She go to the shutters, peeks through the split, then dashes back to me, whispering, “It’s Massa Hilden. Go in the other room with Momma.”
She snatches the Bible and pitches it under the table. I run quiet across the floor, grab Momma’s hand on the way, and we slide through my bedroom door. I turn over my hiding barrel to get it ready to cover me, but when I see Momma standing alone, I don’t get under it like I should. I wait near the door with her. Want to listen. I leave it cracked open to see.
Massa walk in before Hazel get back to the door.
“Massa Hilden?” Hazel say. “We wasn’t expectin’ you. Momma came down wit a spell this mornin, been sick all over the place.”
He strolls to the middle of the room carrying that silence with him. He stops next to the table, wipes down the arms of his brown suit jacket—first time I seen him in it—and straightens the cuffs while he looks around. He takes a cigar out of his pocket, lights it, and like a baby on a teet, he sucks on it in short spurts to get it going. His eyes draw to the floor when he do. He moseys over to the Bible there, picks it up, throws it on the table, flips through its pages.
Hazel stands watching him from next to the opened front door. I reckon she hope he blow out.
Massa closes the Bible, walks his fat fingers across the tabletop, then around to the backside of the table, next to the fire pit. He picks up the poker, stabs the wood, sizzling ash.
Hazel don’t know what to say over his quiet. Finally she say, “I’m sorry we not so tidy this Sunday evenin. Momma’s been fightin a bad sickness and I don’t want you to catch it.”
“Darlin. I’m not here to see your momma. I’m here to see you.”
He pokes at the fire, then stabs a log with the sharp end of his poker, shakes it ’til the log falls off in a thud. “It’s been quite a few years now. No boys from your momma, just the girls. Got a pretty penny for ’em but I still need my boys, they bring in the real money. You understand that don’t you, Hazel? Finances.” His eyes slide toward her.
I open my door a little more so I can see better.
He say, “I need someone to take your momma’s place. A strong woman. Good hips.” He raises his hand, waves at the opened front door. “You don’t mind if my friend, Boss, come in, do you, Hazel?”
That black man come in. He ain’t nobody’s boss except that he the same one who lay on top of Momma.
Massa keeps poking at the fire and don’t say nothing to Boss even though he came in like Massa asked. Massa buries the orange tip of his cigar into our table, finally say, “Now then, Hazel. Let’s see what you can do.”
Hazel creeps back to the wall, passing by our door. She look over her shoulder and into my eyes, then straight away. She hangs there in place. Ain’t no crying from her—there never is no more—but her breathing is fast like a mouse caught in a jar. There ain’t nowhere to go but fly. Boss grabs her arm, pulls her back into the middle of the room where Massa is. He snatches the back of her hair so her face shoots to the ceiling.
I want to be strong like her and don’t cry neither.
I scoot back along the wall, squat down to my old peeking hole and frame my hands around it. I mash my cheek to the wood and air streams through the space, watering my eye. My tears are cold before they fall. I wipe ’em away, making the sight of Hazel across the room clear.
Boss presses his front against Hazel, smashing her back against the warm wall next to the fire. She shuts her eyes and turns her head. A soft wisp of hair falls and soaks into the sweat on her face. Boss brings a dark finger to the strands, sweeps it away to kiss her cheek. A kiss that musta sickened her cause she buck up, her legs rearing and sending a knee between Boss’s legs.
But she don’t get away.
Boss grabs her waist, lifts her up but her legs and arms keep moving like she running on the ground, then they go wild, swinging, sending her and Boss back against the wall. Her foot slides in the fire.
I wish I never looked through this hole.
Hot tears pour down my cheeks while the firelight flickers on Momma’s face. She stands in the door’s gap looking to Hazel.
She don’t say nothin.
Her eyelids flutter.
I hear Massa in the other room. “Hold still, girl,” and there’s a shuffle. Their back and forth turns the shadow show on Momma’s face into movement, the three shadow lines down her face, a dance. The shortest line in the middle is Hazel. The two shadow lines come together on her face making Momma’s skin gray. She don’t blink, though. She come alive.
At once, she burst through the door. “Choose me!” she yell to Massa. “What chu want me to do? I do it.”
“It’s too late, Letti,” Massa say.
“I’ll give you a boy this time! I’ll be good. I could do it this time. God gon’ bless me wit a boy. Please!” She throws herself down and wraps her arms around Massa’s leg, hugging him like she loves him. He kicks her off.
“Momma!” I yell, stumbling in the room.
“No!” Hazel say.
“Hot damn!” Massa say, scared or surprised. I don’t know which. He tilts his head from side to side trying to place me. Then finally, “I knew it! You look just like that bastard. I should’ve killed him when I had my chance, thieving from me.”
Massa comes close to me, leans into me. His swollen nose is laced with thin red veins, like he walked into a bloodied cobweb.
“I’m ready,” Hazel say. “Massa . . . I’m ready.”
He touches my cheek with his damp yellow fingers. “Where have they had you hidin, darlin?”
“Leave ’er lone!” Hazel say.
“Don’t worry,” Massa say, grinning. “I won’t bite.”
I hold still, hear the buzz of that strange silence again. Broken now by footsteps trotting up our porch outside. A knock at our door follows. This time, quick and eager. I know that knock.
Nobody moves.
“Get it,” Massa tell Hazel.
She don’t go.
“Girl!” he say.
When she get to the door, she opens it slow. James is there with a handful of freshly picked wild flowers. His smile is like the sun on ’em, but when he sees her, his face dims. “You all right, Hazel?”
From where I stood behind her, I could see a tear fall from her chin to her chest. She shakes her head slowly trying to make it so Massa cain’t see. James takes a step back down the porch.
“Don’t leave the boy waitin,” Massa say, pushing the door open all the way. He puts his arm around Hazel. “Take the flowers, girl.”
Hazel’s slow to. But she do.
“Where’s my manners? Come on in, boy.”
James obey. He’s with us now.
His head’s hung low as he walks through our door, searching the room with his eyes. He stops across from us, alone and small-looking.
“So what brings you my way on a beautiful evening like tonight?” Massa say. “Oh . . . the flowers. That’s real nice.”
James bows his head meekly and folds his hands in front of him so he ain’t a threat. His Sunday shirt hangs past his knuckles. James say, “We was gon’ ask permission, suh.”
“You was gon’ ask permission?”
“Yes’sa. Got permission from Massa Lewis and . . .”
“I look like Massa Lewis?”
“Naw, suh,” James say. “If you just have a word wit Massa Lewis, suh.”
Massa relights his cigar, puffs it slow, patting the top and bottom of it with both lips. He say, “Seems to me I got a fox in my henhouse, Boss. A fox messin ’round with what’s mine. What I clothe, feed, and provide shelter. Screwin ’em before me. What you think about that, Boss?”
Boss shakes his head. “Very disrespectful, suh.”
“How you punish somethin like that?”
Boss lifts his shoulders. “Don’t know.”
Massa pulls his cigar out of his lips slow but makes a quick jerk of his hand. Before I know where it went, the wall explodes a hole of blossoming splinters. Shards
of wood fly in my face and prick the front of my neck and chest. The sound crashes in my ears. I cup ’em to stop the ringing but a smell like burnt hair and wood sweeps the air. Everything sits still now except for Massa’s gun making its smoke dance.
Hazel and Momma throw themselves to the floor but James ain’t moved.
His big brown eyes are wide open, with a hole in his forehead.
A line of blood slides down like sweat.
He falls to the floor.
Hazel’s hands draw to her mouth and tears cover her eyes.
“Shit!” Massa say. “See what you made me do!” he say to Boss. “You short-poured the lead again. Made the bullet split. I told you to re-melt the whole damn thing together. You can’t patch a bullet!” Massa slides his hands down the back of his head. “Fuck me!” he say. “You know what that’s gon’ cost me, Boss? Do ya? I was just gonna scare ’im.”
Massa rams his pistol back down his pants and its pearly white handle flashes us from under his brown jacket. He follows the bullet’s path to the wall, touching the impact. “See, Boss? It shoulda missed and gon’ clean through here.”
“Yes, suh, Massa, suh.”
Massa blows out hard, washes his hands over his face. “You made me kill that fox.”
Hazel won’t move her sight from James. Tears drip steady from her chin while Momma cry, “Jesus, Jesus.”
My hands stay on my ears. I’m afraid to move ’em, ’fraid to let out the ringing that’s in ’em and make all this true. I imagine its church bells instead.
“Now, where were we?” Massa say over the ringing. “Yes, the girl . . .” He look at me.
Hazel wails.
Massa say, “Boss, get that fox outta here.”
Boss picks up James, but cain’t get a good hold on him. He folds James’s limp arms across his chest to make ’em stay put, carries him to the door, leaking red.
I ain’t letting go my ears.
Momma’s knees creak back and forth on the floor.
“Where were we?” Massa say again.
He staggers toward me and I walk on my knees away from him, the invisible wall that keeps space between us pushes me back toward the fire. He forces me to the side of the table where I knock my head and my hands let go my ears to hold the table.
The pain of what Massa just done rush to me, red-blooded. My neck’s getting hot, my hands is sweating. Hazel’s cries is louder. She runs over to Boss, pulls his arms from James, beg to let him alone.
Massa say, “Gon’ get ’im outside.”
That ready-poker. I see it next to me, pressing me to take it.
Boss opens the door.
I spin around and grab it, launch it deep inside Massa’s belly before my mind tell me no.
Massa’s mouth falls open.
His eyes bulge.
He begs me to stop but I ain’t gon’ stop. I push it through him and my hands slide down the pole. His blood squeezes out warm around my fists. And he stops reaching for me. I want this.
Boss drops James when he see us.
He throws hisself at me trying to beat me loose, but I cling to that poker, shake it in.
Boss rams his fist to my hand. I still don’t let go.
Rams my head. My face go numb.
I try to stand, but cain’t. I don’t wanna fight no more.
I push across the floor, crawling my way to Hazel, half-blind. She’s hunched over James trying to fix him. Momma’s on top of Boss. Got that poker in his back, the other end in her hand. She’s digging it in. His blood rains on the floor.
A second blast races around the room and I throw myself to the ground. Don’t know if I’m hit or dead or deaf, the sound exploding from everywhere—a long whistle in my ear. Don’t feel myself hurt.
When I open my eyes, Hazel ain’t moved from cuddling James. I squint toward Momma, find her staring at me like she just asked a question and she’s waiting for an answer. But her calm expression turns painful. She don’t let her eyes fall from mine when blood spreads from the middle of her dress. “Momma!” I yell. She hunches over and falls as Massa sits perched on his knees across the room holding that pistol. The weight of it flops his hand sideways and he fall with it.
“Momma!” I say, scooting across the floor to wake her, to make her well, but she ain’t moving. Only the wind of her last breath do.
Behind us, Massa takes his last, too.
The wet of her dress makes my hand red. “Hazel! Momma’s dead!”
But Hazel won’t look away from James. She’s holding his hand. I can hear her talking to him. Praying. I try to wait . . . wait long enough and say, “Hazel, what we gon’ do?”
Hazel don’t get up. She stay praying. Seem like a hour before she say, “Amen.” Finally, she stands, strong as always except when she sees Momma, her knees buckle.
Calmly, she say, “I want you to go, Naomi. Far as you can. Go where cain’t nobody find you.”
“Where I’m gon’ go, Hazel? I cain’t leave you and Momma.”
She nods and goes over to the fire pit, pulls her smoldering Bible out the fire. She presses it on her dress to stop it smoking. And I cain’t stop shaking. “Momma’s dead, Hazel!”
She comes to me, hugs me, but her comfort ain’t enough to stop this pain or the tears that pain makes to carry itself out of me.
Hazel twists two bundles of my hair into one loose braid. It unravels.
“Naomi, listen. Listen! You gotta go outta here. You gotta go north, you hear me? Ain’t nothin here for you.” She presses her Bible against my chest. I hold it tight.
“I don’t know where North is!”
“Follow the star like I showed you. Go only in the night.” Boss starts moaning from the floor.
I cain’t do this no more.
Hazel go over to him, stomps that poker further into Boss’s back and he shuts up. She heaves it out and tears her clothes with it; slices into her own flesh, along her ribs ’til she bleed. She brings it to me and puts it in my hand, bloody. “You gon’ need to protect y’self.”
“Hazel?” I say.
“You gon’ need food.” She gets the stale rolls from next to the oven and shoves ’em down my blouse. “You water yourself in the stream.”
“But Hazel . . .”
“People gon’ come lookin, Naomi. Come lookin for all us. Ain’t nobody certain you was ever here.” She peels off Massa’s dark-brown jacket, rolling his fat, doughy body from side to side when she do.
“Hazel, please!”
She puts his jacket around my shoulders. “We was all attacked,” she say. “I got to be here to tell ’em.”
“But I cain’t make it without you.”
She pulls open the front door. “Go, Naomi.”
I creep to it, wiping my tears. “Hazel? Please.”
“Go!” she yell.
She grabs the back of my head, kiss my cheek before she push me out the door. I hurry out, looking up to the starless, clouded sky, running through the dark, holding Massa’s jacket high above my head.
“Don’t look back, Naomi. You hear me! Don’t you look back!”
I cain’t breathe.
Maybe Hazel put a mark on the wall for me, too.
4 / FLASH
SOME SAY YOUR life flashes before your eyes when you’re about to die.
It don’t always.
Not for me.
I didn’t have not one flash before I went.
Not everybody gets to see their first birthday again. Their father’s face laughing. The day their sister got married. The friends they’ve loved.
Maybe you won’t neither.
Not before you die.
It’s only now that I see the flashes. They come and go, and choose what day of my life to show me and I ain’t got a say in it. It happens to all of us dead. It’s more than just seeing the moment, it’s taking part in the memory as if it were happening again. And when you in the flash, you don’t even know that what you’re seeing is from a time already gone. You get lost
in it. Feel like you got all the time in the world. A future. But it’s just your old life repeating itself and repeating itself and repeating itself. Those shivers you felt on warm days were just you—in two places at once.
So powerful, these flashes. Ask the dead. Ask the people who survive near death. Ask ’em how the flashes change their whole life from then on.
Or for the empty, it changes nothing.
I guess the most important parts of life ain’t measured by years or days or minutes but by moments. Moments that come in flashes here, only some of ’em good like seeing my sister, Hazel, again. I was seven years old in one of them flashes. Twelve in another. My favorite was the time when Hazel was teaching me how to tumble. And in another, I was six years old and she helped me lose my first tooth with a string and a slammed door.
The hell is the bad memories. Going back again and again and not being able to make a damn bit of difference. But God had mercy on me.
It’s been said that justice is getting what you deserve. And mercy is not getting the bad you deserve. Grace is getting a good thing, even when you don’t deserve it. So if I would’ve named my good thing, I’d have called her Grace. But someone else named her Josephine.
Part II
5 / 1850
Tallassee, Alabama
WHERE DO WE start when we tell the stories of our loved ones? On the day they were born or the day they mattered?
Mattered to other people, I mean, did something worth talking about. I guess I could start with who begot who like the Bible do, but where somebody comes from only matters to people who come from something and as it was, she came from me.
Me, and the men who would become her fathers.
See, my baby’s real father wasn’t the man who loved me. But if wishing could make it so, I’d of traded him for the man I shoulda loved—Charles. I woulda made him the first daddy to her ’cause first means something.
Charles wasn’t the man who got me pregnant.
He wasn’t first to hold my baby with his hands, either, or feel her tiny bones wiggling ’round in a loose bag of see-through skin. It was somebody else who was first to listen to her soft breaths flutter.
Grace Page 3