by Irene Latham
“Don’t matter, Lu. Don’t know if she’s a witch or cursed or what have you, but one sure thing, that girl’s got some awful bad luck. Death follows her around like a half-starved dog.” Daddy stood up and put his hands on his hips. “Look at your mama, Lu.”
I cut my eye in Mama’s direction, but I couldn’t look. It was enough just to hear her struggling to breathe.
Daddy shook his head. “Don’t need none of that up in here. Just don’t need it.”
I wanted to slink through the floorboards like an old rat snake. Just slither out and never come back. Part of me wanted to say I’m sorry over and over, to beg him to forgive me, but the other part of me wanted to scream, Daddy, you wasn’t here! I’m only ten years old—how on earth was I supposed to know what to do?
But then the weight of Daddy’s words settled in.
Death. Daddy was worried about death.
I looked over at Mama and saw her this time, really saw her. How small she looked. How her chest heaved.
What if I was wrong about everything? What if by letting Etta Mae into the cabin, I had let in death?
The baby whimpered and squirmed till one of her arms got free of the quilt Mrs. Irvin had swaddled her in.
Before Daddy or Ruben had a chance to even move, I jumped up and pulled her into my arms. She was as warm and alive as any creature could be. “Shhh, Rose,” I said, pulling her to my chest. I swayed her in my arms just the way I’d seen Mrs. Irvin do. “Hush now, Rose.”
“Rose, huh?” Daddy said, his face softening. He got up from the table and with his big fingers pulled the blanket away from the baby’s face. “Ain’t she something?” He stared at her so long my arms was starting to ache. “Rose,” he said. “Sweet little Rose. Wait till your mama gets a good look at you! She’ll be so busy just looking at you, the rest of us will have to pick up the slack.”
He ran his finger over Rose’s tiny lips, then looked over at me and Ruben when Rose began to pucker up. His eyes was wet and shiny. “Best thing we can do is get this baby fed, then try to get some sleep. Your mama’s gonna need us to be extra strong for her and little Rose.”
“Yessir,” Ruben and me said at the very same time. We laughed together, and I imagined someday Rose would laugh with us too. In just one day, our family had grown from two children to three. It was sure gonna take some getting used to.
Soon as it was dark, Daddy lit the lamp and set it beside Mama’s bed. “Best get some rest.” Daddy looked from Mama to Rose, then back at me. “Lu, you keep the baby with you, and me and Ruben will take turns watching over Mama.”
I got to look after the baby? This day sure was full of surprises, because I ain’t never done nothing like that before. Not even when there was a new calf. Mama always said things like that was Ruben’s job. So I real quick snuggled Rose close to me and sat with her on the little pallet at the foot of Mama’s bed. Rose just lay there sleeping, quiet and peaceful.
In the lamplight I could see the lump of mama’s apron still in a pile on the floor. First thing tomorrow morning I’d get it washed and hung on the line so it would be ready for Mama when she got all better.
I thought about the quilt I was making for Mama. I pictured my needle going in and out of a piece of that calico, with its reds and browns and greens. All I needed was just a small piece to tell this part of my story. Wouldn’t take nothing more than the tail of the sash to get four good strips of cloth. I could stitch ’em in right along the edge of the quilt—one for me, one for Etta Mae, one for Mama and one for Rose. Wouldn’t be no trouble at all and Mama wouldn’t mind none soon as I showed her the quilt.
My eyelids began to get heavy, so I let them close. My breathing got slow and regular, and I could tell I was almost asleep.
I jerked when Mama started up coughing again. The sound was hard and hollow. The cough came on strong and steady for a while, then it stopped. But it always came back, jolting me from sleep. Between that awful cough and Rose’s sudden cries, not a one of us slept good that night. We was too busy worrying.
As dawn peeked through the cracks in the cabin walls, Daddy and me and Ruben gathered around Mama. Her eyes was glued shut with some sticky mess and her skin was burning with fever. The quilt was soaked from Mama’s sweat, and the cough had turned weak and dry. She looked so old and worn lying there, not like my mama at all.
“Lu,” Daddy said finally, his voice thick, “go check to see if Mama’s got some corn or something stored up in the barn. And, Ruben, run on over and fetch Aunt Doshie.” He didn’t even look up when he said it, just kept looking at Mama and stroking her hand.
As we stepped away from the bed, Daddy leaned in even closer to Mama. “You got to get better, you hear?” Daddy’s voice cracked at the end, so I knew he was hiding tears. He let go of Mama’s hands and ran his fingers over his stubbly chin. Then he sighed another one of them sighs that seemed to go on forever.
Wait and See
WHEN I GOT TO THE WOODPILE, I COULD SEE Delilah was waiting for me, same as always. She brayed soon as she saw me.
“Morning, Delilah,” I said when I got to her. I scratched around her ears and she nuzzled my chest. Must be nice to be a mule, with no more to worry about than when the food was coming. I dumped grain into her bucket, then swung open the heavy barn door and breathed in real deep. I could feel my shoulders let loose and my chest open up. I’d always liked the smell of old hay and fresh manure.
I walked over to the far corner of the barn where Mama stored the vegetables. Wasn’t nothing in the corn bin, so I pulled open the potato bin. Way in the back was two puny sweet potatoes. They wasn’t much bigger than my hands, but they was still firm. Just right for boiling and mashing.
I reckon Mama had been saving them potatoes to pay Teacher on the first day of school. With the cotton harvest almost all done, school would be starting early as next week.
I sighed as I put ’em in my pocket. Now there wouldn’t be nothing to give Teacher for coming all the way from Camden.
Then again, could be Mama had something else stored up that nobody knew about. Something else that would be just right for Teacher. Like last Thanksgiving when the food was all set out and we was just about to say the blessing and Mama said, “Wait. Everybody close your eyes.” When we opened ’em, there was a fat, ripe tomato sitting in Mama’s hand! Like it was August instead of November.
She’d wrapped that tomato in newspaper and buried it in the dirt behind the barn. Not a one of us knew about it till she held it out, then sliced it up and put it on the table. Didn’t matter that it was soft and a little mealy. It was a fresh tomato when everything else had long since been blanched and preserved, then stored in jars on a shelf in the barn.
Soon as I got the barn door closed up and the latch in place, I settled onto the ground and pulled out my needle and thread. The sooner I got my quilt top stitched, the sooner I could set it in a frame and finish it for Mama.
I put in three rows of stitches before I saw Aunt Doshie walking down the footpath from her cabin to ours, her small body tucked up against Ruben’s side. Don’t know why everybody called her “aunt.” She wasn’t no taller than me, and far as I knew, she didn’t belong to nobody. She took short steps and leaned on the cane as she walked, her long gray hair swinging in a braid behind her.
Ruben nodded his head when he saw me looking. I nodded real quick, then held my stitching up close to my face so Aunt Doshie wouldn’t see me looking.
Wasn’t no telling the things Aunt Doshie had been saying to him during the mile walk over. Seemed like she had something to say about everybody that lived in Gee’s Bend. Which is why it didn’t matter much that we didn’t get no newspaper in Gee’s Bend. Not with Aunt Doshie around to spread the word.
Soon as they passed me, I tucked away my needle and followed behind. I wanted to be there to hear what Aunt Doshie had to say about Mama.
Please, Aunt Doshie, I silently begged. Do something to make Mama’s coughing and shaking go away. Whatever it tak
es. Make Mama well and I promise I’ll wear my eye patch every day, just the way Mama wants me to.
Next thing I knew, Ruben was stumbling and Aunt Doshie was standing stock-still. Then she turned herself around and stared at me hard.
Had she heard my mind talking?
The eyelid under my eye patch started to twitch. Wasn’t natural, her looking at me like that. It made me want to run into the woods and hide out by the swamp.
She knew. Aunt Doshie took one look at me and she knew without anybody even saying it that it was all because of me. I was the one responsible for Mama being sick. Because I was the one that let Etta Mae in.
Dear Lord, what was she gonna say about Mama?
As Daddy introduced Aunt Doshie to baby Rose, I took the potatoes from my dress pocket and placed ’em on the table. Then I picked Mama’s apron from off the floor so I could get it washed up.
“Baby looks good and healthy,” Aunt Doshie said as Daddy squeezed milk from a washcloth into Rose’s mouth. “Now let’s take a look at her mama.”
As Aunt Doshie pulled back the quilt, Mama groaned and shifted in the bed. “Easy now, easy now,” Aunt Doshie said, like she was talking to a fidgety milk cow.
Mama had sweat so much you could see right through her clothes. I wanted to cover her right back up again because I knew Mama wouldn’t like folks seeing her like that. But Aunt Doshie was in charge now.
Aunt Doshie felt Mama’s head and ran her fingers along her neck and behind her ears. She bent close to look in Mama’s eyes, but some of the lashes was stuck together with yellow crust. When she got to Mama’s mouth, she ran her finger across the dry cracked lips. Then she turned to Daddy. “Has she been coughing blood?”
Blood? I could feel my face get warm as Daddy answered.
“I seen some this morning,” Daddy said, swallowing hard. “But none before that. It’s just been yellow spit till now.”
It wasn’t true. I’d wiped blood from Mama’s mouth yesterday, way back when Rose was first born. But I couldn’t say it.
“Hmmm.” Aunt Doshie creased her brow, then leaned over and put her ear on Mama’s chest. “Looks to be the same as what Allie Bendolph was suffering with before she passed.” The room fell silent as Daddy and Aunt Doshie looked hard at one another.
Was Aunt Doshie saying that Mama was gonna die? Just like old Mrs. Bendolph did? It felt like my throat was closing up. Like any second I wasn’t gonna be able to breathe.
Aunt Doshie shook her head and drew her mouth into a thin line. “I’m sorry, Mr. Bennett.” She folded her arms across her chest and stepped away from Mama. “But it don’t look good.”
“It’s influenza, then?” Ruben said, his voice small and quiet.
Aunt Doshie leaned against her cane. “Looks like it. And with her chest rattling the way it is, and the fever hanging on so long . . . reckon she’s got herself a touch of pneumonia too.”
Daddy covered his ear and fixed his eyes on Rose. He didn’t say a word, not one. So the rest of us didn’t neither. It was like the news was so awful he had to block it out of his mind. Like if he didn’t hear Aunt Doshie say it, then it couldn’t be true.
But I had heard Aunt Doshie loud and clear. Influenza. Pneumonia. Them words was bigger than I was. And folks right here in Gee’s Bend had died because of them words. Wasn’t no more than two weeks ago that we’d sat through Mrs. Bendolph’s funeral. One Sunday she was in church, the next she was dead.
It couldn’t be right what Aunt Doshie was saying. Wasn’t nothing new, folks dying. But not my mama.
“Aren’t you gonna help her, Aunt Doshie?” I said. “Aren’t you gonna do something?”
“Ain’t nothing to be done here. Except wait and see.”
“What do you mean?” I said. There had to be something Aunt Doshie could do. “Don’t you have some potions or something?” I looked from her to Daddy. “You have to do something. Aunt Doshie, Mama would want you to at least try!”
Aunt Doshie narrowed her eyes and pointed her finger at me. “Now don’t you sass me. Not after what you done.”
It was like she had taken a switch to me. What if it really was my fault?
From the pallet, Mama started coughing. Small coughs at first, but they grew into coughs so big they pulled her head right off the pillow.
Aunt Doshie put her hand on Daddy’s shoulder. “You got to keep everything clean. Don’t want to be passing this to nobody else.” She smoothed Rose’s hair with her fingers. “And give her as much water as she’ll take. Dribble it in her mouth same way you done with the baby.”
She looked over at Ruben, who was staring into the fire. “Ruben, you boil up some water and pour it in a bowl. Then set that bowl on your mama’s chest.” Aunt Doshie pointed to the spot right below Mama’s chin. “Right here. But be careful so you don’t burn her, you hear? Then cover her head and the bowl with a quilt. Like a little tent. The steam will loosen up her chest so her breath can come easier.”
Aunt Doshie turned back to Mama and used the corner of the quilt to wipe her mouth. “And watch for more blood. If she starts coughing a stream of blood, you’ll know it’s in the Lord’s hands. Ain’t nothing left to do then but pray.”
It felt like there was a bag of fertilizer on my chest. I was the only one that knew just how long Mama had been coughing blood. Even though it wasn’t no stream of blood the way Aunt Doshie was saying.
“Daddy?” I said, my voice quivering as tears slid down my throat. I wanted him to wrap his big arms around me. I wanted him to tell me everything was gonna be okay. That it wasn’t as serious as Aunt Doshie was making it out to be.
But Daddy wouldn’t look at me. He just shook his head and stared at the floor.
The cabin began to spin around me till nobody was left but me. The room was silent and spinning, and I was alone in a place I ain’t never been before. If I didn’t get out of that room I was gonna bust right open like a watermelon that’s gone too ripe.
“Got to go do the washing,” I said. Never mind that Mama had done all the washing the day before. There was still the apron and quilts to tend to.
Was it only yesterday that Rose was born? Seemed like weeks had passed.
I made my way toward the barn where Delilah stood in her spot next to the feed bucket, her eyes half closed. Dust mingled with the flies that was swarming around her hooves. Even in the cooler weather, them flies wouldn’t let her be.
While Delilah stomped and swished her tail, I leaned my head against the place on her shoulders where the hair was thin from being hooked to the plow. “What are we gonna do, Delilah?” I pressed my nose into her hair. She smelled just the way fishing worms do when you first pull ’em out of the ground. I breathed in deep and felt in my pocket for my needle and scrap of cloth.
“I tell you what you gonna do.” I lifted my head and peeked over Delilah’s back.
Etta Mae!
I let my breath out real slow. Etta Mae didn’t know how bad things had gotten. “Aunt Doshie says ain’t nothing we can do now except wait.”
“That’s what you think you should do, Ludelphia? Wait?” Etta Mae gave a little snort.
“You got any better ideas? Something like taking a knife out of the wall and shoving up under somebody ‘to cut the pain’?” I threw my shoulders back. “If you hadn’t come back, I wouldn’t have had to go against my mama and let a witch into my house.”
I took a step forward. Then another. What if that knife was some kind of curse? Who ever heard of such a thing, anyhow? If not for Etta Mae, Mama might not even be sick. “And now you gonna tell me what I need to do?”
She flinched. “That’s right, Ludelphia. You got to go get your mama a real doctor. Like they should have done when that piece of hickory landed in your eye.”
I rocked back on my heels. What was Etta Mae talking about? I gave my head a little shake, trying to clear it. “This ain’t about my eye, Etta Mae. It’s about you. And it’s about Mama.” I put my hands on my hips, and we was both qui
et for a second as my mind tried to catch up.
“Besides,” I said, “ain’t no real doctors in Gee’s Bend. You know that.”
Delilah nudged my elbow with her nose. She could always tell when I was upset.
“But they got one in Camden. Name’s Doc Nelson. Got himself an office right on Broad Street.”
“Camden?” I gave Delilah another pat, then felt for my eye patch. It was right where it was supposed to be. “Etta Mae, ain’t no way Mama’s gonna let me go to Camden.” Beneath my fingers, Delilah’s skin twitched.
“I don’t reckon she can stop you.”
The blood rushed to my head all at once, and things got real clear. Etta Mae didn’t have a thing in the world to worry about. She was nearly grown, and she’d been to Mobile and back. She had a yellow dress, and her mama was good and healthy. And she was telling me I should go to Camden?
Tears sprung up in my good eye, so I swiped ’em away. I almost reached for Etta Mae’s neck. I wanted to choke her! That way she couldn’t say one more word about my mama.
But no matter how much I’d grown, my hands was too small for her neck. So I did the next best thing. I made fists and I beat against that yellow dress till my arms got tired. Etta Mae stood there solid as a stump against my blows.
Tears streamed down my face, and I started to hiccup. I let my arms hang down. Just rested my head on Etta Mae’s chest and sobbed. After a minute she put her hand on my head and stroked my braids. Same way Mama always did.
“You done now?” she said.
Nodding, I took a step back and wiped my nose on my sleeve. “Why don’t you just tell me the truth, Etta Mae. Is you a witch or ain’t you?”
The glow faded, and Etta Mae’s eyes got even darker than they usually was. “I wish I knew, Ludelphia. I wish I knew.”
The Storm
IT RAINED HARD THAT NIGHT, FOR THE FIRST TIME IN weeks. Rain dripped through the cracks in the roof, then dripped onto the chickens that was roosting under the floorboards. For a while it rained so hard there wasn’t no point even trying to talk over the racket it made. Wasn’t no way to keep dry neither.