This Bitter Earth

by Bernice McFadden

  Sugar thought she knew the women that sat around her, but the scars that crisscrossed her belly, the love she was forbidden to have and the father whose name she did not carry; all of those things told her that she did not know the women who’d raised her at all.

  “Can I have a glass of water?” Sugar asked as she laid her head down on the table. Her feet were bare and the floor was cold. She began to shiver. “No, lemme have a cup of tea instead,” she said as she placed one foot on top of the other.

  “Bring me the quilt from the parlor,” May said to no one in particular. “Some socks from my room,” she added. The alcohol was still swimming in her head, but the warmth it had provided her seeped out with every hard breath Sugar drew.

  Ruby went for the quilt and the socks. Sara just looked off toward the wall.

  May rapped her knuckles on the table to get Sara’s attention. “The child said she wants some tea.”

  Sara just looked down at her hands and began examining her fingers.

  May let out a heavy breath and shook her head. She did not know when Sara had become so childish and cantankerous.

  “Sara.” May’s tone was stiff. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” May exclaimed before moving her chair back hard on its legs.

  “I’ll get it, May,” Ruby said, moving back into the kitchen, quilt and socks in hand. She placed the quilt around Sugar’s shoulders and then hesitated before dropping to her knees and slipping the socks onto Sugar’s feet.

  “Y‘all could have told me. Y’all should have told me,” Sugar said as she struggled to kick Ruby’s fidgeting hands from her feet.

  “I know. I know,” May said as she watched Ruby cross the floor to the stove. She didn’t want to see the hate that was stewing in Sugar’s eyes.

  “So you did know?” Sugar was flabbergasted. Up until that point she’d hoped against hope that they didn’t know about Joe Taylor and the fact that he lived in Bigelow, just two towns over.

  But that hope was shattered with May’s confirming words.

  “Oh, God,” Sugar moaned as sorrow pressed against her chest. “Oh, my God.” She dropped her head against the table and began to weep.

  The sound that followed was deafening. The women threw their hands up to their ears and looked to each other for answers. The black winter night poured into the kitchen and the sound swelled until it rattled the walls and shook the tiny ceramic knickknacks lining the shelf above the stove.

  “Lawd!” Sara yelled.

  Blackbirds, dozens more than the twelve that had perched outside earlier, fluttered at the window, their strong wings beating at the glass and the side of the house, splintering the wood and sending cracks through the glass.

  “Lawd help us!” Sara yelled again and jumped back from the window.

  “What’s going on? What’s happening?” Sugar screamed, her voice barely audible over the noise.

  “They want you!” Sara screamed, pointing a crooked finger at Sugar, her body trembling in fear.

  “What you say?” Sugar screamed back at her, not sure she’d heard Sara right. “What you say, Sara Lacey?” Sugar said again, sure now that she had heard Sara right.

  “Don’t you look at me.” Sara threw her hands up in front of her face as she eased herself away from the table. “Don’t you dare lay your eyes on me!”

  The clamor of the birds increased, and a piece of the window gave way.

  “Ahhhhh!” Sara screamed as she ran from the room. The women didn’t notice her departure; their eyes were fixed on the birds that were forcing their way through the opening.

  “Dammit to hell!” May yelled as she stormed past Ruby.

  Suddenly, there was a loud blast, a flash of light, the shattering of glass, clouds of smoke and then complete silence.

  Sugar’s eyes moved from one sister to the other and then to the space where the window used to be.

  The wind carried bloody black feathers in and set them down on the table, the floor and into the pot of apples that were now bubbling and mushy. Above them, Sara could still be heard screaming bloody murder.

  “May?” Ruby called her sister’s name just as soft and gentle as the man that had eased the gun from her hands back in ‘24. “Let it go, May,” she said, moving toward her. “Give it here,” she urged as she placed her hands over her sister’s.

  May’s grip tightened around the gun and for a moment Ruby didn’t think May would ever let go.

  “Wha—huh?” May looked on Ruby with blank eyes.

  “Sister? May?” Sara said as she unfolded May’s fingers from the warm metal. “Give it here.”

  “Oh, yes,” May said, her eyes clearing. “Yes,” she said again to some other question neither Sugar nor Ruby had asked.

  Neighbors came in twos and threes after the sound of the shotgun echoed across Short Junction.

  “What done happen here?” Mr. Gates from two houses over yelled out before stepping in front of the gaping hole the blast had left.

  “Everybody okay?” he called before stepping hesitantly into the circle of light that spewed out from the kitchen.

  May looked at him and then straightened herself. She ran her hands over her hair and then across her face before she spoke. “Fine, just fine,” she said.

  “Had a little trouble is all,” Ruby said as she placed the shotgun on the table and then thought better of it and moved it back to its place in the corner.

  “What happened—” Mr. Gates started to ask, but Sara had started screaming again and her shrieks did as much damage to his words as the shotgun blast had done to the wall.

  “Sara done taken ill is all.” Ruby’s words were rushed and she didn’t seem to notice that her response had nothing to do with the hole in the wall.

  Mr. Gates’ eyebrows rose and his mouth twisted a bit, but he didn’t challenge Ruby’s explanation.

  A few more men came into view. “She’s in a lot of pain,” Ruby explained. “ ‘Scuse me,” she said to the men, five of them now, before she hurried away and up the stairs.

  The men gathered around the hole to examine the damage. Their eyes fell on the pieces of dead blackbirds that lay at their feet and then their eyes found Sugar. They took in the blue tint of her skin and the closed pinched look her lips had, as if the undertaker’s needle had already had its way with them.

  They understood why the blackbirds had attacked the house.

  All of them had seen it happen at least once in their lives. Throngs of blackbirds, perched in trees and scatter-walking across the ground, waiting for death to claim its victim.

  “Y‘all gonna freeze in here if this hole don’t get closed up tonight,” Billy Sanford said.

  “You offering to close it up?” May asked as she stood peering out at them. Her tone was not humble and her stance—hands on hips, head tilted skyward—did not hold well with Billy Sanford.

  Old whore should be on her knees begging me to mend this hole up, Billy thought to himself. But he wouldn’t say it out loud. He knew not to mess with May Lacey. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

  “Well, I’ll pay you. You don’t have to worry about that,” May said and stepped away from the cold that seeped in.

  Humph, be good to get back some of the money my old man dropped here back in the day, Billy thought to himself, but once again, he didn’t dare say it out loud.

  The men avoided the dead birds as much as possible, preferring to step over them rather than kick them aside with the toe of their boots. Blackbirds meant death and they wanted no part of that.

  The men worked together mending the space in the wall and went home and told their wives that they were sure the next time they saw Sugar Lacey, she would be faceup in a pine box.

  Sara remained locked in her room for two days after May slapped her twice across her face and shook her until her head wobbled on her neck when she still wouldn’t stop screaming.

  Sara wouldn’t eat a thing Ruby left outside her door and only God knew where she was relieving herself. May threatened to remove he
r bedroom door from its hinges if she didn’t stop behaving like a child and open it up. May wouldn’t have gone to the trouble; she just needed to know that Sara was still alive, and Sara satisfied her curiosity by screaming like a lunatic every time May started picking at the hinges of Sara’s door with her penknife.

  Ruby had little to say during the whole ordeal. She felt like she was caught in one of those bizarre Hitchcock movies she’d seen once on a visit to Ashton.

  She thought that the evil Sugar had carried with her into that house was slowly spreading over all of them. May was drinking again, Sara had definitely taken leave of her senses and who knew what was going to befall her.

  Ruby sprinkled salt on the porch and around every entrance of the house before retiring to her bedroom, picking up her Bible off the nightstand and opening it to the Book of Revelation.

  Sugar heard the click of the lock and the creak of Sara’s door as it swung open on its hinges. She waited, as did Sara, for any interruption in May’s snoring or Ruby’s heavy, even breathing.

  Sara stepped out into the hall and Sugar eased herself up and onto her elbow. The two women remained as still and silent as the cats that roamed the land for field mice. Ears keen, bodies stiff and rigid, they listened to the darkness around them.

  The grandfather clock in the parlor chimed and Sara moved with the bells, and on the twelfth she pushed Sugar’s bedroom door open and stepped inside.

  “You wanna know?” Sara’s voice reached through the darkness and snatched at Sugar. “You said you wanted to know why. Do you really want to know, ‘cause I’ll tell you the truth.”

  Sugar sat up and pushed her back against the headboard. She could barely make Sara out in the darkness of the room. She could smell her, though, like spoiled milk and rotting apples.

  “May won’t tell you, not all of it, and Ruby don’t much know any of it,” Sara hissed and Sugar could tell she was getting closer. Sugar slid herself across the bed and moved her hand to the night table, where she searched for something, anything to protect herself.

  “I loved him. Me! Not your mama, Bertie Mae. But he couldn’t see it, just kept on chasing behind her like some lovesick woman. She didn’t pay him any mind, but still he kept on.”

  There was a pause as Sara’s voice drifted off into the darkness. Sugar strained to see what she was doing, where she was moving, but her eyes were weak and refused to adjust to the darkness.

  “He never looked at me like he looked at her. Not once.” Sara’s voice came from Sugar’s right side and she jumped and scrambled to the other side of the bed.

  The curtains parted and moonlight streamed in. Sara looked skeletal beneath the moon’s glow; her eyes were wide and sunken and her teeth seemed to jut forward as if they were pulling away from her skull.

  The light-green gown she wore was soiled and Sugar caught the unmistakable scent of urine.

  Sara stared at Sugar for a long time while her emotions—happy, sad and angry—played out across her face. “Well, that’s the way things are sometimes,” Sara said, suddenly sounding sane, suddenly sounding normal.

  Sara sat down in the rocking chair by the window and stared out into the night. “No one person should be forced to keep everything to themselves. Not everything. The mind is small, the heart, weak.” She spoke in a low whisper.

  Sara stopped rocking and raised her head a bit as if she’d caught sight of something outside the window. Satisfied with what she did or did not see, she began rocking again.

  “Your mother died from it. Keeping things in, those stories and the hurt and pain that went along with ‘em. They called it cancer ... and yes, I guess that’s what it was or what it ended it up being.

  “She was weak when she run off. If she had to fend for you and run all at the same time, she woulda dropped dead long before she did, and you ... well, who knows what would have happened to you. She ain’t have you to tell the stories to and I guess she felt she couldn’t share it all with Clemon.”

  Sara turned and looked at Sugar. “Clemon Wilks was your grandmama’s man first. Did you know that? She run off with her own mama’s man,” Sara said matter-of-factly.

  Sugar blinked at the name. Clemon Wilks. Wilks? Well, that was the name on the deed to #10 Grove Street.

  “Well,” Sara breathed, waving that bit of information off with a flick of her hand. “Men don’t understand most things, so she kept it all to herself, inside where it fed on her soul and spirit. She realized it when it was too late and jumped on the train and come back here, looking for you, but you was off looking for who knows what.”

  Sugar straightened her back and tried to shake the guilt that Sara’s words seemed to plant in her.

  “Ohhhh my goodness.” Sara yawned and stretched her bony arms above her head. She didn’t speak again for a long time. The only sounds that filled the room were the soft creaking noises from the rocking chair and the wind outside the window.

  Chapter 4

  WE told you some of the truth last time you come through. Well, some.“

  Sugar propped herself up on one elbow and tilted her head closer to Sara.

  “Your mama was a beautiful woman, I won’t deny that. Beauty like that hadn’t been seen ‘round here in years. Well, her mama, your grandma Ciel, she was half-white, so all her babies had that high-brown color and good hair. Ciel’s mama was some woman who got pregnant from the white man she worked for. So I heard. Lord knows who Bertie Mae’s daddy was, but he musta been a little thing ’cause that was what Bertie Mae was, little.

  “Little, timid and unstrung. The unstrung part being her mama’s doing.” Sara’s face screwed up at the end of that statement.

  “Bertie Mae was always trying to make herself invisible. Kept her head down, always looking at her shoes instead of the people and things around her. But the men noticed her anyway, like you notice a shiny penny in the dirt, and they taunted her by snatching at her hands and calling her name out loud: ‘Bertie Mae Brown!’

  “That’s how they honored her beauty. Bertie Mae didn’t see it as an honor, she saw it as them making fun of her, because her mother, your grandmother,” Sara said, pointing a shaky finger at Sugar, “Ciel Brown, told her every day of her life that she was homely and ugly!”

  Sara’s whole body shook when she said that and it took her a while to compose herself before she could continue.

  “But she wasn’t ugly or homely, she was beautiful and I have a picture of her to prove it,” Sugar shot at Sara.

  “I know that, you know that and so did Ciel. But she hated that child, and none of us ever figured out why,” Sara said thoughtfully.

  “Shonuff Clayton was the one who had started the whole bowing thing—”

  “What you say?” Sugar said, sitting up.

  “I said, Shonuff Clayton the one that—”

  Sugar cut Sara’s words off again. “Clayton was the last name?”

  “Yes, yes I’m sure ‘bout that,” Sara said. Her response held a tinge of doubt. “No, I’m right, it was Clayton. Why you ask?”

  Sugar’s heart thumped in her chest and the wounds that were still puffed and raw across her abdomen began to burn. Lappy Clayton’s face swam before her and her body shuddered with the memory of what he’d done to her.

  Sara gave Sugar a curious look before continuing.

  “Shonuff Clayton, with his bone-straight hair, yellow freckled skin and gray-blue eyes. Shonuff Clayton, with his wanton ways and filthy mouth.”

  Sara giggled and ran her hands down her arms. “He wasn’t worth shit, but I loved him anyway. Can’t help who you love.”

  As Sara said those last five words an expression crossed her face as if she was looking for an acquittal from Sugar for the love she had, still seemed to have, for Shonuff Clayton.

  Sugar just stared at her.

  “His mama was Susie Clayton. She was a white woman whose family had disowned her. Her own daddy, Edgar, labeled her trash and put her out the house when he found her laid out on top of a
bale of cotton, legs spread-eagle, the stable boy, half her age and gleaming black, between them.

  “Her daddy would have shouted rape, even though his daughter’s arms were wrapped around the stable boy’s waist and her head was thrown back in pleasure. Even still, he would have had the boy hung from a tree, castrated, skinned and burned, but he thought back to a time when he had doubts about his wife’s faithfulness and wasn’t ever really convinced that Susie was his anyway. She didn’t look like any of her siblings, didn’t even have the famous Clayton dimples. All his kids, including himself, had those dimples.

  “When that black boy’s body stiffened and then shuddered, Susie Clayton screamed, ‘I love you! I love you!’ And Edgar Clayton knew right then that Susie wasn’t his. The Claytons did not love niggers. Through the years they’d owned them, whipped them, hung them, some of the men fucked them and a right few of the women did the same, but not one Clayton had ever loved one.

  “For appearances and because Susie was a white woman, Edgar had the stable boy whipped and then had Susie banished from his house and sent to live in one of the track houses on Clayton land amongst the niggers she loved so much.

  “She’d been with most of the colored men in Bigelow. They talked about it amongst themselves, joked about it every chance they got.

  “ ‘Had some of that white meat ’cross town?‘

  “ ‘Who ain’t?’

  “ ‘Davis ain’t.’

  “ ‘Who say so?’

  “ ‘Heard so.’

  “ ‘From who, Nigger?’

  “ ‘Just heard.’

  “ ‘Well, have you?’

  “ ‘Shonuff!’ the man would yell out, sending the rest of the men into a fit of thigh-slapping laughter. That laughter went on for years, until Susie Clayton’s belly started to push out and the men started denying having been there at all.

  “Susie named her half-breed child after her daddy, Edgar. His name was Edgar Howard Clayton the second, but no one ever called him that, not behind his back or to his face, not even his own mother. He was Shonuff Clayton from the moment he popped his pink head out from between his mother’s legs and even when he was dead and gone, his tombstone would declare the same.