The Solace of Water

by Elizabeth Byler Younts

  I was a little over halfway when I saw her fuzzy black hair sitting near the clearing by the stream. The sun wasn’t all the way up yet but the light shined through the trees, and I looked up and breathed a thank-you to God. She was humming something I didn’t know and rocking front to back in rhythm. She didn’t hear me come closer even though I was breathing heavy.

  “What you doing, girl?”

  I thought I’d see my girl turn toward me but she didn’t. She looked up at me with what looked like two round, hollow circles in her head and then looked back toward the water. I didn’t even recognize what I was seeing.

  “Sparrow.” Was more breath in her name than sound.

  She didn’t look at all this time.

  I took a few steps closer and her whole body came into view. The skirt of her green dress was pulled up to the middle of her thighs. Her legs were sticking straight out, her feet bare. She was holding something in her hand and still rocking a little, but the humming was only in spurts, and snatches of it seemed a mite familiar. I walked closer and stood almost in front of her.

  My scream didn’t echo so much as it just shot right up through that sunlight beam. My whole body was shaking and I didn’t know what I was looking at. Her legs were a mixture of brown and red. She got blood all over herself.

  Blood.

  I kneeled down and starting rubbing her legs with my skirt. “How did this happen?” I said between panicked breaths.

  She didn’t look at me but handed me a piece of amber glass. Sharp enough to cut but too thick to go deep. I grabbed it from her hand and threw it in the water. I scooted toward the stream and cupped water in my hands and washed it over her legs.

  She still don’t do nothing. She don’t talk. She don’t wince. She don’t move. She don’t even act like the cuts hurt. It’s like she wasn’t there no more.

  I kept cleaning her legs and found cuts all over the tops of her thighs. None of them were awful deep, but there were a whole bunch of them and they didn’t stop bleeding. I didn’t know if I felt disgust or fear. Why would she do such a thing? Was she possessed by a demon, because no one in their right mind does stuff like this, right?

  “Sparrow.” I slapped her face. Not hard but hard enough to get her attention. She didn’t move. My stomach moved up and down like it wanted to come right on out of me but I wouldn’t let it. Maybe it was my own demon.

  I grabbed her by the hair knot on the back of her head and yanked with a strength I didn’t know I got. I flipped her forward toward the stream and stuck her face in it hard. The water rushed past her face and rushed over her hair and my hand. It was cold. After a few seconds I pulled her up.

  She was breathing hard and her eyes were alive and her nose was bleeding now. I pushed her down too hard. But I got her knowing and hearing me now. But for how long?

  I pulled her up. She seemed weak and hung on to my arms. She was dripping and breathing in gasps and her nostrils were flaring.

  “What you done to yourself, Sparrow?”

  She wasn’t answering me. But she wasn’t blank no more. I got this feeling that she been doing this for a while and I hadn’t paid no attention. The blood on the bedsheets—yes.

  I unbuttoned her dress and she didn’t even try to stop me. I looked her body over. She was wearing a bra, but I saw on her shoulders and chest some slips of lightness, like scars that were still healing. I touched them. There was a ripple of skin. “You done that?”

  She nodded. Her breathing was more normal now but her nose was bleeding still, and it was dripping down her mouth and onto both of us.

  “With what?”

  She pointed to some weeds on the other side of the stream.

  “Weeds?”

  “Nettles.” Her high-pitched voice was raspy and hurt my ears to hear.

  I remembered Emma talking about nettles and that you couldn’t touch them without burning your skin.

  Around her waist were more blister scars from the nettles. I lifted her skirt and her underwear was blood red and not from her monthly. She got a whole lineup of cuts still bleeding down the side of her legs and some rows of little marks. Just like the tally marks on the tree—counts of five. They were scabbed over and puffy.

  “What you done to yourself?” I let go of her dress and stood.

  She didn’t bother closing her dress but just stared at me. Both our chests rose and fell hard and we didn’t sound like ourselves. I didn’t even feel like myself. Just like when Carver died and I saw his little body lying there all wet. I just thought I got to be somebody else because Delilah Evans did not have a dead child.

  Delilah Evans did not have a child who cut herself like this.

  But she did. I did. I fell onto my knees. I couldn’t hold myself up no more. I got no bones inside me—I was just filled up with grief. It took up all my spaces.

  Then Sparrow ran.

  EMMA

  The morning sunlight hadn’t even crept through my windows when I heard the banging on my door. I sat up with a quick exhale. John was asleep and wasn’t roused in the least by the sound. My senses were at the very surface of my body and I took in everything fast, like how the room was filled with the scent of sweat and humidity. My husband’s breath was even and calm. It had been so erratic lately because he decided to stop drinking. He needed my help but I didn’t want to give it. The taste of guilt never left my mouth now.

  The knock was louder the second time I heard it and I got out of bed—being careful of my burned hands. The knock came a third time before I made it to the front door. Anyone showing up at my house so early made my nerves tense.

  I opened the door to find Sparrow on my porch. Something was wrong. She looked as if she’d been attacked—her legs and face were bloody and her dress hung open. Deedee came a moment later, shaking and breathless. Her dress was bloody also.

  I glanced up the stairs. No John. I closed the door without a click and joined them on the porch. I didn’t want John or Johnny to wake. Whatever was happening, I had to deal with it on my own. Even though it was warm I wrapped my arms around myself, holding my nightgown closer to my body.

  I looked between mother and daughter, startled at what I saw. Deedee was on the ground in front of the porch steps staring up at me. Her chest rising and falling deeply. Her face grimaced in pain but not because she had been running. I knew the expression too well and it ran deeper than anything physical. Sparrow was on the porch several paces away and breathing so loudly that each exhale made a sound.

  I looked back at Deedee. “What happened?”

  “She ran here, Emma. I tried to catch her before she woke you,” Deedee said. “I don’t know what come over her. What happened to your hands?”

  I looked down at the strips of cloth I had wrapped around my burned hands but didn’t answer Deedee. “Sparrow?”

  “He drowned, Ms. Emma,” Sparrow yelled, ragged.

  “What? Who?” I looked past Sparrow and saw Deedee crumble and hold on to the porch rail to keep from falling.

  “Carver! Carver drowned in the river. While I was kissing a boy my baby brother was drowning down the Alabama River. It was my fault. Mama blames me and she hates me for it.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Deedee couldn’t meet my gaze. She just looked down at the ground, shuddering with sobs. Carver had drowned. I couldn’t think of a more terrible way to know how your child died.

  “Why are you telling me this?” I didn’t know why I asked this, but I knew Deedee didn’t want me to know or she would’ve told me. I didn’t know why telling me made a difference.

  “Because I can’t live at home no more,” Sparrow yelled. “Please, Ms. Emma. I know I’m not white and can’t be your daughter. But maybe I could work for you. Maybe I could live in the barn or the basement. I don’t care. I won’t make no fuss. I can do your laundry and your ironing and your darning.”

  “Sparrow.” I wanted to fold her into my arms. I wanted to fold Deedee into the same hold. There was nothing I could say that wou
ld make this right.

  “Mama and Daddy moved here to start over but I didn’t get no fresh start. I need to move someplace else now. Emma, can I?” She begged like she believed and meant every word she said. “Mama wishes I drowned instead of Carver.”

  Then Deedee fell onto her knees. I squeezed Sparrow’s shoulder but had to move past her on my way to Deedee. I would help her up. Bring her inside and give her hot honeyed peppermint tea. It wasn’t that I was choosing to comfort Deedee over Sparrow, but I knew she would never ask for my help as Sparrow would. And maybe not accept it either.

  When I got to the bottom of the porch, I knelt by Deedee and put an arm around her shoulders and helped her up. She let me.

  That’s when I heard a buggy pass by the house. When a second went by, I paused. Then the third came, but instead of moving on, it turned into the gravel driveway.

  I pulled Deedee up the porch steps and waved at Sparrow to go inside. I didn’t know who had driven in and I didn’t want to have to explain something I didn’t understand myself—why had Sparrow brought her confession now?

  I sat Deedee on the kitchen chair and she looked at me with a sorrow I didn’t know was possible. I wanted to stay inside. But I couldn’t. In a few moments I stood outside on the porch again wishing I’d grabbed my robe. Whoever was here was not someone I’d want to see me in my nightgown.

  After a few moments I saw that it was Mervin Mast driving the buggy. Why was he here? Deedee and Sparrow were sitting in my kitchen and at any moment John and Johnny could wake up and wonder the same. I turned around but couldn’t think of a fast solution, so I turned back to face the preacher as he climbed out of the buggy. It looked like his daughter Dinah sat in the passenger side.

  Mervin walked around to the back of the buggy and opened the door. Dinah came out the other side and went to the back of the buggy with her dat. I just stood there. Then Mervin shuffled around the side of the buggy with Johnny’s arm hanging loosely around him.

  “Johnny.” I ran to him. Even though I touched him—his arm that hung at his side, his chest, his face—I knew right away what was the matter. There was no wound for me to mend. There was drunkenness. I knew it well. “Bring him over here.”

  I took the other side of Johnny and helped him up the stairs and onto the porch swing. He moaned now and again but didn’t say anything. Dinah followed soundlessly. She was dressed, but her eyes were red rimmed and her face blotchy, as if she’d been crying.

  The veil between the church and our sin was as thin as the nightgown I wore. My breath was caught in my lungs and I just stared at my son until Mervin spoke.

  “Do you want to get John?”

  “He’s not well,” I said too fast.

  His expression slipped—like he knew something. He looked at his daughter, then back at me when he spoke. “Dinah, sis nah zeit.” He told her that it was time.

  I jerked my gaze toward her and imagined that my eyes were too big to stay in my face. I could hear my breathing. Johnny’s moaning. And I had two Negro neighbors in the house. And upstairs my sleeping husband was ill from being too sober. My knees weakened.

  Mervin grabbed me and helped me to the rocking chair. I sat at the edge and tried to catch my breath.

  “Johnny, Danny, and your neighbor boy,” Dinah started, then looked at her dat. He gestured for her to continue. She did with tears in her eyes. “They’ve been making plans to run away.”

  My hand stifled my gasp and she paused. Her dat nudged her to continue.

  “Arnold crashed his truck and Johnny got awful mad. He beat up Arnold pretty good, and then they both started drinking again. Danny didn’t know what to do so he dropped off Arnold at his house but brought Johnny to my barn. I was the only one who knew what they were planning.”

  A commotion erupted in the house.

  “Vas ist en auh geh?” John came outside asking what was going on. It was easy to see he was filled with confusion as Sparrow and Deedee followed him. Sparrow’s gaze was on her feet. Deedee looked like she might faint and her face shook with weeping and fear. My heart was beating so fast it felt like it was in my throat and my ears felt drowned with the sound of it.

  “John,” I said, then looked at Mervin. I couldn’t think of anything I could say that would distract from how unusual this was. “These are my neighbors—they were in need this morning.”

  “Now, listen,” Mervin began saying in English for Sparrow and Deedee’s benefit. “I’m not sure about everything that’s going on here, but Dinah didn’t know what to do with Johnny so she came and got me. I brought him home so we could figure this all out together.”

  There was a pause so heavy and great that I didn’t have the strength to lift it with a response.

  “John, you have to get ahold of your family.” Mervin meant well when he said this, but I winced. “You have a son who is out of control and you could’ve lost him overnight. He and Danny were in the truck when Arnold crashed it into the church in town.”

  Deedee gasped, but when I looked at her she pursed her lips like she had a lot to say but didn’t.

  Mervin opened his mouth to talk again when Johnny spoke. “I kissed her.” He had sat up without anyone realizing. He looked angry.

  I looked at Dinah, who had stopped crying but looked as shocked as all of us.

  “What?” I said, not understanding.

  “I kissed her,” he said, pointing at Sparrow. Then he looked at Mervin. “My dat’s a drunk. That’s why I wanted to run away.”

  I knew my tongue was in my mouth, but it was dry and dusty and I couldn’t speak. He’d kissed Sparrow and confessed John’s drunkenness to our preacher. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t speak. No one was speaking, but it wasn’t silent.

  John stuttered something about Johnny not being in his right mind.

  Deedee looked at Sparrow, but Sparrow’s and Johnny’s eyes were locked on each other.

  Dinah started crying again and ran to the buggy.

  “Is this true?” Deedee gripped one of Sparrow’s arms and shook it hard. “And don’t you lie to me, girl.”

  Sparrow looked away from Johnny to me and then down at her feet.

  Deedee pulled Sparrow by the arm toward the porch stairs. She got to the bottom and turned toward me. “Emma, you best get your son in control and keep him away from my daughter. And don’t you lie to your preacher and tell him that Johnny ain’t telling the truth about your drunkard husband.” She turned her eyes on John. “A young man in my church is being blamed for your son’s foolishness. You better go to the police and make sure they know the truth. You’re getting one of our young men in a whole heap o’ trouble over that wreck. You hear me?”

  Johnny started groaning and mumbling repeated words, but I was distracted by John’s agitation. I was sure he’d never been spoken to like that. Deedee half dragged Sparrow across my yard and toward the woods. I hadn’t had a moment to take in the things Sparrow confessed this morning and the burden that weighed heavy on Deedee, and now they were gone. But I had another set of problems in front of me.

  “Mervin, the boy is drunk. Glaup ein neht.” Of course John was telling Mervin not to believe Johnny. My husband would rather have anyone believe that our son was the drunk and liar in the family. “And that Negro frau doesn’t know me or anything about my family. You can’t believe a word she says.”

  Johnny suddenly rushed to the side of the porch and vomited over the railing. After several heaves he lay down on the floorboards and groaned.

  “I’m so sorry, Mervin,” was all I could say. I was sorry that my son was rebellious and drunk and had destroyed the church in town and hurt his daughter.

  “Who was that lady and the girl?” Mervin asked, still confused.

  “Neighbors.” My head gestured toward the woods. I knew he wanted more information than that, but that was all I would say. “The preacher’s family on the other side of our woods.”

  “What do you know about them? What about this girl and Johnny?” His
voice was calm but firm. He wasn’t looking for a conversation but for answers.

  I knew enough about them and they knew everything about me, but I could find nothing I was willing to say to him.

  “I don’t know why they were here this morning.” I looked up at Mervin and then at John. I knew that didn’t answer Mervin’s question. “I know they needed help. They know I will help them.”

  “And what Johnny said about the girl?” Mervin asked.

  I shook my head and my eyes burned. “I don’t know.” I exhaled. “Johnny?”

  He didn’t move.

  “Johnny,” I yelled, and the rasp in my voice scratched my throat. “Answer me.”

  “You don’t want the truth. None of you do.” Johnny’s words weren’t so slurred anymore. He was coming back to himself. He wouldn’t be able to take back the words he’d thrown out into our morning.

  “And what about the other things he said?” Mervin looked at me for a response, not John.

  But I could not speak. It was like some unseen demon was holding down my tongue. Was it because I couldn’t be honest anymore? Was it because I loved my husband so much that I didn’t want to see his ruination? Sadly, that was not true. It would be our undoing. I was protecting myself along with him. But hadn’t he asked for my forgiveness and I withheld it from him?

  I could not forgive him.

  I wanted him to suffer. I should tell Mervin everything.

  “Tell him, Emma.” John looked at me and my skin prickled. Then he added, “Since it looks like Mervin here wants to hear it from you and not me.”

  Was he angry or scared? Both?

  I looked down at my hands and what he’d done to me. I looked at my husband. Somewhere far deep into what was left of my heart I loved John. He’d hurt me and destroyed our marriage, but what I’d vowed to him was wound around us tighter than the bandages around my burned hands.

  “Johnny’s drunk.” I didn’t lie. But I wasn’t honest. “I don’t know what he means by everything else. He’s—”

  “Mem.” A storm brewed in his voice. “Esch sahk ein.”