The boy wailed and both of us shook with frenzy. I held him close for another moment before I nudged him back to kneel in front of him.
I inspected the boy and guessed him to be about four. His arms were covered in bee stings. I counted at least a dozen and they were swelling fast. What if his throat swelled shut? I had to do something quickly.
He grabbed and slapped at the welts. His wailing grew louder and his tears washed down his round, plump cheeks. I looked around and spotted what I needed.
“Stay right here,” I said, first in Pennsylvania Dutch out of habit, then in English. I sidestepped the path and found plantain weed. I tore off several leaves, and after curling them I bit into them to release the healing juices. I spread the weeping leaves onto the little boy’s stings and continued to use the poultice until his wailing reduced to sniffling. I’d used the herb many times over the years and was thankful it grew so plentifully in the wild.
“Feeling better?”
He gazed up at me with the biggest brown eyes I’d ever seen and nodded. Then he looked around as if just realizing he was lost in the woods and with a stranger.
“Mama.” He was quiet at first but got louder and louder and began crying again.
When I tried to take his hand to lead him down the trail, he fought me. So I picked him up. He didn’t fight but instead wrapped his arms and legs around me. I started walking in the direction he had come from. My arms and legs ached after a short time—he was a hearty child. How much longer would I walk? Where had he come from?
I knew the land well since the woods had been a womb for me to grow in when my own had rejected my daughter. It had betrayed me. I knew the houses that lined our woods in the direction the boy had walked from, so I continued toward them, but I didn’t know any Negro families who lived in any of them.
The little boy kept calling for his mama through his crying. It had been so long since Johnny was small enough to fit into my arms or would let me comfort him for any reason. “What’s your name?”
He started crying louder so I began to sing. When all the songs that came to mind were in Pennsylvania Dutch, I decided on “Amazing Grace” in English. I soon wore out with the extra exertion and took a break.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” I had to put him down before I dropped him. My arms shook.
He wailed louder and I tried to comfort him. Nothing helped. He was still swollen, but it didn’t seem to affect his breathing, thankfully. I picked him up again but didn’t sing this time. I just walked with a singular focus. To find where he belonged.
After a few minutes I heard voices nearby. I couldn’t see who was yelling or what they were saying, but my instincts pricked me to call out.
“Over here,” I called out, ragged. “He’s over here.”
I kept moving toward the sound of the voices, then I saw a woman in an olive-colored dress with wild eyes running at me. Her brown skin glistened with sweat. Her short black hair curled around her chin. She had the same big brown eyes the little boy had. She had to be his mother.
“George, George,” she yelled over and over as she stretched her arms toward us.
When she reached us she didn’t grab him from me but pulled us both into her arms. The way she held us—all three together—I could almost feel what she felt. The fear of losing her little son. I didn’t know how, but I knew she understood loss.
SPARROW
When I saw the lady’s watery eyes, it was like I was looking back at myself. It wasn’t that she looked like me—she was white—but she got this something in her eyes that I got since Carver been killed. It made me get fidgety and I started to rub the puffy scar on my finger. I got it on the day we buried Carver when I smashed my small mirror against the porcelain sink. I couldn’t stand to see myself in it. Didn’t like the way it felt now neither so I looked away. That’s when I saw the rest of her.
Her clothes was plain—even plainer than Sister Imogen who still dressed in old-fashioned clothes. I didn’t know what to think about the bonnet this white lady wore. I ain’t never seen nobody like her. She reminded me of them Pilgrims from those broken-down schoolbooks the white school gave my colored school.
The white woman’s chin sat just above Mama’s shoulder and our gazes met again. She breathed heavy behind Mama’s corn bread–fed body and her face and lips was whiter than fresh butter-cream. I was embarrassed that Mama just threw her arms around a white woman. A white woman. But the woman didn’t flinch none. It was a sight.
Maybe it was ’cause she gonna faint and she need somebody to hold on to. That’s what I seen grown ladies do when they got a shock. Mama did that when she learned about Carver. I didn’t. After I done told Mama about what happened to Carver, I vomited all my insides in the dirt alley by my house.
I ain’t never told nobody about that. I got rid of the milk, hash browns, and corn bread I’d eaten for breakfast. But it was all colored up with the black licorice Mira and I stole earlier from her brother. I left it all there in that muddy alley right next to my heart that I’d thrown up first. Now I was emptier than that godforsaken church across from our new old house.
Mama’s shriek echoed in my hollow insides. Daddy peeled Mama’s arms from around the white lady. Then the woman stood on her own; she didn’t faint. No one did—yet. Mama knelt with George and checked him all over. Her hands touched his face. His hands. She checked his legs.
She done all those things with Carver too, when he was found, but no matter how much she checked him, it didn’t bring him back.
“What happened, George? Why’d you walk off, son?” she said.
I recognized the voice well. Part relief, part fear, and part stuffed-away anger so she don’t whip the boy for walking off—or me because I wasn’t watching good enough. Again. But it was George and that boy ain’t never been right in his mind. Ain’t his fault he didn’t understand the mess he caused.
While she said that a few times, the white lady said something about bees and chewing on a weed. I couldn’t follow nothing she said because of all the racket Mama was making. But then the white woman took a few steps back. She lost even more color in her face. Didn’t know how. Her hands shook and her eyes darted back and forth between Mama and George, then came back ’round to me.
“I have to go,” she said with a voice filled with breath and air.
“Mama, the lady. She leavin’.”
I didn’t think Mama heard me so I started repeating myself when she stood and smacked my face so hard my jaw cracked.
“Don’t you never, girl, let your eyes leave my son again. You hear me?” Her voice weren’t sweet and tender like when she talked to George. It sounded like half a devil coming out of her.
Mama’s finger was in my face and I wanted to slap it away. But it was my fault. All my fault. First Carver. Now George. But at least George ain’t dead. I saw from a distance that the woman saw the slap and turned away and left faster.
George started yelling, “Mama,” even louder and Mama turned back to him like she got nothing more to say to me. Like she got nothing to hear neither. Not that I’d say a word right now—but I got lots inside. I pushed all my words away, far from the front of my head, and looked down the forest path. The lady just ’bout out of sight.
I didn’t wait to ask or get permission or tell nobody. I just left. Mama didn’t hear the crunch of grass and branches under my feet or when my foot splashed in a puddle that made me want to dry heave the nothing in my belly.
Dirty water on my feet. Water that don’t cleanse—there ain’t no water that worked like the Bible talk about.
The path ahead was clear enough but not well worn, but the woods scared me. I ain’t never seen so many trees. When I got to the first bend in the path, I looked back once and nobody noticed that I ain’t with them. So I kept going. I got to know about this woman. She rescued George. Maybe saved his life. I couldn’t let her walk away. She done what I couldn’t.
She saved my brother and I killed one.
&
nbsp; My hand went to my pocket where I kept Carver’s shell. I folded my hand around it and held it while I walked. We always pressed shells into gravestones to make them pretty, but Mama said she wouldn’t have that for Carver. I knew why, but I done it anyhow. I dropped it back in my pocket.
Why did God choose to save George but not Carver?
It started raining again. The tops of the trees blowed around like ghosts in a graveyard. The sky cried some big drops and made splash marks on my skin. I ran faster.
Not too far down the path I saw a basket on its side. It got some stuff scattered around it—mushrooms and weeds—and a cloth inside. On a hunch I grabbed it—it got to be that woman’s. I’d lost sight of her by now, so I just walked along the main trail that had a creek to the right. It was louder than a snaky little creek seemed like it should be.
Just when I thought I’d gone too far, the path turned to the left and into a clearing. The rain had stopped but the breeze was still warm and wet and there was a smell I knew. Just ahead was a big ole watering hole, a pond, wrapped partway around with tall grass, but there was a dock and a small sandy shore. A little metal boat was floating around.
I smelled my haunts. I smelled that old Alabama River. I smelled something dead.
Seemed like flat land didn’t last long in these parts and a yard rolled up and down on the other side of the pond that led to a nice two-story farmhouse. Nicer than mine. The white siding wasn’t chipped. The porch floor was dark green and so was the door. The porch was big with rocking chairs that looked like a bunch of tree branches bent around each other. And there was a porch swing. Made me think of the porch swings in Montgomery. But they was all that would fit on the porches—one porch swing. We could swing on ours and have a talk with somebody across the road on their swing. Everybody was close.
A woman with a baby in her belly peeled taters on a porch that curved around the front of the house too. Some little kids giggled as they raced up and down the wet porch steps. Another few ran out of the house and started playing horseshoe. They were dressed in the same strange way—like them Pilgrims from our falling-apart schoolbooks.
I was there a whole minute at least before the lady from the woods rushed out of the house. The screen door slapped behind her and she jumped. My white lady’s face was shining with sweat when she snapped the wrinkles from her apron. She fumbled tying it around her tiny waist.
The lady with the taters said something to her, but I just caught mumblings. My white lady, that’s how I saw her now, used a hankie from her waistband to wipe her face up.
As I watched them talk I remembered the basket in my hand. Maybe I just blended in with the grass and woods—maybe that’s why nobody saw me yet. Maybe I should just set the basket down and leave. Before I made a decision a little boy pointed at me. Then both women looked over. It was too late for me to pretend I hadn’t seen them.
Before I knew what I was doing I started walking toward them. “This yours? I thought I’d—”
My white lady was real surprised.
The other white lady just stared at me with her mouth wide open with a tater in her hand, dripping with water. Mama scolded me if I hung my mouth open, catching flies. Fresh rainwater dripped from the eaves and the sound drilled into my ears. I wanted to snuff away the dripping. The wicker basket started digging into my skin and I loosened my grip. All of these things pressed against my insides.
I walked a few steps closer before the woman started coming toward me. A little girl, maybe five years old, ran up to me. She looked up at my face and squinted. Her head tilted. She was sweet looking. Big brown eyes like mine, only her skin be the right color. White as cream.
She spoke some words I didn’t understand. And when I didn’t respond she looked back at the women. The lady from the woods was close now and the other hadn’t moved none. The little girl talked again and the lady on the porch said something to her. Couldn’t understand nothing.
The girl looked at me again, then ran off.
“Thank you.” She had a strange accent. Her face and her hair were just ’bout the same color but weren’t the bright, pretty Hollywood blonde white ladies wore. She reached her hand toward me and I handed her the basket. In our nerves we dropped the basket and the cloth with the weeds inside fell out onto the lawn. I squatted to pick them up and the woman grabbed my hands.
“Don’t,” she said quickly, kneeling down. “They’re nettles. They’ll sting you.”
Why did this white lady care if they stung me? Why was she touching me at all? I stared at the contrast of her milky hand against my darkness. I ain’t never been touched by a white person before. When I spread my fingers to show her that I wouldn’t touch them weeds—whatever she called them—she let go of my wrists. My gaze went to the woman’s hands as we both stood. They was calloused more than Mama’s, more like Grannie’s. Why would this woman want to gather stinging weeds?
“Emma, Emma.” The little girl from before ran back to us. The rest of what she said I didn’t understand, but what she done was not lost to me. Her face, arms, and legs was covered with pond muck. She was trying to be my color.
Emma inhaled loudly. She grabbed the little girl by the arm and spanked her in the direction of the house. The other woman came running and took up the girl real mean like and started her toward the water pump. That water come out so fast and cold and the girl started wailing and carrying on. The child didn’t know she done wrong. I’d have felt bad for her if I still had my heart.
Even without a heart I knew I had to leave right away. I had to run home. Back to Alabama if I could—but that meant back to Carver’s grave. When I turned to leave Emma grabbed my arm, touching me again—on purpose.
“Don’t go. What’s your name?”
I saw that same something in her eyes from before.
“Lemme go.” I exhaled the words. They weren’t loud but I meant them.
When Emma released my arm I lost my balance and fell. My skirt ran up my legs. I pushed it down and got up as fast as I could and got out of there. I ran fast back into them woods and when I was far enough in, I stopped and turned. Emma hadn’t followed me. She hadn’t.
I caught my breath for a moment. When I turned back around I slammed into someone’s chest. I stumbled and grabbed two fistfuls of shirt. Two hands caught around my forearms and kept us both steady.
I looked up and into the eyes of a boy. Maybe a little older than me. Same blue eyes as the woman—Emma, the little girl had called her. White. But he got this dark, wavy hair laying all over his forehead that was different from the greased-up hair white boys wore.
“Whoa, there.” A smile played over his lips and I smelled cigarettes on his breath.
“Where’d she come from?” another boy asked.
I tried to pull away. He looked into my eyes, really looked, before he let me go. That’s when I saw there were four boys altogether. Three of them were dressed real funny with suspenders, plain shirts, and farmer hats. The other white boy was like any other boy ’cept his ears was too big for his dang head.
“Hey, Johnny.” The boy with big ears cackled. “That your new girlfriend?”
“Shut up, stupid,” Johnny yelled over his shoulder.
The other two boys were silent, but their eyes looked so close they just ’bout hurt my skin. I looked back at the one in front of me. Johnny.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
I stepped back and looked over my shoulder. I couldn’t go back that way. I turned to face Johnny. “Lemme pass.” I lifted my chin and promised myself I wouldn’t say please.
When I moved around him off the path, he blocked my way. I had to bite down on my jaw to keep it from quivering.
“I just want to know your name. I’m Johnny.”
I took in a long breath when I heard him introduce hisself. Our eyes locked together for a short spell. I pulled my brows together.
“What you want with that girl—she’s black as mud,” the boy with the ears said. Then he ca
lled me that word that always made me flinch.
Ain’t like I never heard that word, but it don’t feel nice anytime.
“Knock it off, Arnold,” Johnny yelled.
“You been rolling around in a black bog, girl?”
He called me that nasty word a couple more times, like it was made just for him to say.
“Lemme pass,” I repeated with control, just like my mama do when she got madder than mad. I wasn’t gonna let Arnold see I didn’t like that word and moved my eyes far away from him. Ain’t got nothin’ for that boy.
I pushed as hard as I could and he moved easily, like I didn’t have to try so hard. Then I ran. The whole way, though, I got that feeling of Johnny’s hands on me burning through my sleeves onto my arms.
I’d finally felt something.
DELILAH
Sparrow was ghost white when she ran through the front door. The screen door slapped shut and plucked my nerves like a wire. I spun ’round from a kitchen box of pots and pans and my hands found my hips quicker than my words could spit out of my mouth. “Where you been, girl?”
She was faster, though, ’cause my words only met up with her backside as she pounded up them stairs. She didn’t even so much as pause at my question.
I craned my neck and hollered, “Sparrow, you get on down here. Now.”
When after a few moments I didn’t hear her respond, I slammed down a pot onto the kitchen table. It didn’t get dinged up moving here, but I just done it. I heard footsteps traveling down the steps, but I know they ain’t Sparrow’s. They too soft and patient to be that harebrained girl.
It was Malachi. He’d put George down for a nap after all the mess from earlier, then helped Mallie unpack their room. We didn’t have much so it didn’t take much.
“Leave Birdie be, Dee.” Malachi used Sparrow’s pet name. I ain’t used it since Carver.
The Solace of Water Page 4