by Daniel Black
“That ain’t fu me to do. She de momma.”
“All right. Just don’t let the sun go down on your wrath. That’s what the Bible says.”
Emma Jean chuckled. “You reap what you sow. It says that, too.”
Chapter 6
Gracie left, convinced that Mae Helen would die before Emma Jean saw her again. Still, she was glad she had tried. A child’s hurt obviously evolves into an adult’s resentment, she told herself, so after years of abuse, the possibility that Emma Jean might forgive and forget was a virtual impossibility. Maybe she should have fought more directly for Emma Jean when they were children, Gracie considered, but what could she do about that now? Even if she apologized, which she felt she’d done, Emma Jean’s pain wouldn’t decrease. All Gracie knew to do was promise to love any child she birthed—even if, like Emma Jean, it was ugly.
Yet children never came for Gracie. Pearlie neither. They were too uppity and saddity, Gus said, to be somebody’s momma. Gracie wanted a college-educated man like herself, and Pearlie refused to look at anybody if he wasn’t lighter than she was. Mae Helen told both of them, once they turned thirty, “Y’all ain’t that damn gorgeous! You better get you somebody before it ain’t nobody to have!” But the girls refused to settle. In their forties, Gracie and Pearlie married Stanley and Buster Wilson, the ugliest, most unrefined brothers in Swamp Creek. They did that only because Mae Helen told them she was tired of feeding their stuck-up asses.
Once Gracie left that day, Emma Jean tried frantically not to think about Mae Helen, but the more she tried, the more impossible it became. It was always Gracie who kept mess going, she thought. Always sticking her nose in somebody else’s business. So what that she hadn’t seen Mae Helen in months. Who says a daughter must visit her mother?
After their last encounter, Emma Jean swore she’d never set eyes on the woman again, even in a casket.
“What’s that smell, girl?” Mae Helen had declared, walking into Emma Jean’s kitchen years ago without knocking.
“Hey, Momma.”
“That meat musta been spoiled, girl. I wouldn’t eat it if I was you.” She pinched her nose and frowned.
Emma Jean offered her a seat and continued washing dishes.
“Where de boys?”
“Out fishin’ with Gus. They gon’ be disappointed they missed you.”
“I’ll see them nappy-headed niggas soon enough.”
Emma Jean sat a glass of iced tea before Mae Helen, who drank it in one gulp. “Needs more sugar.”
“Momma, that tea’s fine. It’s almost syrupy as it is!”
“You drink it the way you want to. I’ll make my own at home.”
Emma Jean huffed. “It’s never enough, is it?”
“Huh? What’d you say?”
“Never mind.” She rinsed the empty glass and returned it to the cabinet. “I have some cake if you want some.”
“Oh no. I don’t care for sweets.”
Emma Jean recalled Mae Helen’s sweet tooth and chuckled lightly. “The boys is really growin,’ you know.”
“I guess they is, sittin’ ’round here eatin’ like hogs.”
Emma Jean struggled to ignore her. “You’re welcome to stay for dinner. I cooked more than enough.”
“No, no. I jes’ come by to see what that new baby o’ yours look like.” She grunted, “Ump. I shoulda guessed.”
“He’s pretty, Momma, but he ain’t no baby no more. He’s almost a year old!”
“Better late than never.” She studied the kitchen in apparent disapproval. “What’d you name him?”
Emma Jean smiled. “Mister.”
“Mister? Mister what?”
“Mister Peace.”
“Hell, I know his last name. I’m askin’ ’bout his first name.”
“Mister is his first name,” Emma Jean slurred, never having considered how ridiculous the name might sound to her mother.
“What? Are you serious? That’s kinda stupid, ain’t it? I bet Gus named him, didn’t he?”
“He’s a sweet boy, Momma. Grin all de time. Happy as he can be.”
“Yep, Gus named him,” Mae Helen murmured. “Ain’t no way in the world I woulda let that fool name my baby no Mister. That’s ’bout de dumbest thing I ever heard of, but if you like it . . .”
“His name’s fine, Momma. Like I said, he’s a good baby. Don’t do nothin’ but laugh all the time. The boys love him.”
“I guess they do! They don’t know no better.”
Emma Jean grimaced. “What’s that suppose to mean?”
“Oh, don’t worry about it. I was jes’ talking to myself.”
That’s when Emma Jean broke. “Get out, Momma!”
Mae Helen trembled. “What did you say, girl?”
“I said, get the hell out of my house!” Emma Jean went to the screen and held it open. “You ain’t never said a kind word to me my whole life. Pearlie and Gracie were your precious daughters, and I was the garbage my daddy left behind. I thought that maybe you’d start bein’ nice to me when I got grown, but obviously I thought wrong. You talk about Gus like a dog and treat my boys like they ain’t nothin’!”
“What?” Mae Helen stood. “I speak to dem ugly children all the time!”
“Can you say something nice for once! Huh? Can you? Would it kill you to be kind just for a day?”
“It’s nice enough of me just to come over here!” Mae Helen declared, sashaying past Emma Jean and into the yard.
Emma Jean followed. “Don’t chu know what it do to a child to call ’em mean names? Don’t chu know you cain’t treat children that way and get away with it forever? Don’t you know I dreamed about stabbing you every night I slept in that house?”
Mae Helen smacked her lips.
“You ain’t got to care ’cause I ain’t got to have you no more. And God have mercy on yo’ soul if you ever need me!” Emma Jean panted.
“Why, you ungrateful heffa! How dare you talk to me like that after all I did for you.”
“Oh, Momma, please! All you did for me was make me hate you.”
Mae Helen shuddered. “Pearlie and Gracie would never talk to me like this.”
“I’m sure they wouldn’t! Perfect Pearlie and Gracie.”
“You always was jealous of them.”
Emma Jean hollered, “Oh kiss my ass, Momma!” and marched back into the kitchen.
Mae Helen pranced away, leaving Emma Jean overwhelmed. She loved her mother and that’s what she hated most. Her childhood had been spent praying for a change of Mae Helen’s heart, although it never happened. She thought she’d gotten over things by now, but Mae Helen’s demeaning of her boys conjured memories of Emma Jean’s dream of killing her. Now that she was a mother, she could live without her own, she determined, but what she couldn’t tolerate was the possibility that her boys might grow up like she had, feeling ugly and rejected. She’d stab Mae Helen directly in the heart before she’d let her do that to another child.
The cussing felt good and relieved Emma Jean of years of repressed emotions. Fear had always made her contain her tongue, lest she disrespect her mother beyond repair, but now it didn’t matter. Emma Jean wished she had beaten her. That’s what she had felt like doing, and that would have cleansed her heart completely. Or so she thought. The truth was that the episode left her shaken for three days. The least noise caused her to glance over her shoulder, thinking Mae Helen had returned to whip her good. She hated how much she feared her mother, and she hated even more that she couldn’t stop loving her.
Emma Jean laid Perfect in the bassinet and dreamed of all the things they’d do together. Like pick blackberries along the banks of the Jordan and talk about boys the way she and her sisters once did.
“Ain’t Virgil Ponds ’bout the cutest thing you ever seen?” Pearlie said dreamily one hot July morning. She’d just turned twelve.
Gracie and Emma Jean giggled.
“He’s tall, and lean, and got some soft curly hair. Oh my God! He
’s so gorgeous!”
“He’s all right,” Gracie said, “but he ain’t cuter’n Phillip Hampton.”
“Phillip Hampton?” Pearlie cried. “That boy ain’t cute. His head is round as a plate!”
“Yeah, I know, but he’s still cute to me. Momma said he got some Indian in him.”
“He does have some good hair,” Pearlie conceded, “but he ain’t cuter’n Virgil.”
Gracie noticed Emma Jean’s silence. “Who you like?” she asked.
Emma Jean shrugged. “Nobody.” She ate a handful of overripe blackberries.
“Don’t you think Virgil’s cute?” Pearlie asked.
“He’s okay I guess. Look kinda mean most of the time. Don’t never smile.”
“You mean he don’t smile at you?”
“He don’t smile at nobody!” Gracie said.
“He smile at me. And anyway you can’t ask a man to like everybody.”
“Well, I’m just sayin’ I wouldn’t choose him,” Emma Jean said, and continued berry picking.
“You couldn’t choose him, even if you wanted to!” Pearlie sneered.
“Guess not.”
Emma Jean filled her bucket, then began filling her sisters’. “Do y’all think I’m pretty?”
Pearlie hollered. “Of course not. But you nice, and that counts for somethin’.”
Gracie agreed. “Everybody ain’t gotta be pretty, Emma Jean.”
“But I wanna be pretty.”
They couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Momma’s dark like me, and she’s pretty, ain’t she?”
Their silence surprised her.
“You not ugly,” Gracie said. “And, like I said, you’re real smart and sometimes that’s worth more.”
“But I wanna be pretty, too.”
“Your looks come from your daddy,” Pearlie explained, “and your daddy’s people are real black jes’ like you. He jes’ happens to be yella.”
“But cain’t chu be dark and pretty?”
The sisters frowned and said in unison, “No.”
Emma Jean’s head fell as though guillotined.
“Don’t worry about it,” Gracie said. “Everybody’s pretty in their own kinda way.”
“You jes’ look like yo’ folks,” Pearlie repeated. “You cain’t help that.”
“How you know how my folks look?”
“ ’Cause I done seen ’em! They live down in de Bottoms. It’s a lotta dem Lovejoys runnin’ ’round. They breed like rats, Momma said.”
Emma Jean was glad she didn’t live among them.
“Yo’ daddy jes’ happen to be light, but de rest o’ his folks is real black. That’s where you get it from.”
Gracie softened Pearlie’s blow. “You can still make somethin’ outta yo’self though. If you try real hard. Like you could be a hairdresser or somethin’. They make good money!”
Emma Jean wanted to be a dancer, but Mae Helen wouldn’t hear of it. She’d said, “Is you ever heard of a black nigga dancer, girl? Huh? Is you?” Emma Jean shook her head slowly. “Well then! Do somethin’ you can do.” When Emma Jean mentioned nursing, Mae Helen clutched her hips and said, “Girl, find a man who’ll have you and have as many babies as you can. Good as you sweep and clean up, you oughta be somebody’s wife. If they’ll have you.”
Emma Jean told Gracie, “I don’t wanna do hair!”
“Well, you oughta want to!” Pearlie interjected. “Then maybe you could do somethin’ with that briar bush o’ yours! And who knows? Maybe you could help all your people down there.” She pointed toward the Bottoms.
Emma Jean swore she’d never step foot in the Bottoms long as she lived. The last thing she needed was to encounter, in the face of some ashy black woman, her own spitting image. Maybe her daddy was one of the bottom people, but she promised not to be caught dead down there.
“What if Claude Lovejoy ain’t my daddy?” she mumbled.
“Then who is?” Pearlie asked.
Emma Jean didn’t say. She certainly couldn’t claim Sammy Hurt since she shared none of her sisters’ features, and, anyway, Mae Helen reminded her constantly whose child she wasn’t.
To Emma Jean’s chagrin, Claude Lovejoy appeared one day out of nowhere. The girls turned and there he was. Emma Jean was almost nine.
“Howdy, y’all,” he said kindly.
As though spooked, Pearlie and Gracie ran into the house, screaming, “Momma, Momma! That man’s back! He’s here!”
“Who’s here?” Mae Helen asked, walking onto the porch. When she saw who it was, she sucked her teeth and said, “Aw, shit! That ain’t nobody. I thought y’all was talkin’ ’bout somebody important,” and walked back into the house, allowing the screen to slam behind her.
Emma Jean lingered only because Claude was staring at her.
“You’s real pretty, honey. Black and beautiful jes’ like my momma. Your name’s Emma Jean Lovejoy, ain’t it?” He smiled and sat on the edge of the porch. “You my baby girl.”
“My name’s Emma Jean Hurt,” she corrected nastily, “and if you is my daddy, you a sorry one ’cause I ain’t never seen you in my whole life.”
Claude’s smile vanished. “I been workin’ on de railroad, baby. I wanted to come see you, but seem like every time I got a day off, I was either dog tired or called back to work. I thinks about you all de time, sugar. Really I do. Don’t chu neva think yo’ daddy don’t love you.”
Emma Jean almost jumped into his arms, but restrained herself. “Okay,” she said.
“I wanna take you to meet my folks so you know yo’ people. They’ll like you right off, pretty as you is.”
“No, thank you.”
“What chu mean, ‘no thank you’? Don’t chu wanna know yo’ family?”
Emma Jean heard the disappointment in her father’s flat voice, but her pride outweighed her empathy. “I already know my family,” she sassed, “so you can jes’ tell all dem bottom folks that I’m fine right where I am.”
Claude shook his head. “What’s wrong, baby? You actin’ like you hate me or somethin’.”
“Ain’t nothin’ wrong wit’ me. I jes’ don’t wanna go with you down in dem Bottoms. I don’t wanna go wit’ chu nowhere, so you ain’t gotta come back here no more if you don’t want to.” She turned to walk away.
Claude stood. “I don’t know what you done heard ’bout me, but I’s a good man and you got a whole heap o’ folks jes’ waitin’ to love you ’cause you mine.”
“No I don’t!”
“It’s fine though ’cause you can’t run from yo’self. Don’t care how hard you try, when you turn around, that self is starin’ back at you. You’s a Lovejoy, baby, and you gone stay one ’til de day you die. I jes’ hope I’m still livin’ when you come to yo’ senses. Yo’ momma and everybody else ’round hyeah done told you a bunch o’ mess ’bout me and my folks, but one day you’ll know de truth.” He wiped his eyes and left.
For a second, the thought of being shown off like a prize excited Emma Jean, yet fearful of her sisters’ ridicule, she decided to let Claude Lovejoy go.
Mae Helen returned to the porch. “Why didn’t you go with him? You coulda gone if you wanted to.”
“I jes’ didn’t,” Emma Jean mumbled.
“Well, you shoulda. You need to know yo’ people. You look jes’ like ’em.”
Emma Jean had hoped Mae Helen would say, Oh, honey, I was so scared you was gon’ leave me. Thank God I still got my baby, or something like that. Instead, she told Gracie and Pearlie, “Ump, ump, ump. Y’all almost had a bed to y’allself.”
For the rest of her life, her mother’s words lived in her head. Even in her dreams, she heard, Y’all almost had a bed to y’allself, y’all almost had a bed to y’allself, y’all almost had a bed to y’allself, as though someone were trying to convince her of her own selfishness.
By sixteen, Emma Jean was praying for Claude’s return. She promised herself that, if he came again, she’d accompany him to the Bot
toms and wouldn’t care what Gracie or Pearlie or anyone else said. She might not even come back. That way, Mae Helen could forget she’d ever lain with Claude Lovejoy.
Yet the next time Emma Jean encountered her father, he was lying in a coffin. Some pretty black woman killed him, people said, for cheating on her with a white woman. The white woman confronted the black one—went to the Bottoms all by herself, they said—but the black woman held her peace. The next night, though, she stabbed Claude in his heart while he slept.
“He was already dying though,” Emma Jean overheard one woman tell another at the funeral. “Ain’t been right since he fooled with dat Mae Helen what’s-her-name.”
“Oh yeah!” the other woman said. “Dat uppity-ass heffa wit’ dem two yellow girls and that black one that’s s’posed to be his.”
“Yep. Dat’s her. He said he went up there to see ’bout his daughter but she didn’t want nothin’ to do wit’ him. Said she looked at him like he was crazy.”
“Get outta here, girl!”
“That’s what he told me. I was anxious to meet my niece, but he said she frowned at him like he was a dog or somethin’.”
“Ain’t no tellin’ what dat woman told dat girl ’bout Claude.”
“Well, whatever she told her, dat li’l girl missed out on the nicest man God ever made.” They nodded vigorously. “He said she was so pretty”—the lady smiled—“but she turned her nose up at him.”
“She didn’t know no better.”
“Guess not. But she gon’ want him one day.”
Emma Jean walked away. The only reason she had gone to the funeral was because, at twenty, she couldn’t remember exactly what Claude looked like, and she knew this would be her last chance to see him. When the family processed, she stood with other tertiary attendees and marveled to see herself replicated, to varying degrees, in almost every mournful face. During the eulogy, when the preacher said, “Claude Lovejoy left this world with only a daughter to mourn his passing,” Emma Jean covered her mouth in shame. He went on to speak of Claude as a man with an enormous heart, one any child would have been lucky to have as a father. Emma Jean resented that he kept looking at her.
At the end, after family members had recessed, she asked the officials if she might have one final glance at the body. They said, “I’m sorry, ma’am, but once we close the casket, only next of kin—”