The Butcher's Daughter

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  But his battalion wasn’t just fighting the Nazis. They’d faced opposition from fellow American soldiers—buckruh, including Patton, who doubted the Negro soldiers’ competency. The general had eventually relied upon them during the Battle of the Bulge, but where had that gotten Cyril’s father? Killed in action, buried amid a sea of white crosses in Belgium, segregated from the buckruh even in death.

  “You got no right to condemn any brave soldier doin’ his patriotic duty, son!”

  “Travis Hunter is a bad man, Mama.”

  “Jealousy is the work of the devil.”

  “I’m not jealous. And Hunter is the devil. She told me—”

  “Cyril, your brain is too smart for sweetmout’ talk.”

  “My brain didn’t get me into this.”

  “Well, your damned heart’s not going to get you out. What does she want from you? Money?”

  “No.”

  “Good, ’cause you got none to spare.”

  “Can you just . . .” He clears his throat, but his voice is hoarse. “A child’s life is at stake, Mama.”

  She’s silent for a moment. “You sure it’s your child?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then, she can give it up for adoption. Plenty of folks just waitin’ for the good Lord to bless them, and some been blessed and lost their babies, and for some of those, it ain’t ever goin’ to happen again the natural way, like your cousin up there in New—”

  “A married woman can’t put a child up for adoption. And she can’t raise it with her husband.”

  “Maybe he won’t be able to tell.”

  “She’s a green-eyed blonde, and he’s fair, too, with blue eyes.” Cyril’s never met the man, but he’d seen his damned picture, and the expression in those frosty eyes had made his blood run cold. “If he ever figures out that her baby has a Black man’s blood running through its veins, he’ll destroy it, and her.”

  “What kind of man—”

  “Look at this!” He pulls a crumpled newspaper clipping from his pocket.

  Marceline leans forward to take it in—the caption, the context, the grainy image.

  A group of men stand shoulder to shoulder, wearing robes emblazoned with a familiar cross-shaped crest, their triangular hoods raised to reveal their faces. The photo is sepia-toned, but his mother will know at a glance that the hoods and robes are white and the crest red, the splotch in the middle symbolizing a drop of blood.

  “This here is a Klan rally.”

  “July of ’66, up in Raleigh. They were protesting Dr. King’s appearance at Reynolds Coliseum.”

  “You were there that day.” In her rich patois, the word there is interchangeable with day. “You rode all the way up to Carolina with those NAACP friends of yours. That where you got that newspaper?”

  “No. Melody found it in her husband’s belongings after he left.”

  “Why was she goin’ through his things? And just ’cause he had a piece o’ paper doesn’t mean—”

  “She found his damned costume, too.”

  He sees her mulling it over, not wanting to bend.

  “Mama! Wake up! You see this right here?” He jabs at a sickening, unabashed grin beneath a conical cap. “That’s Travis Hunter.”

  Chapter Six

  The Bronx, New York

  On his way home from work, Oran stops at John’s Bargain Store to pick up a heart-shaped box of Brach’s chocolates for the only woman in his life. Then he swings by the White Castle on Bruckner Boulevard to get a sack of her favorite little hamburgers. To his dismay, the price has gone up from twelve cents each to fourteen since his last visit months ago. Worth it, though, because they’ll make Gypsy happy. And tonight, he needs her to be happy.

  He unlocks the door and steps from a dingy hall to a dingier apartment—two small rooms plus a smaller kitchen. The tub is there; the toilet is in an adjacent cubicle.

  Gypsy is sprawled on the mattress that serves as her bed and the sofa, doing her homework.

  He holds out the box of chocolates.

  “Valentine’s Day isn’t until tomorrow,” she tells him.

  “So? I’m giving it to you early.”

  “Why?” She peers up at him like someone trying to pinpoint a stranger’s face, and for a moment, he thinks she knows what’s going on. Everything.

  Then she looks down at the grease-splotched paper bag in his hand. “What’s that?”

  “Sliders.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s dinnertime, man, and we have to eat!”

  “I know, but why are you buying White Castle and candy when we don’t have any money? That’s what you’re always saying, isn’t it? That’s why we have to live in this disgusting dump instead of—”

  He hurtles the bag and box at her. That shuts her up, but she glares at him.

  He turns away from the intense violet eyes that can reach right into his soul like predator talons clawing for a kill. He’s been preaching his own omniscience all her life, but his daughter’s is becoming impossible to ignore.

  Storming into the bedroom, he slams the door, breathing hard, and stares into the mirror hanging on the back. A wild-eyed demon meets his gaze.

  This isn’t how it’s supposed to be, how Oran is supposed to be. He’s savior, not destructor. But sometimes, people get under his skin, man. Even his daughter, whenever he looks at her and catches a hint of Linda.

  It’s not often. Gypsy, unlike her mother, unlike womankind, is strong.

  She knocks on the bedroom door. “Hey, come and eat dinner with me.”

  The man in the mirror raises his eyebrows. “What for?”

  “It’s dinnertime, man, and we have to eat.”

  Her echo of his own words is such a perfect imitation that he sees his scowl give way to—not a grin, exactly. But the creases at the bridge of his nose smooth out, and his jaw unclenches.

  He opens the door. There’s his girl, the only one he’s ever loved.

  She holds up the sack of sliders. “I already ate one. And two pieces of candy.”

  “Two?”

  “Sorry. I can save the rest for tomorrow.”

  “You don’t have to. Did you stick your finger in ’em already?”

  Of course she did. She always does.

  “Yeah. I like to see what the fillings are before I choose.”

  “And you like to make sure your old man doesn’t eat any.”

  “You can have the maple.”

  “I hate maple.”

  He makes a face, and she laughs.

  “I’ll take the cherry, though,” he adds, picking up the box and opening it.

  “Sorry. That’s my favorite.”

  Yeah, no kidding.

  He tells her to clear the clutter from the small table so that they can sit down.

  The dome-shaped cherry one is right in the center, surrounded by nine other chocolates and two empty black fluted wrappers.

  When she turns her back, he slips a tiny packet out of his pocket. It holds one small pill.

  He lifts the cherry. Viscous pink filling oozes from the hole she’d poked in its underside. He pushes the white tablet into it, puts the candy back into the box, and is closing the lid when Gypsy turns back. Her eyes narrow.

  “Hey! Did you steal one?”

  “Nope.”

  “Give it here.” She holds out her hand, and he puts the box into it, pulse racing.

  Gypsy lifts the lid and takes inventory. She plucks the cherry from the box and pops it into her mouth. “I don’t trust you,” she says, and he sees the slick of goo on her tongue.

  They sit and gobble down the food. He keeps an eye on her, waiting for the yawning to begin. As expected, it doesn’t take long.

  Powerful stuff. It won’t hurt her—he’d never hurt his beautiful girl—but she’ll sleep soon, and soundly.

  Ain’t safe anywhere these days, what with all the hippies and Negroes runnin’ amuck . . .

  Rodney Lee’s comment is nothing Melody
hasn’t heard before, from just about everyone in these parts. She assures herself that she shouldn’t be feeling so uneasy, looking over her shoulder, making sure Rodney Lee didn’t come back around again to trail her up the street, on foot or in his car.

  When she replays the conversation, trying to put her finger on what else is bothering her, she settles on his comments about LBJ and MLK, and being “unpatriotic.”

  Plenty of Americans aren’t fans of Dr. King, she reminds herself, and not all are members of the so-called Invisible Empire.

  Forget about it, she thinks as her parents’ house draws her like a beacon, windows aglow with lamplight and vintage gas fixtures flickering on the upper and lower verandahs. Both porch ceilings are painted haint blue, a fact she never noticed before she met Cyril.

  Honeybee, gracious Southern hostess that she is, seems to have invited last-minute supper guests. An unfamiliar gold Cadillac DeVille sits parked at the curb.

  Melody mounts the wide, curved brick steps and opens the front door. Ah, home. The front hall is warmly lit by a graceful nineteenth-century pendant light, and a Johnny Mercer instrumental plays on the parlor hi-fi. The air is fragranced with Raelene’s pineapple upside-down cake, a sure sign that the visitors aren’t close friends. Her mother only serves it for company or celebrations.

  Melody hangs her jacket on the carved antique coat tree beside a man’s topcoat and hat and a woman’s double-breasted jacket, familiar perfume wafting from the nubby pear-colored fabric. She can’t place the scent, but it triggers something unpleasant. One of her mother’s bridge club friends? A disapproving maiden aunt?

  “Someone’s been putting crazy ideas into that pretty little head of yours.”

  Have people been talking behind her back? Could someone have seen her with Cyril last summer, and come here to confront her and her parents about it?

  But where? Certainly not in American Beach, or on Barrow. The locals would have no more business out there than . . .

  Than you do?

  She turns and catches sight of herself in the full-length mirror. Oh, dear. She’s wearing dungarees, a wrinkled white blouse, and scuffed flats. No lipstick or powder. Her blond hair is parted in the middle, flipped above her shoulders and caught in a black headband. She hasn’t brushed it since this morning.

  Honeybee’s voice sails in from the dining room, beyond French doors. “Is that you, poppet?”

  It’s what her parents have called her ever since her sister’s death, because there can be no “Melly” without Ellie.

  “Yes, I’ll be right there!”

  She heads for the kitchen. It runs the width of the house, with beamed ceilings, whitewashed walls, and tall windows overlooking Honeybee’s spot-lit perennial gardens and the wooden arbor with its barren wisteria vine.

  Plump, apron-clad Raelene bustles from the Frigidaire to the sink and back again. Wisps of gray hair escape her bun, and her fair, freckled complexion is flushed with exertion.

  Raelene has been with the Abernathy family since Melody’s parents were newlyweds—born into the position, she likes to say. Her own mother had worked for the Beauregard family for decades, and Raelene and Honeybee are the same age—childhood playmates turned employer and employee. Honeybee often comments by way of praise that Raelene knows her place. Yet she understands Honeybee perhaps better than Melody and her father do.

  She flashes a warm smile. “Evenin’, Mrs. Hunter.”

  “I hate it when you call me Mrs. Hunter, Raelene. That’s my miserable mother-in-law’s name, and I—”

  “Oh, hush, now! You’ll get used to bein’ a Mrs. just like the rest of us.”

  Melody sighs. Maybe if her husband were a wonderful man like Raelene’s Elmer. They’d married young, raised four children and now have more than a dozen grandchildren. They’d waltzed like young lovers at her wedding last February. At the time, Melody had fancied that she and Travis would be the same way, still head over heels thirty, forty years into the future.

  “You’d best get to the table so that I can serve up the supper,” Raelene tells her. “Your Mama’s been frettin’.”

  “Why? Who’s joining us, Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon?”

  “I guess they’d be a lot more down-to-earth than . . .”

  “Than who?”

  Raelene shakes her head, lips sealed.

  Melody heads for the dining room and stops just outside the door, eavesdropping. Andy Williams is singing “Charade” and her mother is going on about the weekend trip.

  “And then Wayne and Donna showed us some land where Walt Disney’s going to build a new theme park, and—”

  “In Orlando?” a familiar female voice asks.

  “Isn’t Walt Disney dead?” a familiar male chimes in.

  No. Oh, no. Mother, what have you done?

  “He passed away a year or two ago,” Melody’s father is saying. “I’ll tell you what, there’s nothing on that land but grass and cows right now, but Wayne said it’s going to be bigger and better than Disneyland.”

  “I’ll believe that when I see it. We were out in California with Travis when Disneyland opened back in ’55. A hundred degrees in Anaheim. Miserable. Just miserable.”

  “Melody! My goodness, where are you?” Honeybee calls as though she’s miles away, and tells the guests, “I’m so sorry, I’m sure she’ll be—”

  “I’m right here.” She plunges into the wallpapered, candlelit room like a child who can barely swim stepping off the high-dive.

  The oval table is set with bone china, silver, and crystal. Her father is at the head, her father-in-law at the foot, her mother and mother-in-law seated opposite each other. All four are smoking cigarettes and drinking gimlets. Both women are attractive blondes and wearing green. But Honeybee’s sprayed bouffant, pastel mint cashmere sweater and pearls look dated beside the other woman’s smooth coif and citron geometric-patterned shift accessorized with a chunky Bakelite pendant.

  “Look who’s here, Melody!” Honeybee’s smile is strained, her tone too bright. “I thought it would be a nice surprise for you. I know you’re missing Travis and so worried.”

  “We all are,” his mother says.

  “How nice to see you,” Melody manages. “I was wondering who was . . . um, did you get a new car?”

  Her father-in-law nods. “Just a few days ago. A beaut, isn’t she?”

  So sneaky of them. She would never have come inside had she realized they were here.

  “Sit right down, sugar. Supper’s been ready for a while.” Honeybee points to the vacant chair and place setting between Travis’s parents—her designated spot, as if she’s one of them. “Raelene? You can serve now!”

  As Melody moves toward her place, the baby kicks sharply in protest. She gasps and presses a hand to her belly. One of the buttons across her midsection has popped right off. Looking up, she sees her parents and her in-laws gawking at the telltale gap.

  Her mother claps her hands and jumps to her feet. “Melody! You’re expecting!”

  “I’m . . .” She shakes her head, helpless. There’s no denying it.

  “Well, I declare! Isn’t this the most magnificent news ever?” Honeybee embraces her, beaming. “Wait until I see that rascal Doc Krebbs. I was in for my checkup just last week, and he never said a word. When are you due?”

  “April. April . . . 4.”

  “Why, that’s Travis’s birthday!” His mother smiles at Melody for the first time in . . .

  Ever, she realizes. That same crazy, irrational part of her is pleased, as if she’s an ordinary daughter-in-law seeking approval from the mother of the man she loves. As if the baby inside of her is a part of him. As if everyone in this room is one big happy family.

  “Now, can all y’all think of a more divine birthday gift for Travis than becoming a daddy?” Honeybee crows.

  “Sit down, poppet. You look a little pale.” Her father pulls out her chair and gives her shoulder a squeeze when she lowers herself into it.

 
“You do look pale, dear. Too much excitement. Relax. Here, calm your nerves.” Honeybee thrusts her gold-plated cigarette case and lighter into her daughter’s hands, and calls into the kitchen, “Raelene? Can you please bring a gimlet for Melody?”

  “I’ll have another myself,” Travis’s father says. He isn’t smiling, but he doesn’t look quite as stern as usual.

  “Another round, Raelene!” Honeybee calls. “We must toast this marvelous news. If only Travis was here. I’m sure he was just tickled when you wrote to tell him, Melody.”

  She says nothing, and feels her mother-in-law’s gaze.

  “Melody?” Doris asks, a freshly lit Pall Mall poised in its opera-length silver holder against her pursed red lips. “You did tell him?”

  “Not yet,” she says. “I wanted to . . . be sure.”

  “Sure? Bless your heart. Your due date is two months away! How much more sure do you think you’re going to be?” Honeybee pats her shoulder and offers Doris a bemused mother-to-mother smile.

  Doris doesn’t return it, focused on Melody. “Don’t you think you should have told my son before you went around telling the rest of the world?”

  Ah, there’s the disapproving mother-in-law.

  Melody glares right back at her, not in the mood to play nice with the woman who spawned the likes of Travis Hunter.

  “Raelene?” Honeybee shouts, before she can reply. “The gimlets!”

  “Coming, Mrs. Abernathy!”

  “I’m sure Melody hasn’t gone around telling anyone,” her father says firmly. “Have you, poppet.”

  It isn’t a question. Nor is her response a lie.

  “I think the father should always be the first to know, but Travis isn’t here. I was hoping he’d call so that I could tell him on the phone, but since he hasn’t, I have a letter all set to mail him,” she says, mostly to Doris, feeling sweat beading along her hairline. She puts down the cigarette case and lighter and pulls a lace handkerchief from her pocket to dab her forehead.

  She’d like nothing better than to toss back the gimlet Raelene serves from a silver tray, but her stomach recoils at the first sip. She pokes at her meal, and the pineapple cake might as well be sand on her tongue. Honeybee notices, of course, and chalks it up to pregnancy nausea.