Mama . . .” Milton had worked up enough courage to answer, spurred on by Little Ed’s warm hand.
“Hush up, boy. Nobody talkin’ to you.”
Beatrice didn’t sound like she was looking for an answer, and the older children seemed wise enough to know that. And Little Ed’s hand wasn’t meant to comfort Milton, but to keep him from doing or saying something stupid. Something young Milton divined from the press of the fingertips that kept him in place.
“I don’t know who started this foolishness, but I thank y’all got plenty to do ’sides concernin’ yo’selves ’bout grown folks’ business.”
“But, Mama,” Little Ed protested, “we wan’t into yo’ business. We just talkin’—”
“Just talkin’ when they’s plenty to be doin’ round here. Now, git.” When they took too long to scatter, she planted a step forward, shoulders reared back. It wasn’t like she could hit all of them at once, but that didn’t seem to matter. Her threat sent them running to the woods, to the clothesline, inside the house to the kitchen.
Milton watched his superhero toss his S to t
he wind as Little Ed scattered with the rest. But before he could move his own feet, a rough hand caught him on the same shoulder still warm from the touch of his brother.
“You was ’bout to say somethin’.”
Milton stared at her, his mouth open.
“What is it, boy? You all fired up to answer me. Go ’head.”
As Milton faced his mama, her eyes betrayed some emotion he couldn’t name. Mesmerized, he stammered, “I-I ain’t n-no b-ba-bas—” Once again, his throat held the word captive.
“You ain’t, huh? So who’s yo’ daddy?” Beatrice leaned into Milton really close, so close her breath made his eyelashes twitch.
Curiosity caused him to speak up, not bravado. “Why you askin’ me? Henton. Henton my daddy.”
“Then why ain’t he here? The only daddy you need to be worried about is the One up there. He the only One who’s here right now. They cain’t tell you no more ’bout they daddy than you can yours.”
When Beatrice suddenly let him go, he said nothing more. He just rubbed the pale places where her fingers had pressed into his skin. He watched her walk around the back of the house, and he waited there until he heard the back door open and shut with a screech.
——————
“I don’t know what set Thomas off that day. And I never asked. But that’s the last I talked about Henton. And the last Mama talked to me, period.”
“You never asked about him again?” Milton’s wife, Nancy, sat to his left, holding his hand across the wrought iron arms of their chairs.
He’d tried to tell her the story many times, but he never could find the perfect words or determine the right moment. Now, it was obvious there never would be a “perfect” or a “right” when it came to unpacking his suitcase full of history. As Milton watched Nancy work through what she’d heard, he wished he’d made more of an effort years, or even months, ago, when it would’ve been for her ears alone.
“What about Ed or Sarah? You never talked about it with anybody? You just assumed all these years that—?”
“That I am a bastard.” This time, Milton didn’t stumble over the word. It still tasted bad, but he simply spit it out. “Why not? She’s treated me that way all these years. Refusing to say more than two words to me whenever we’re together. Not answering letters. Not calling.”
He could’ve been describing the shades of blue, purple, orange, and red of the evening sky. Discussing the probabilities and possibilities of this, that, and the other occurring in the universe. But Nancy, married to him for the past twenty-five years, probably felt the slight tremor he couldn’t restrain and suspected he saw none of the coming night’s wonders, that more than likely he was as stupefied as she by his unexpected visitors.
She stroked Milton’s thigh. “But now she’s brought you this letter—these letters. She’s here now. And in his own way, your father, too.”
Mama. Sitting across from them in his screened-in porch, too smart not to know who “she” was, though Milton never spared her a look.
——————
Only Evelyn sat close enough to Granny B to hear her small intake of breath. Is she in pain? Evelyn knew Granny B suffered physically, but she wondered if Milton’s words had wounded her in places beyond the scope of any X-ray or MRI. She studied her grandmother’s profile. Should we leave? Is all this too much . . . even for her? But Evelyn knew asking her would be pointless, something she’d learned after peppering Granny B with questions from the second she’d put the car in reverse in her driveway.
“Why don’t you ever mention his name?” Even then, on their way to visit her uncle, Evelyn couldn’t bring herself to say Milton, he-who-shouldn’t-be-named, to Granny B.
“Why I need to use his name with you? You forget what it was?”
“You know what I mean.”
“And so do you.” And she’d ended the discussion by closing her eyes and propping her head against the seat.
Thirty minutes outside of Spring Hope, Evelyn had leaned over and whispered, “Do you think he’ll see you?”
“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have asked you to drive me there,” Beatrice muttered, her mouth barely open and her eyes firmly shut.
“Did he mention the letters when you told him we were coming?”
“Now what sense do it make to pay mor’n a half dollar to mail him somethin’ when I’m gon’ see him myself?”
Evelyn nearly slammed on the brakes, right there on the highway. She stared at Granny B for a few seconds before focusing on the road that suddenly seemed longer and bumpier. She might as well; her grandmother wasn’t looking at her anyway. “Are you saying he doesn’t know we’re coming?”
“Isn’t this what you wonted me to do in the first place: drive all over creation, hand deliverin’ my bad news?”
“But you decided not to. And now . . .”
“Well, I ain’t got a later, do I? Last I heard, Jesus don’t run a post office. I ain’t takin’ this with me to heaven and ain’t no need of him bearin’ this alone when I’m gone.”
That had shut Evelyn up until they were standing, finally, on Milton’s stoop, while Aunt Nancy went to locate her husband, Granny B’s long-lost son who could’ve found his family home with his eyes closed. Then and there, Evelyn broached the question she’d never had the nerve to ask. “You’ve always acted like Milton is dead. Please tell me why.”
Granny B had kept her head and eyes forward, seemingly fixated on the red front door. Evelyn opened her mouth to repeat the question, but before she could, her grandmother responded softly.
“Not dead. Just buried.”
And then Uncle Milton had swung open that red door, and Granny B had scaled those five steps like she hadn’t nearly been doubled over ten miles before. Evelyn didn’t have the opportunity to help her; she wasn’t as spry these days with the weight of the baby she carried and toes that looked like Vienna sausages.
Evelyn had figured by “this,” Granny B had meant a figurative burden she wasn’t taking with her when she died, not the letters she’d helped her grandmother painstakingly prepare. Yet sitting there on his porch, watching Milton clutch those handwritten pages, Evelyn realized that her very literal Granny B had said exactly what she meant, as always.
——————
Beatrice could feel the weight of her granddaughter’s eyes—and of her silent accusations—as Evelyn made herself comfortable in the porch swing beside her, but she didn’t shift a hip or bat an eyelash. She waved off the frosty glass of tea Evelyn offered, her lips pressed to a flat line. She’d already had her say and given him the letters; nothing gratuitous was getting in or out her mouth, let alone a sip of iced tea. Somehow, Beatrice even managed to position her feet on the brick pavers in such a way they kept the rocker from creaking forward or back. She focused all her strength and attention on her youngest son, sitting across from her on his enclosed back porch.
Milton’s curly hair was nearly as gray as his mama’s, his eyes and mouth as lined, his gray eyes as steely. In contrast, his beard was still a rich brown, neatly trimming his fifty-two-year-old mahogany face. He held himself nearly as still, except for the middle and index fingers that played a cadence on his wife’s hand clutched between both of his.
Beatrice traced that face with invisible fingers, ravenous for this long look at her boy, a luxury she’d never allowed herself, not when she nursed him at her breast when he was a baby, or fifteen years ago, when the family had come together to bury Graham. In fact, that was the last time she’d seen him—specifically, his right ear, from her perch two rows behind him in the church pew. She had forced Ruby to drive her home before the burial and repast at Elisabeth’s home in Mount Laurel. While her children spoke to and visited Milton regularly, to say she rarely did would imply too often.
So, today, Beatrice set out to make the most of this hour with Milton, probably her last, in his home in Griffith. One hundred miles, yet a lifetime away, from Spring Hope.
——————
“Now you come.” Milton finally faced Beatrice, but only for a moment before he stared at the brick wall just behind his wife. “Now you have something to say. ‘Good-bye, Son,’” he paraphrased. A bitter hint crept into his voice. “But at least you finally gave me back something you took from me.” He nodded toward the letters Nancy cradled. “And it only took you forty-eight years to do it. ‘Good-bye, Son.’” He looked back to the fields behind his house.
“Uncle Milton, that’s not all she said, good-bye—”
“But isn’t it?” Milton massaged the thinning patch on his crown. He snatched the letter from Nancy and read:
“It’s been a while since we spoke last. I remember it was on a Sunday when you called, and you and Nancy had just come from church. We only talked a few minutes, but in my mind it was long enough. Looking back, it seemed like you might have had something more to say, but I didn’t give you much room to say it, did I? I kinda wish I had taken a few extra minutes to let you speak your piece, but that’s neither here nor there.”
“You ‘kinda wish’? Just kinda? After what I’ve gone through my whole life . . . !”
Nancy scooted closer to him. “Mil—”
But he ignored her and picked up the letter.
“Today, I’m the one who needs the speaking room, and I hope you can see around it to give it to me.
Milton, when you wanted to go left, I was saying go right, and you know it’s my way or no way. That’s how I was raised and that’s how I raised y’all. Funny thing, I left my home just for that reason, but y’all never went nowhere farther than those woods. And goodness knows you had cause. Fact of the matter is, sometimes I remember wishing that you would run off somewhere or that I could. I suppose y’all did run eventually, and you haven’t looked back, have you, Milton?
Me? Since I heard I ain’t got but a short time to play in these woods, I’ve been doing lots of looking back and a bit of looking forward, too. When I do, I see this little boy looking up at me, hoping to get some answers. I see a young man who barely looks me in the eyes when he speaks to me. You might mumble, ‘Yes’m’ and ‘No’m’ on Monday and that’s all I’ll hear till the next. When I think back, I know it ain’t like the rest of them talked much, but even their quiet weren’t like yours. Your quiet said a lot. Always has.
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