Malachi was waiting for my answer.
“I like her. Don’t know why you got a problem with her.”
“What I have a problem with is that you ain’t making friends with nobody from our own church. Sister Marlene be hurting right now because Granny just about raised her, and there’s the stuff with her boy that you don’t even care about. She said you told her to send the boy away or he’d get killed.”
“She said that, did she? And when was that? Was Brother Titus— her husband—with y’all when she told you what I said to her?”
“Dee, stop it. I know what you tryin’ to do. Marlene don’t mean nothing to me like that, and of course Titus was there. But I just wish you’d try to make friends with her—or somebody from our church.”
“You know this ain’t about me spending time with Emma. She got nothing to do with this. This is about you wanting me to be more like Sister Marlene. Maybe she can take my place and act like she’s the preacher’s wife then. Maybe that would make you happier.”
“It don’t matter what I say right now, Dee, you are going to fight with me. You could say you’re thirsty, but if I gave you a cup of water, you’d still refuse to drink it. You can’t see nothing that’s standing right in front of your eyes, woman.”
“You’ve abandoned me, Mal. You just left me alone to grieve for our boy and deal with that girl in there.” I pointed to the house.
“That girl in there?” He also pointed toward the house and leaned toward me at the same time. “That girl in there you’re making out to be a murderer is just a girl—our daughter. You made her into what she is right now. And you so angry at God but you won’t admit it—like out of all these feelings that one is the one you should be ashamed of.”
“You saying some pretty nasty stuff to me, Malachi Evans,” I spat at him. I tried to walk away but he kept me by grabbing my arm.
“Ain’t nobody out there in the world who could’ve saved our baby but Jesus, Dee.”
“Then why?” I yelled without caring who heard me. I yanked my arm from his grasp.
“’Cause it was his time,” he said with tears rolling down his face. “It could’ve happened walking down the street or asleep in his bed. I don’t like saying that, but I can’t see it any other way.”
I wanted to tell him not to preach at me. That he got no right. But he was right and I didn’t have enough inside me to do nothing about it.
I walked away from him. I could tell that even though we’d been a mite away from the house and crowd, enough people could see that we wasn’t happy with each other. I had half a mind to put myself to bed and forget that I had a house full of people—my own people. Did Emma ever feel that way?
I turned myself around and walked back into the woods.
EMMA
A little boy down the bench from me at church pulled a frog from his pocket and I smiled at him. He was still young enough to sit with his mem instead of his dat for church but old enough to be scolded for bringing the frog. His bottom lip pushed out and he put it back in his pocket. His mem administered a quick pinch to his arm.
The ache for my own son washed over me.
A pinch or a scolding wouldn’t mend or fix anything anymore. I had failed Johnny. The guilt was no longer heavy only in my chest but had moved to every joint of my weak body. It was palpable on the surface of my skin. It was everywhere. I had become my sin.
This was all thought of during our second week holding church. Each family took two church weeks in a row, which had a week of no services in between. Sparrow had helped me make pies a few days ago and had asked questions about our services and the Singings. I asked if she’d been the one in the woods the other Sunday, but she didn’t answer.
She had been quieter than normal and moved slowly. I didn’t ask why though.
I could see John from where I sat. He chewed on a peppermint leaf and kept his gaze on Bishop Atlee Hostetler. When John’s gaze wandered and found me, it was short and pained. I knew he felt what I did. Guilt that was greater than our graces.
Johnny held it within himself as well. As much as he had defended me to John, he avoided me as well. Was it shame? His shame of me and knowing I was not without sin.
Even while I washed the first set of the dishes where I could see Johnny’s group of friends through the kitchen window, I thought on these things. They looked like young boys when they were all together like that. Laughing and joking. But now in the grass and trees I saw my guilt. Even our still-as-glass pond was like an enemy as it fed and nourished all of nature—the very nature I’d used to betray my family.
Behind me many of the men were out on the porch or in the living room talking, and the women were either tending to children or with me, cleaning the kitchen.
“I just wanted you to know that I could spare Linda on Mondays for laundry,” my brother’s wife, Dorothy Byler, said as she grabbed a towel to dry dishes. Dorothy and I had gone through our rumspringa together, but we had never been close. “Betty and Joyce told me you were looking for help. You’re not well?”
The way she said it made me cringe. That sounded as if either I was sick or she suspected I was so—that a baby was on the way. Of course, neither was true and I didn’t need help with the laundry. I needed Sparrow. Saying it in my mind brought a charge through my body like when a lightbulb blew in a flashlight.
“Oh, ich muss net helve. But that is kind of you to offer.” I would have to come up with a reason why I didn’t need help now but had just told the Mast sisters that Sparrow helped me.
“Dahn du bish net so?” She gestured to her own belly.
No. I wasn’t so. I was not expecting anything but the boon of guilt.
I shook my head.
“Du bish krank?”
“I’m not sick,” I told her but didn’t meet her eyes.
“Then why do you need help? There are only three of you.”
“I don’t need help.” I was not one to debate or contradict others. I kept to myself. I spoke quietly or not at all.
Dorothy tilted her head at me and then looked past me.
“Betty, didn’t you say that Emma needed help with laundry and had been getting that Negro girl to help?” This was why Dorothy and I were not close. She meddled and was persistent about it.
Betty stuffed half a cinnamon roll in her mouth with her head bobbing up and down. With her mouth still full she said, “Sure enough.”
“She had a funny name. It was a bird,” Joyce yelled over to us.
I wanted to squeeze my eyes shut and get away, but if I did I would draw even more attention to myself.
“It was Dove,” Betty said. “No, it wasn’t. What was it?”
“It wasn’t Robin,” Joyce offered.
“Was it Blue Jay?” someone else said, chuckling. “Or Starling?”
Several of the women added their laughter.
“Emma?” Dorothy said.
“Sparrow,” I said no louder than a whisper.
Several women said how unusual that was and how they would never give their girls such a strange name. And all I could think was if I had gotten the chance, I would name my daughters ones they would laugh about over the dime-a-dozen Sarahs, Ruths, or Barbaras.
“Her mem had an even worse name. Didn’t she, Emma?” Joyce called over to me.
I found myself wishing that some sickness would overtake me so I could leave the room.
“Vas was deh mem sah nameh?” Another woman asked what the mom’s name was. All the women looked at me with such anticipation.
“Delilah.” The whites of Betty’s eyes shone, suggesting shamefulness.
Several ladies gasped and giggled and talked it over and questioned who would do that because of the biblical reference to the woman of the same name.
I pulled over a stack of dirty plates to be washed, trying to refocus myself. They weren’t mean people and I’d thought Delilah was an unusual name just like they did, so I understood the surprise. I hadn’t laughed over it though. I
didn’t laugh at much. Why did different cause such a reaction? If not laughter then judgment, and if not judgment then fear. Shouldn’t it cause us to seek something more valuable, like understanding? But fear and judgment were easier.
“So, this Sparrow.” Dorothy got close. “She’s the one who helps you on Mondays?”
“Just recently, yes.” I poured myself a cup of coffee and leaned against the kitchen countertop. Dorothy did the same.
“But you don’t need the help?” Dorothy shook her head.
“She likes to help.” I thought it was the best answer.
“Oh,” she said with a sour expression. “Is she simple? She doesn’t know you don’t want her to come?”
“No, she’s not simple. She’s a nice girl and likes to help me. She’s good company.”
“And her mem comes over too? I don’t know any Negro people. I thought they kept to their own—like we do.”
Dorothy was simply being honest. Our district was small and we helped one another and didn’t do much with the English community of Sinking Creek or the surrounding towns. We didn’t leave town much.
“They live like we do but they have electricity,” I said.
“You’ve been to this girl’s house?”
“I wanted to welcome them. They have four children and her husband is a preacher. They garden and eat meals together and work hard. They aren’t so different from us.”
“Really?” Dorothy raised her brows. “But you don’t want Linda to come help? Then you could tell the Negro girl she didn’t need to come. Shouldn’t she go help someone in her own church?”
“I won’t need Linda’s help,” I said, then left saying I had something to check on. Though I didn’t.
Because there was no place to go, not even my bedroom where several babies slept on my bed, I walked toward the woods. I walked to where my baby lay asleep, beneath the blanket of grass, but found Delilah sitting near the creek before I got there.
“Kinda nice being out in the middle of all this.” She gestured around her.
I walked a few more paces in the quiet. “I know.”
She nodded and sniffed. “The trees. The birds. This creek even.”
“It’s peaceful, isn’t it?” I walked closer. “Why are you here?” I knew there was a reason.
“Just needed to get away.”
“Me too.”
I sat down and we were quiet together for several minutes.
“An old lady from our church died yesterday. It just brings up stuff I don’t want to think on. Funeral’s tomorrow but I won’t go to it.”
“I understand.”
She looked up at me and the glassiness in our eyes was the same.
“I know you do, and I think you might be the only one.”
DELILAH
The late-July weather was warm but nothing like the red-hot days back home. I still got to fan myself as I sat listening to Malachi preach. His face was glistening with sweat—that would happen on the coldest day, though, when he was preaching Jesus. George wiggled next to me and I patted his knee and then gave him the little plastic farm animals from my bag. Harriet was sitting where Granny used to sit. All the little girls her age were. They used to sit with her every week because Granny Winnie just loved them and she always had a hard candy for them. Mallie had his eyes glued on his daddy.
“We’ve talked about prayer this morning. We’ve talked about the endurance it takes to move forward in our lives. We know that the apostle Paul encouraged the early church to turn away from what was behind and move toward what was ahead.”
He paused and made a show of looking up in the sunlight shining through the old, cracked-up stained glass window above the door.
“What does that look like?” He held his Bible up over his head. “This right here, brothers and sisters.” He took his time to trace his gaze over all of us sitting there, like he making sure we’re listening. “Brother Titus and Sister Marlene know about the power of prayer, don’t you?”
Brother Titus called out an “amen.” Sister Marlene raised her hand up while she cried a little. And I started thinking that she better be crying. Because of her boy’s mess, some other of our boys went into Mr. Coleman’s grocery and knocked over a bunch of his canned goods, denting them all up. And pulled the plugs on his refrigerators and a bunch of food was spoiled by morning. There was a big ole mess in that place. Those two young men were arrested fast and now in the county jail. They weren’t so big now, were they?
If they’d taken to Reverend King’s message about the bus boycott that hate for hate doesn’t work, then they wouldn’t be in jail and my husband would still have a job. That’s right, Malachi got fired by Mr. Coleman. Malachi didn’t fight none about it but just took it. But now we got to figure out how to keep our stomachs fed and be afraid that he’ll kick us out of our house next.
Malachi went on to recite scripture in that poetic way he was always so good at. I tried to listen. I tried to hear what he was saying. When he said that we were to accept what we’re given and face our challenges in order to move forward—and to do so with the fruits of the Spirit, nothing lacking—I wanted to roll my eyes and scoff. I felt like he was always harping at me to move forward. I ain’t planning to disrespect my son by moving away from my grief. My mind wandered after that. Wandered back to Montgomery and that great big river and that tiny little grave.
Before I realized it Brother Daryl’s deep baritone sang off to my left and everyone was standing and clapping. Malachi had come down from pulpit and was standing at the front of the aisle. He was clapping and his tenor voice was a perfect blend with Brother Daryl. I tried to sway in rhythm with George and Mallie at my side. Sparrow just stood at the end of the pew doing nothing.
In the next moment Mallie left the pew.
“Mallie,” I whispered loudly, “where you going?”
That dear boy turned to me and his face just about glowed. His eyes was big and wise looking, with a face so much like my daddy he should’ve been named after him. But Malachi was the kind of man who deserved a junior.
“I’m going to tell Daddy that I want to be baptized.” Mallie’s smile just about stretched off his face.
I didn’t have nothing to say so he turned away and walked up to his daddy. When he got up there the song was just finishing up, but there was still a collective hum of voices and Marlene was yelling out for the Lord Jesus to help her boy Kenny and Brother Daryl’s loud praying kept up the energy for the next song to come.
And there was my Mallie. Here he was just so proud and I just about want to faint. Then Harriet’s little voice filled the whole sanctuary with her vibrato. Like a bird she trilled in song and I didn’t even know she could sing—well, not like that anyhow. Everybody followed the child.
“Precious Lord, take my hand . . .” were the words she sang when Malachi took Mallie’s hands. My husband leaned forward to hear what our son wanted to tell him. His eyes opened wider in surprise and he pulled Mallie into his arms. My husband’s gaze found mine right away. Like he knew. He might be happy. But I wasn’t. He knew why.
I didn’t think of much else in the next few days than Mallie wanting to be baptized. And then my sister sent me a letter and my nerves just about couldn’t take it. The bus boycott was still happening down south, and my nephews and the young people in our church thought they were so big because they following right along with the Reverend King. It wasn’t that I didn’t want change, but I didn’t want those young people to be hurt or worse. And along with that I got the picture of my sweet baby’s grave site. I looked at it for a small moment. Couldn’t take it in more than that just then.
My thoughts were all jumbled up when I found Emma in the woods bent over a patch of grass like she was tending to it. I still didn’t know how we were friends when we got a whole church full of ladies who looked like us and believed like us that we could be friends with. Of course right now I was thinking she might be harvesting that herb that kept her from getting pregnant a
ll these years.
I wasn’t very quiet in the woods with my walking so she soon saw me. She smiled but it wasn’t that nice, soft one I knew well. It was like she got something to be nervous about. She was holding something behind her back like I don’t know it. Did she think I was stupid?
“You tending to something?” I gestured with my head to the patch of oval grass.
She was quiet for a few long seconds. I didn’t interrupt her thinking. Her shoulders settled and she looked back at me.
“This is where I buried my daughter.” She brought out from behind her a handful of them pretty white flowers and bent over the spot. She laid them flowers down with some kind of reverence by the big old rock that sat at the top of the little space.
“I see.” I understood, but I couldn’t help but judge a little. She ain’t never knew her baby and was still grieving after her. I knew mine for four years. Wasn’t my grief worse? I felt like a bad person for even thinking that since grief ain’t measured like that. Was this her grieving over all the babies she didn’t have because of what she done for so long?
I looked around and found a few of them pretty purple lupines and pulled a few. I squatted next to her and put them down too. She looked up at me when I did and I smiled at her.
“It something we can still do for our babies,” I said. “Give them a nice resting place.”
In a minute we was both sitting on our backsides on the forest ground. Just being there together.
“But you’re so far away. Doesn’t that hurt?”
She just came out with these questions that I don’t want to answer. But ain’t nobody else bothering to ask me, so I supposed it was all right that Emma did.
“My sister Deborah said she’s making sure Carver’s grave looks nice.” I cleared my throat. I don’t feel like crying today. But, of course, I got my own grave I carried around with me almost everywhere I went. “You know what I got though?”
The Solace of Water Page 23