Knee-Deep in Wonder

by April Reynolds

  The only time Queen Ester had thought to fix the disarray was when she remembered Liberty’s sickness and the filth that had taken hold in every room as Liberty had grown weaker. She always believed that illness hadn’t taken her mother. Liberty had the power to say things and make them come into existence, the way God said Let there be Light and it was so; Liberty had decided to get sick, said “Let Me take Ill,” laid down in her bed, and died.

  Queen Ester dipped her fingers into the glasses filled with honey-sweetened water, adjusted the chairs and tables. Stooping, she grabbed the leg of the sewing machine and lifted it, finding the carpet underneath bright and shiny, unworn from exposure. She loved that spot, the place where time had no meaning. Reverently, she fingered the carpet.

  Staggering to her feet, she approached the countertop, her hands outstretched as if even now she held the wood between her fingers and thumb. “Hello?” she said, nervous because she couldn’t smell the softly sweet odor she was sure had been there, with the dead bodies. “Helene done shook something loose, and now here I am stuck with it all, too old to make room,” Queen Ester said. She hadn’t scared Helene senseless, she thought; in her own way had urged Helene to stay the way you force a mule to plow a straight line with a heavy hand, since if you make the mistake of being nice, stroking its hind end, cooing in its ear, the mule will eventually kick you in the chest.

  She looked closely at the bottom edge of the counter, and where there should have been a leg there was nothing. Her eyes slammed against the blank wall behind the bar. Don’t fret, Queen Ester told herself. I pulled the bar just so, I think. No, that’s right. So maybe they is still behind there and I just don’t see. But even if I pulled it—and I ain’t saying I’m wrong—I should see them from right where I’m standing. Even from here I should be able to see something. Sweat spread across Queen Ester’s chest, washing over her sunken breasts and dampening her housecoat.

  “If they ain’t here, where is they? Helene ain’t carried nothing out with her.” She held on to the counter. “Well, move in close so you can see if they is where you left them at.” At last, she leaned her head over its edge to see the other side. They were gone. Even the depression where they had sat had vanished. Queen Ester shuddered. She believed what she had told Helene—“What being dead got to do with anything?”—but she knew they could not have gone anywhere without her.

  Turning quickly, she fell, scraping her legs. On her hands and knees, Queen Ester tried to close her jaw, but the muscle beneath her chin was slack. Gripping the side of the bar, she pulled herself to her feet, her thoughts still clear, methodical. “Well, just where could they be at? Mama’s room? Mine? Kitchen? Living room? What’s that sliding? You hear that?”

  She saw her left foot was limp and twisted as she dragged it toward the door. “That me?” She locked the door behind her. “All this time, I ain’t never done up Chess’s door. Well, ain’t I a day late and a dollar short? Where to first, upstairs or down?” At the head of the stairs, she felt a draft, soft and insistent. “If that ain’t wind, I ain’t me,” Queen Ester said, towing her foot behind her. “Here I am looking a mess with the front door wide open.”

  She took a first step, tripping again, and reached for the hallway carpet to steady herself. From where she leaned, she saw the walls curve and then Liberty’s door curl itself into a bow before her eyes. The bow looped itself into hands, feet, legs, black men, some of whom were equipped with unflagging strength and could triumph over rivers and railroads. A woman paced back and forth on a dirt-packed floor, clutching at a handbag crammed with camisoles and undershirts, desperation and desire. Shaking hands wrapped themselves around a Colt revolver and blew a hole in a chest, big enough for a fist to fit through. The draft blew harder and the door creaked. “Sweet Jesus,” Queen Ester gasped, stretching with both hands to touch the wooden doorframe, wheezing. “Sweet Jesus.”

  18

  THEY CRASHED TOGETHER in the dark toward Queen Ester’s house. Her hand inside the crook of his arm, Helene squinted to see Other push back an overgrown branch as if he were pulling out a chair for her. All the while she kept up a chant of words. “At first, I didn’t know why I came. I mean I knew I wanted Mama, just to look at her and not be pulled away by someone. But it wasn’t just that. I could have driven down here and sat inside my car and stared at Mama to my heart’s content. But I wanted to know what was going on down here, why everyone seemed to stand in our way.” She panted while they tramped on. “You know, when I saw Mama today she seemed happy to see me? She said hello as if she meant it and then we sat down and I didn’t have to tug at her for a thing. She just spilled out her life, although she lied about my daddy. Whoever he is, he’s dead. That’s what I want to tell her now. Whoever he is, Duck or Chess, he’s dead. Aunt Annie b’s dead and Grandma too. Everybody’s dying on me and I can’t do a thing about it.”

  She stopped. “You hear that? I did it again. I sound like Mama. I sound southern,” Helene said. They were running now, stepping lightly over underbrush and around branches that stuck out from trees like tables. “This morning—” She stopped again, amazed that it was only this morning when she had woken up with the scowl of sleep and the only weight she had carried was her curiosity. “This morning—” She tried to remember. Am I old or tired or crazy? she thought. Maybe all three, and that’s why I’m out here running in this country darkness to who knows where. “Other? Other, you still here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t,” she said, anger in her voice. They ran side by side, clutching on to each other. “Don’t do that. Say something else, okay?”

  “Sho nough.” Helene pulled hard at his shirt, dragging her feet till they stopped.

  “Don’t, Other. I need you to talk to me. You have to say no sometimes. I think sometimes people don’t know what they are until they say no to something or break something over their knee.”

  Because they were in the dark, Helene didn’t see Other’s face crack and fill with words, as it had when her mother barked at him—“You say it, you say it, you”—in the upstairs hallway. Helene didn’t know what she was asking for; her words were just there to chase away the loneliness of her voice out in the wilderness. Maybe, had Helene seen the rage that her mother had seen, maybe she too would have said, “No, boy, you forget that, cause I’m gone to.”

  “That’s what you plan on doing?” Other spoke suddenly. “Breaking your mama over your knee? Because you can, you the only one left that can do it. Break her right in half if you have a mind to.” His words, brimming with disapproval, split the night. “I know you. I was there in the yard with Chess, with that piece of candy hanging out of your mouth. I was there when Mable handed you over to Annie b. You want to come in your mama’s house and make her lay down. Shame on you, girl. She’s so weak she can’t hurt a soul even if she wanted to, and you want her to stir up an old ache, just so you can see for yourself. And why? Because you’re the daughter? You think you got a right to know? Queenie ain’t the only fool in your family. You a fool too. Fool to come down here and try to make your mama mind. Who are you to make an old woman lick at a hurt she’s been trying to forget some twenty-odd years? Who are you, Helene?”

  * * *

  “Hello? Hello?” Queen Ester said, tugging her limp leg behind her like luggage. Where had they gone? Well, they sho ain’t downstairs taking tea and laughing over biscuits, she thought. Two bodies couldn’t get very far without someone to help them along. Maybe Helene come back and I ain’t seen her.

  “Helene?” She turned, straining to hear any small scrap of sound. “Helene?” she called out again. A light thump echoed in the corner, the same dark nook where she had shaken Other, daring him to say what he had seen. “Helene? That you, girl?” She heard the sound a second time. “Helene, that’s you, ain’t it? You can’t be coming in here, messing with my house. What you do with them two? You hear me? Lord Jesus, you gave me a fright. Come on out of that corner.” Something thumped again. “All right, you
get on out of there. Making all that racket.”

  Helene stepped out of the bend in the hallway, arms outstretched, accusatory, the way she had been when she ran up to the one room Queen Ester had not let her see.

  “What’s in the room, Mama?” Her daughter’s voice shook the house. Queen Ester trembled. “You know what’s in the room. You done saw it yourself.”

  “What’s in the room, Mama?” Helene said again, and this time she moved. She stood inches away from Queen Ester, her manner wild, frenzied. “What’s in the room?”

  Queen Ester shouted, afraid of her daughter, who seemed poised to strike. Queen Ester clapped her hands over her ears, now yearning for quiet, and Helene vanished.

  “Well, I’ll be. She wan’t never here, that’s why her hair looked so nice,” Queenie mumbled, not frightened by Helene’s ghost but, rather, happy that her daughter’s shadow was able to step out of dark corners or maybe even closets. Without an ounce of pushing on Queen Ester’s part, Helene had moved into her mother’s house. All things considered, she thought, that ain’t so bad. Ain’t got to press on her to stay, cause she already here.

  Queen Ester advanced, a slow shuffle, listening for something that might be two bodies walking in an old house. “Where is they? Chess and Mama both having crackers and sardines somewhere.” I done made a good-looking girl, she thought, the hair parted just so and curled up at the end. Not a ribbon in sight but good-looking just the same. My baby sho looked good coming out of the dark like that. Queen Ester threw open the door to her own room and it was as if the three of them, Liberty, Chess, and Helene, were waiting for her quietly, not the ghost of her child but the loveliness of Helene’s hair; not the shot but the thumb; not the leaving but the door flung ajar; not the violation but the words said directly thereafter; not the father but the Mary Jane dripping from a child’s mouth.

  * * *

  The wild grass stood almost thigh-high. Only the sharp report of branches snapping in two broke the quiet. Helene played back Other’s words, this time slowly shifting through, because something he said tasted bitter. I didn’t ask Mama to lick at an old hurt, did I? Mama never said, Don’t ask because it may knock me down. I never pulled on her, never. I don’t care what he says. Maybe I wanted to, but wanting and doing sit on opposite sides of the road. I didn’t shake her, make her lick an old hurt. She was talking before I stepped on the porch, and that’s the heaven’s truth. But that doesn’t account for the bad taste on my tongue.

  They ducked together under a branch Other could not move and, untucking her head, Helene remembered what he had said—I was there when Mable handed you over to Annie b—which opened a bottomless dive of questions: Who gave me to whom? Where was Mama when I was handed over? Was my daddy already dead, and if he (if Duck was my daddy) had already passed, why did Aunt Annie b and Uncle Ed come out here only when I was born?

  * * *

  No longer chest-to-chest with Chess (her father, hers, hers) in the middle of the yard, a five-year-old Helene stood next to Liberty, not tall enough to reach her grandmother’s knee. They were on the porch and the deep rolling voice she had always thought was Uncle Ed’s came out of her grandmother, washing over her.

  “Yeah, this your house, baby girl, more yours than anybody, cause here, right inside the door, right upstairs, you was born.” Liberty’s hand slid from Helene’s head to her chin. “Your ma’am push something fierce to get you out. She sure did, and when she got to hollering she scared me bad. Didn’t know what to do; and if you know your granny, which you don’t cause you too young, you know that Granny always know what to do. I walked up and down the hallway, without a clear thought in my head. And that ain’t never happened to me. At least not since I been grown.” Liberty laughed, and the five-year-old Helene lapped up the sound. “You the only one born in this house. Now what about that? Ain’t that something?”

  Liberty suddenly crouched, scooping the child up in her arms. “I told myself I wasn’t never gone kiss some little thing under the neck, but here I go. You want some sugar from your granny?” Helene, frightened because she felt she was on the verge of being devoured, nodded dumbly. Liberty felt Helene stiffen in her hands and turned mean. “When somebody ask you something, you say yes, ma’am or no, ma’am, not shake your head like you some dummy. B been keeping you in a barn?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Now, you want some sugar from your granny or don’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “All right, then. Raise your head up.” Liberty slowly touched her lips to Helene’s exposed neck and the child, feeling her grandmother’s wide mouth and the tiniest bit of her tongue, erupted in laughter. With the laugh, Helene tickled Liberty’s nose, so she shook along with the child.

  “My, my, my,” she said, when she had caught her breath. She lifted Helene high in her arms. “You is a pretty one, that a fact. Sure is. You want to come live with me?” Helene, still laughing, didn’t hear the question, so Liberty repeated it. “Say, baby. I asked you if you want to come live with your granny.”

  There was no pause. The child’s voice turned breathless. “Yes, ma’am. Yes, yes!”

  Liberty heard the desire, and she put Helene down. “What you say?”

  Helene, still panting from the laughter and her grandmother’s tongue on her neck, spoke louder this time. “Yes, Granny. I mean, yes, ma’am.”

  Liberty stepped back, wrinkling her nose as if a bad smell rose from the child. Her voice swelled rapidly to a crescendo of anger. “Somebody come get this baby girl. Ya’ll need to go home. Now.” She fled inside the house, closing the door behind her. Helene heard a battle of hushed voices.

  “I know a lot, you think I’m a fool. Lord know what you two carrying on down here,” Annie b hissed.

  “All right, b, enough of all that,” Ed said.

  “I think you better watch for your mouth when you in somebody’s house.”

  “You think cause you bigger than me, I’m gone run off scared?”

  “I don’t want you to be scared, Miss b.”

  “You and your girl up to something.”

  “B, now—”

  “Shut up, Ed. You got Queenie upstairs, but I been up there to see, and even with the sheets covering her she look strong as a ox.”

  “I done already told you she take sick from time to time.”

  “My eye.”

  “Your brother told me he want his little girl to be with you-all.”

  “Who say, you?”

  “You calling me a lie?” Their voices grew louder.

  “All right, the both of you,” Ed broke in. “She ain’t deaf. She right outside the door.”

  “I know it, I left her there.” Liberty’s words strained against decorum.

  “I’m telling you, Ed, that girl healthy as a horse. They live in this big old house without a care in the world. So why come we the ones taking care of that little girl, just tell me that?” Had they known that the same little girl had stopped trying to sort through the adult argument and turned her attention to meddling with the hem of her dress, her small fingernails tugging at brown thread, perhaps they would have raised their fists along with their voices.

  So I knew the story all along, Helene thought. I’m too late to change a thing. Why did I come in the first place? What I thought I wanted I already had. If that doesn’t beat all. So why am I here? Because I wanted to make Mama laugh and feel blessed to have a daughter like me. Because I wanted Mama to lick at a hurt she’s been trying to forget for some twenty-odd years.

  * * *

  Other pulled back the last bush, and together they stepped into the yard as if they had emerged from behind a curtain. The house looked not only empty but dead. The water pump had vanished in the dark, and night had dulled the flaking whitewash to gray. The house’s wayward tilt, which Helene once had thought made it look to be fleeing, now reminded her of mourning. All the lights were out—whatever her mother was doing, she didn’t need a lamp. They stood for a moment
at the edge of the yard, taking big gulps of black air.

  “What is she doing in there?” Helene whispered. There was no flutter of curtains this time as she climbed to the porch with Other. The door opened directly with a creak and Queen Ester came out, a green scarf thrown over her head, patches of gray hair poking out from beneath it. Behind her the house was dark as a cavern. Spit ran down from her mother’s lip and she clutched at the fabric of her housedress, pulling it up to her thigh.

  She’s sick, Helene thought, and I left her here by herself. “Mama?” she said, her arms out and reaching. “Mama?”

  But Queen Ester did not move, stood firmly in the doorway. “Mama, let’s go in the house and turn some lights on,” Helene said, but Queen Ester continued to block the entrance.

  “Listen.”

  “Mama, what do you hear?” Helene peered into the dark. “Wait, wait, I’ve got a tissue in my bag.” She groped around inside her purse. “Here. Let me wipe your face.” Pulling out a crinkled tissue, she gently wiped away the spit. “See? Isn’t that better?”

  “You think she left the radio on?” Queen Ester said.

  “I don’t know.” Helene grabbed Queen Ester under the arm, surprised by her mother’s feebleness. “Let’s go inside and turn on a lamp. Remember that lamp you showed me? Does it work?”

  “Maybe she left the radio on,” Queen Ester suggested again.

  “Mama, did you leave the radio on?”

  “Naw, our radio quit working, I don’t know when.”

  “Oh.” Helene moved a bit closer. “Come on, let’s go inside.”