Knee-Deep in Wonder

by April Reynolds

  Morning had said this all before, but it was the burn in her eye that told Chess to say something easy and soothe her. “You want to hear my sorry, well, here it go: sorry. But Morning, ain’t gone beg. That ain’t my nature.”

  “Did I ask you to beg?” With a stiff gait, Morning sat on the mattress with a crush and a whoosh, took his hands, and started to clip his fingernails. “Sometime you treat me like sunshine, but then you go off and rain on me. You know what? I’m getting sick. If leaving you gone shake this cold, that’s what I’m gone do.”

  “Well, I see what you saying. You done finish with my nails?”

  “Chess!”

  “I said I see what you saying. I’m gone try to keep my hands off you as long as you keep your hands off Blue.” Chess smiled, pulling Morning into bed with him.

  They lay there, the clipped nails on the floor, and Chess asked about the weather and would she like to go fishing with him. “Someone said in Bo Web’s that they were in for rain tomorrow,” she said.

  “What you doing at Bo Web’s?”

  “Like everybody else, dancing, drinking,” Morning replied.

  “Why didn’t you go to Liberty’s?”

  Morning thought. Cause I can’t stand up to your dead wife, she wanted to say. Because Halle up and died of cancer and got your tears, and I take care of your kids all by myself for three months and get knocked down for it. Because if I lie down in the dirt no one would see me, and Halle passed for white when she felt like it. Because I’m big and Halle was thin as a string. Because every time you had a fight with Halle she ran down to her mama’s and you ran to get her, and when I run off you wait till I come back. Because everyone at Liberty’s café knows that.

  “Just needed to see some new folks and different food,” is what she said.

  “Tomorrow’s Sunday. We can go to Bo Web’s for fish.”

  “Not the long way.”

  “Ah, Morning.”

  “I ain’t walking from here clean round the other side of Erling.”

  “All right. All right. We’ll go the short way.”

  “Cross the footbridge.”

  “All right, I said.”

  “Bo Web’s wife got pork chops? Fish make me swell up, you know that.”

  She curled her hand beneath her chin. Feeling drowsy but wanting to talk, she mumbled about her family. Morning was tired and Chess yawned in response. They continued to talk, their voices low and secret, yielding to soft nods and smiles. Sleep came on them without warning, so quick they didn’t have time to say good night.

  * * *

  In the middle of the night, Arthur dreamed. He was pulling a small red wagon, and in the back a little girl rode. His legs, fast in his dream, glided across grass as if the girl weighed nothing. The wind pushed on Arthur’s hat and played with his jacket, making wings at his sides. Quickly he ran, blurring the sky.

  But then the little girl grew heavy, slowing the wagon down. Arthur turned around, asking her to get out and race beside him. The wagon had become too hard to pull. He was shocked by what he saw. The girl’s hair turned red, growing longer as he watched. Seeing Arthur’s puzzled face, she began to laugh. Open-mouthed, tongue showing, she laughed aloud. Laughter shook her body and threatened to overwhelm her, but she went on, its sound turning dirty, secret. Still her hair grew. Red bounty filled the wagon. The hair grabbed Arthur by the wrist, pulling him down into her red sea, swallowing him in its folds.

  Arthur’s scream ripped the air.

  “What is it? What is it?” Betty said, shaking with fear. All the children woke up, blinking at Arthur.

  “What’s going on in here?” Morning came in, still in her clothes.

  “Something wrong with Arthur,” said Rose.

  “I don’t feel good, I think I hurt myself,” Arthur said, lightly touching his swollen wrist.

  “Now how you hurt yourself like that in your sleep?” Morning asked.

  “Maybe he hit it on the floor,” Betty said.

  “No, I didn’t, it was some hair,” said Arthur, looking at Morning.

  “Y’all gone to bed. Arthur, can you sleep with your wrist like it is?” Morning asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, lie back down. I’ll look at it when the light gets here.” She returned to Chess’s bedroom. “Baby, Arthur all right, hurt his hand on the floor, I think,” Morning said. She heard his deep breathing; Chess had not stirred.

  On the path to Bo Web’s the next day, the sky was free of clouds, and still yesterday’s conversation with Liberty scared him. A woman bigger than her front door, she could take down the sun if the notion hit her, but she had looked helpless yesterday.

  Had he been looking ahead he would have seen Cookie twisting around the trees. A churchgoer, she was one of Liberty’s regulars, a woman with a taste for gossip. Chess didn’t notice Cookie in the path and bumped into her.

  “Where y’all heading to?” Cookie asked, heaving while she spoke. She bent down to pick up the sack Chess knocked out of her hands.

  “Bo Web’s,” Chess said. “What you doing out in the woods?”

  “Figured out a shortcut to Mable’s. She said she gone take me to church in Canfield. Got a car her Downtown man let her borrow. So I got to get on the good foot if I’m going. Say, you seen Five since you been back?” Cookie tried to keep her breathing casual. “Folks around saying Five talking about you like you ain’t nothing. They say Five was talking about how he should of known better than get involved with you. Talking about how you got caught cause you old and you got that leg. Ain’t saying it’s true, but that’s what I heard.”

  “That’s what he say, huh?”

  “Yeah, that’s what he say.” Cookie turned to leave. “Hi, Morning, didn’t see you. I see y’all later.” They said goodbye to her back and walked on.

  “We ain’t at Bo Web’s yet? I don’t remember it being this far,” Morning grumbled.

  “We gone be there soon.”

  “Hand me them house shoes I told you to bring.” Morning began to frown. “Don’t tell me you didn’t bring them.” Chess said nothing. “And I guess you didn’t bring that newspaper I got from Kansas City either.”

  “Naw, I didn’t bring neither of them.”

  “See, Chess, you ain’t right. I wanted the paper and now I ain’t got nothing to do.”

  “What you read the paper for anyway? I tell you what’s going on.”

  “What you know? You can’t even read. You don’t even—”

  “Morning, I ain’t asked you to Bo Web’s just for a fight. You that mad about a paper?”

  “Yeah, I’m that mad about it.”

  “Well, gone home. I don’t need that kind of mess. Every time I think of something decent for us to do, you go and act a fool. I’m sick of fooling with you. Gone. Gone home, you hear?”

  Morning turned on her heel, smacking a couple of trees as she passed them, and wished a couple would fall on Chess and knock him down. She knew come hell or high rain, Chess wouldn’t follow her, not even if it meant her life.

  Chess watched her leave, shaking his head and wondering whether or not to go after her. If she fool enough to keep on walking, let her walk, he thought. With that, Chess continued falling over hidden stumps, breaking the branches that slapped him in the face, cursing to himself why he was foolish enough to get involved with someone who didn’t have enough sense to keep his children at home when he was in prison. “I swear that girl ain’t nothing but hassle,” he muttered. Now the pinching of his own shoes made him forget about Morning. Those shoes hurt like hell, but they were the most handsome things Chess owned.

  He remembered buying them. He felt the pride swelling as he stepped into Mr. Frank’s and pointed at the shining patent-leather wing-tipped Stacey Adamses in the window. Chess just smiled when Mr. Frank said he would have to buy them as is. Chess was figuring that as much as he had been dreaming about them, he would have no problem fitting them. They were two sizes too small.

  * * *<
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  Half a mile later, Morning realized she had lost her way. Around the trees, pushing back branches, and stepping over fallen logs, Morning thought that if this wasn’t the place she had been, it certainly looked like it. Maybe I should turn back and try to find him, she wondered. Maybe I should tell him I don’t mind going along, cause it’s better than not knowing the way.

  * * *

  Sounds of watery rustling and the crunching of his pretty shoes interrupted Chess’s memories. Had Chess looked down, he would have turned back or at least taken off his shoes, which were being scratched by hidden branches that curved up, away from the ground, and tried to trap his feet. But he thought of Liberty and the rain she had spoken of and decided that if he just kept moving forward, the rain would stay where it was supposed to be.

  * * *

  Morning kept walking. She remembered how the children wouldn’t eat the food she made after their mother had died. How she tried to wipe their asses and they slapped her hands. If she found Chess, she would tell him that he and them kids don’t treat her right and she was tired.

  * * *

  There was an urgency racing in Chess’s blood, and though he wished to slow down he couldn’t. He imagined the laughter that Cookie would share with everyone at church.

  * * *

  Morning was lost and in her confusion she made a semicircle around Chess. Angry steps pushed aside the debris. I been licking my lips thinking about that paper. See, he want me small and in his hands, she thought. Lord, find me.

  * * *

  Chess heard footsteps and tried to replay the sound. Through the forest he was sure he saw someone. The sun glared and Chess was blinded, but he swore he could make out teeth dancing among the leaves. I bet that’s Five, he decided as he ran. So he thrashed the trees. What would it be, to leap over the trees.

  * * *

  I’m tired of his hitting me and him thinking everything fine. She went quiet as she heard muffled sounds approaching. If that ain’t Chess I don’t know who is, she mumbled. But then she ran, with swiftness, her hair blooming behind her into a black flower. When he catch me, we gone tumble. I’ll look up at him and laugh and say I ain’t got to be Halle and almost white, do I, do I?

  * * *

  That got to be Five, else I’m running like a fool for nothing. I running like one of them children of mine, Chess thought. As if he had summoned them, his children appeared before him. They laughed, the sort of children’s laughter that comes from nowhere. Only children can do that, pull laughter out of the air. But Chess’s children swallowed their laughter when he entered the room. One day, he would catch them, empty-handed, with laughter stuffed in their mouths.

  * * *

  Morning shook the bark with the sound of her laughter. And when he catch me, she thought, I’ll ask him how he know it was me and he’ll say, Cause you my Morning; then I’ll tell him that the only reason I was with Blue is that Blue kept after me. Every time I run, Blue run after me; but now you run too, so all that over; see, Chess? All that’s gone.

  * * *

  Morning’s hands flew behind her and Chess’s hands reached forward, so they seemed to be tied together with an invisible string. Leaves whispered in their wake; they rushed by the trees, because nothing could stand in the way of children at serious play. But then, closing in on her, Chess screamed, “Five, I’m gone get you, you dirty son of a bitch!” And if Morning had run before, then she flew. Misnamed and now blinded with tears, she prayed to the woods to lose her again.

  * * *

  He stopped suddenly, trying to give his heart a break, but his heart wasn’t listening to his mind at all. Scared, Chess looked around him; it seemed as if he wasn’t moving, but his feet flew over the grass. Five was gone. Then he came upon the lake and as soon as his shoe hit the water, he knew Five and his racing heart had both tricked him. By the time his head had caught up with his feet, he was already there, in the water.

  He saw a boy flapping and fighting for breath. Small, thin. Chess waded toward him, hot fear coursing down his back as he stepped in the shallow end of Erling Lake. Ain’t no pair of lips this time. No flood either. He just a little bit out there; all I got to do is grab him and haul him out. Cold water lapped against the cuffs of Chess’s pants, and as he walked deeper, it inched up his calves to the knees. Maybe this the rain Liberty done told me about, Chess thought, and though it was mean, he turned away, about to leave the lake. “Help! Please!” Chess heard the need in the boy’s voice; he hadn’t heard longing like that since his late wife, the way she had turned the word please into sweet beckoning.

  He had loved Halle’s sound. Not her voice exactly, but the noises that accompanied her movements. The way her zipper hissed going down or the way Halle’s breath came out in a whispery rush when she bent over to buckle her shoes. If he kept really quiet, he could hear the sound of her breasts pressing against her knees when she bowed low to roll her stockings over her toes. Chess could even hear Halle’s knees object when she finally sat upright, finished with her task. Chess loved the way her legs, entrapped in stockings, swished when they crossed over during church. At home he would hit her so he could hear the thud of her falling to the floor. She never fell alone; Chess would follow her to the ground, pressing his ear close to her mouth, listening to hoarse breathing, smiling, loving the sound of it.

  Chess returned to the boy, jumping into the water fully. He hadn’t expected the rush of cold water, and for a moment he was stunned. The lake closed over his head while he grabbed the boy’s foot, then tried to climb on top of him to reach the sweetest air in Lafayette County, the kind that lay right on top of the water.

  His legs sawed back and forth, trying to lift him above the lake, but their movements had the reverse effect. The more they sawed, the more they pulled him under, entangling him in the long grass that grew on the bottom. Almost out, he thought; he could feel it, the sun bright and hot above him.

  Chess took a deep breath, thinking he had reached the surface, praying he was on top of the water instead of under it, because he just couldn’t hold out any longer. He didn’t feel the water enter his lungs, disguised as air. His body was twitching uncontrollably but his mind was calm. The last thing he saw before his eyes closed was his dead wife looking just as good as she did ten years ago. Just wait till I tell Liberty I kissed Halle good-bye.

  * * *

  The dishes were almost done when Liberty’s knees buckled. She fell down quick, a tight yank to the floor. Her flower-print dress hitched up to her thighs and her legs jerked as if they were trying to walk on air. Struggling for breath, she gasped her daughter’s name.

  Queen Ester came running. “What is it, Mama, what’s wrong?”

  Liberty growled softly, her mouth opened and closed, trying to breathe.

  “Mama, I can’t understand you, what’s wrong?” Queen Ester yelled in her ear. Liberty stopped moving, and Queen Ester lifted her hand, about to strike her mother back to life.

  “Run to Erling Lake.” Liberty’s voice was clear and tranquil.

  “What you talking bout?”

  “Chess done drown hisself and something innocent too.”

  9

  IN A THATCHED-BOTTOM chair, her legs crossed at the ankles, Helene watched Queen Ester resume a story that would not cease until she did. “You know Chess was with us off and on for twenty years? When I think on it, don’t look like it could be that long, but it was. Twenty-two years. Not straight through—sometimes he take off. Be gone for a week or a year, sometimes three years at a spell. Wouldn’t tell nobody where he run off to. Never even pack a bag. Sometimes it take a couple–three days to find out he left. After a while Mama don’t even look for him. She could just tell by the way the sheet crumpled in the bed that he gone. Twenty-some years, baby. That’s almost as old as you.” She paused, tucking her head down and blowing air into her housedress.

  Helene wasn’t quite prepared to hear that Chess had been in her mother’s house almost a lifetime. She’d thought
he’d flickered in and out quickly, maybe two years at the most. No one needed that much time to stir the sort of devilment that her mother claimed Chess had.

  “Mama, I’m hungry.” As she spoke her stomach rumbled.

  “Sound like it. Well, if we gone have dinner, we got to get those dishes done.”

  Helene stood up, her feet tingling from the movement, and walked around the wooden table to the sink, where the floor had been worn to a shallow depression from the sturdy feet that stood there. It was a double sink, both tubs large enough to wash a child, the white porcelain worn thin, black steel peeking through at places.

  “What you got a mind to eat?”

  “Oh, anything you have, Mama,” Helene said, taking the dishes out of the sink to make room for clean soapy water.

  “Well, we got eggs and bacon and bread.”

  Helene looked at her watch. “Mama, it’s six o’clock.” All this time has passed, Helene thought. We’ve spent almost the entire day saying what could have been said in two hours. Maybe if I’d asked Mama for breakfast at the beginning, we would already be at Uncle Ed’s house, Mama soaking her feet in warm water and Epsom salt, complaining about the air-conditioning in my car and saying she had brought the wrong pair of shoes.

  “Well, Cookie brought by pork chops and greens, couple days back. Them pork chops in the freezer, but I’m guessing it wouldn’t take too long to thaw them out.” Her voice was echoed by the opening of blue-painted cabinet drawers. “I haven’t had someone over to eat in so long, I’m surprised these pans haven’t rusted away.”

  “Mama, don’t worry, I can’t tell you the last time I used a pot.” Queen Ester placed two saucepans, a glass dish, a plate, cups, knives, spoons, and forks to her left. Helene turned on the faucet, filling the sink with hot water and liquid soap.

  “Ain’t you got no man?”

  Helene thought she had not heard her mother right, over the haste and hurry of the water from the faucet. She sucked some air between her teeth and held it before she answered—not because she was embarrassed that she didn’t have a husband or someone to call to, when she was home alone, but because Queen Ester sounded like a mother. “No, Mama, I don’t.”