Sycorax's Daughters

by Kinitra Brooks, PhD

  “I wasn’t sure I was really pregnant,” Eve explained. “You know how those pee sticks tells you yes sometimes when they really mean no. ”

  Auntie wasn’t hearing it. “I don’t know nothin’ about pee sticks. Your body ought to been tellin’ you something. Lawd knows you got the experience to know.”

  “Guess I wasn’t sure ‘cause I ain’t been sick,” Eve said weakly with a finger pressed on her quivering lip. “Well, maybe I was just a little queasy…but no puking like before.”

  “Lawd. Lawd.” Chlotilde shook her head in disgust. “Chile, you tryin’ my last nerve. I always said you Durand girls take after your mama. Fertile as the Nile Valley. All a man had to do was look at your mama and she’d be carryin.’ Eight of y’all that lived. Enough babies to give me one and share with others folks.” Arms folded tight to her chest, she sighed. “What now, Baby Girl?”

  Eve didn’t know where the Nile Valley was but she figured it must be somewhere north of Louisiana because she had never heard of it. But she knew Auntie’s question plus the fact that she’d called her ‘Baby Girl’ were good signs. Perhaps the worst of Aun- tie’s anger had passed.

  “I’ve been thinking. Maybe I should take care of this one like the other two,” Eve said, her tone matter of fact. She glued her eyes on the floor so as not to meet Auntie’s gaze head-on. “Prob- lem is—I don’t have the money.”

  “How’d I guess that?” Auntie bellowed.

  “It’s ‘cause I just paid to get my car fixed. And the clinic I went to before gone and moved to Baton Rouge. If I go to Baton Rouge.” Eve sighed. “I’ll need a place to stay plus the clinic fees.” She shifted her focus to gauge Auntie’s reaction. Looking into Auntie’s brown face was like looking at her father, may he rest in peace. A tear left a shiny trail on Eve’s cheek. She wiped her face with the hem of her jersey.

  Chlotilde watched her niece then closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. “So you expectin’ me to give you the money?”

  Eve nodded.

  Chlotilde leaned into her small kitchen counter. “I ain’t got that kinda money to give you. I let you stay here free. You just chippin’ in on the air conditionin’ and food from your two-bit job.”

  “Yes Auntie, and I want you to know I really really appreciate it.”

  “Let me finish. Even if I had the money to give you, I don’t think them folks at the clinic gonna let you have no abortion.” “Why?” Eve asked.

  “Look at you. You’re too far along.”

  Truth be told Eve had wished hard that this pregnancy would just disappear. Disappear on its own, if she ignored it long enough. So for months she did that—ignored that she no longer bled every month. She tolerated the swelling of her breasts, her bed partners liked that part. She denied her expanding waist and pooh-poohed the nausea, but this thing in her belly had a way of not being ignored. Lately, it had started to move. With the other pregnancies, she’d never felt movement, but this one was a true alien invader.

  She could no longer deny her condition. Now she was in a panic. The sooner she could get rid of the thing the better.

  “Chile, just how far along are you?”

  “Not sure,” Eve answered. She was lying again. She felt the bump under her jersey. It seemed to be a good deal bigger than yesterday. Or was that her imagination?

  “I heard there’s some kinda abortion cutoff in this state,” Chlotilde said. “So many weeks or so many months. You better find out.”

  “I’ll just lie when they ask me how many months.”

  “Mmmm.” Chlotilde grimaced. “You must know them doctors gonna look up there for themselves. Or give you some kinda test to figure out how far along you are. I ain’t never been pregnant, but I do know they ain’t just taking your word on it.”

  Eve shrugged. She’d been through it twice before, but some- how the details of the procedures had been wiped from her mind.

  It was a fog, her memory about it as fuzzy as the nights when she drank too much. She did recall that she’d gone into the clinic scared and feeling poorly. When she came out, she was still feeling poorly, but no longer scared ‘cause she knew she’d soon be back to her old self. She was counting on that feeling of relief again.

  “Chile, what are you thinkin’? This ain’t like those other pregnancies. That bump in your belly is a baby. This one’s different. This one’s already got a soul.”

  Eve shrugged. “Don’t seem no different to me. I’m just a little farther along is all. That damn doctor told me likely I couldn’t get pregnant again, ‘cause of scarring.”

  “And fool, you believed him. Well, you sure surprised that doctor and yourself.”

  “So, Auntie, can you help me out?” Eve whined. “Please.”

  Chlotilde took a deep breath. She looked out the kitchen window at the cloudless sky and closed her eyes. To Eve, it seemed like forever before Auntie turned back to answer.

  “Lawd, Eve—I can’t do it this time. Even if I had the money, and even if them doctors tell you they’d do it, I can’t pay for no abortion for a thing that’s got a soul. No it ain’t right. I can’t have killing a chile on my conscience. I gotta draw the line.”

  “But Auntie—”

  “No use begging. I prayed on it and I’ve made up my mind. Begging ain’t gonna make me change it. You best go talk to the baby’s father to see how he’s gonna help you.”

  “It don’t have no father,” Eve said with a pout. “What are you now, the Immaculate Conception?”

  Truth be told —Eve wasn’t sure which of the men she’d been with back in the spring had put her in this way. Most likely it was Bowie Wallace. She’d been with him two or three times, just for kicks, nothing serious. She hadn’t seen him in a good while. He’d stopped coming to Nathan’s Grill, the restaurant where she waitressed four nights a week.

  “Don’t worry Auntie. I won’t want you straining your conscience,” Eve said confident and defiant. “I’ll get the money and take care of it myself.”

  #

  Indeed, Eve had considered all the ways of ending her pregnancy on her own. Some high school girls used the crude method of sticking a wire hanger up there. One girl she knew had almost bled to death. Drinking castor oil or laundry detergent were options.

  Those methods would make her puke her guts out with no guarantee to work. Self-mutilation or poisoning was too scary. She needed to get the money and find a safer, less painful way to get rid of it. With paternity in doubt, she decided to ask Bowie Wallace.

  #

  Bowie worked at the gas station across town. She drove there hoping she’d find him on duty. Instead she found Dirk Pitts, a lanky brother with dark chocolate-colored skin. He was busy stacking a shipment of sodas at the station’s small convenience store. Now, Dirk had a ‘thing’ for Eve, but she was none too interested.

  “Eve, what can I do you for?” Dirk asked. “Is Bowie here today?”

  “Nah, he took off.”

  “Oh—do you know where I can find him?”

  Dirk’s eyes surveyed the ground and his feet shuffled like a restless stallion.

  “Come on Dirk. It’s important, else I wouldn’t ask.” She gave him a sideways glance with her best coy smile.

  “Yeah, but if I tell you, Bowie ain’t gonna like it.”

  She placed a gentle hand on Dirk’s bare bicep. Looking down at her hand, his lips formed a slow smile. “Now Dirk, Bowie and I have business. Important business. I need to find him.”

  “Ugh. Right,” Dirk said with a sheepish grin. “There’s a poker game in Slug’s back room. But don’t say I told you.”

  “Dirk, I owe you,” she said backing away to her car.

  #

  Everybody knew Slug’s, a juke joint about five miles out of town, where the music didn’t start until after nine and went until 3AM. On her way there Eve thought about what she’d say to convince Bowie that he was responsible for her condition.

  She knew for sure who the father of her first baby was
, a high school boy. It had happened in her sophomore year.

  Eve never even told the boy she was pregnant. Her father paid for that abortion. It was all handled before anyone was the wiser. The father of the second one was a family friend, Cole Bertrand. By all rights, he should’ve gone to jail for rape, but her family liked Cole.

  They didn’t wanted to put a black man in a Louisiana jail or deprive his wife and children of a livelihood. Auntie came through with the cash for that abortion. And after, Eve went to live with Auntie so she wouldn’t have to run into Cole again.

  Slug’s was a long dirty-white stucco building, a former garage that had seen better days. It had no signage but everybody knew how to find it and that it was the black folks nightclub. It was late afternoon and Eve found only two men sitting at the bar in the main room. Bluesy music played from the jukebox. The bartender, who everyone called Shadow came from behind the bar to greet her. “Well, if it ain’t Eve Durand. To what do we owe this pleasure? I ain’t seen you around here for a long while.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been working nights at the Grill.”

  Truth be told —lately, she’d been too tired to party on her nights off. The thing growing inside her had sapped her strength.

  “I’m looking for Bowie Wallace. Is he here?”

  Shadow stared at her and fingered his goatee, deciding whether he should tell her the truth.

  “Yeah, he’s in the back room,” he finally said. “They got a game going. You know, folks are serious about their cards. Ain’t nobody gonna want interruptions. If you wait a while, they’ll be taking a break. You can have a drink on the house.”

  But Eve wasn’t of a mood to wait. “I got to talk to him now,” she said brushing past Shadow and whisking through the maroon door into the backroom before Shadow could stop her.

  “Damn!” said Shadow following quickly behind her.

  “Hey, we got a visitor,” said a sandy-haired guy at the round polka table.

  Bowie looked up from his cards and frowned.

  “Sorry fellas, I tried to get her to wait,” Shadow explained.

  Eve’s eyes darted around the faces at the table until they landed on Bowie. “Bowie, we need to talk.”

  “Shit, Bowie, can’t you keep you private stuff, private?” One of the players near where Eve stood called out.

  “Eve, we ain’t got nothing to talk about,” Bowie said focusing on his cards trying unsuccessfully to ignore her presence. “Woman, can’t you see I’m winning here?”

  “Yeah, he’s taking all our money,” the sandy-haired player said. “Bowie, throw in your hand. Go talk to the heifer. Look at that face. You’re in trouble.”

  The group all laughed. Well, except for Bowie.

  Eve stood with her arms at her side and fists clenched. “Talk to me now or I’m gonna say out loud what I came to say.”

  “Ooowee. Player, she’s calling your bluff,” said Amos Renaud who sat slouched and balancing his chair precariously on two legs. Amos was someone Eve knew. In fact they’d had a thing going, some years back. Except for Shadow, Bowie, and Amos, the others were strangers. They must’ve come from out of town especially for the game. In a small town like Zachery everybody knew everybody.

  “Shadow, please take her out of here. I’ll deal with her when we break,” Bowie said.

  “Far as I’m concerned we can break now,” said the sandy-haired guy with the milk complexion. He laid his cards face down on the table and folded his arms.

  “You just want to break cause I’m winning,” Bowie said.

  Eve could hold back no longer. “Deal with me huh! Let’s deal now. I’m pregnant,” she blurted. By her own mouth, her business was now officially ‘in the street.’

  With that pronouncement, there was an uncomfortable silence. But then the room broke out into hoots and heckles. The heckling was aimed at Bowie not Eve. “Ah sukkie, sukkie! Player you hit the jackpot.”

  Stone-faced, Bowie didn’t budge. “It ain’t mine,” he proclaimed. “Sorry, Miss Eve Durand, you got me mixed up with someone else. Maybe one of these dudes.”

  “Hey, keep us out of this,” said another at the table. “Yeah, Brother Bowie, why you draggin’ us into this?”

  “Bowie, you need to go talk to this woman,” Shadow said with a raised eyebrow.

  “Guess I’m out for now,” Bowie said throwing in his cards and gathering his chips. Truth be told—Bowie had been bluffing. Playing a hand with only two nines like it was a full house. A break at that time worked in his favor.

  Eve waited outside. Bowie strode out tanned and brawny. “Sex on a stick,” the other waitresses at the Grill called him. Eve had spent two whole days romping in the sack with him. How many months ago was that? She had to play it like she knew for sure that he was the father. And she wasn’t in the mood for sweet talk, even if he wasn’t the guilty party.

  “Okay, you got me out here. Messed up my winning streak.

  Put all your dirty laundry in the street. So, what do you want, woman?” Bowie said.

  “Hello to you too, Bowie Wallace.”

  “Look Eve, I ain’t admitting that this kid you got going on has anything to do with me. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no way of telling until it’s born and shows my wonderful good looks.”

  “You’re so full of yourself,” she shot back. “And there ain’t going to be no kid to compare looks.” Her face was fierce— determined. “You just gotta take my word for it. That’s all the proof you’re getting.”

  Bowie raised his palms in surrender. “Okay, okay lady. You do what you want. I already got two kids in Baton Rouge and I ain’t looking for another mouth to feed. For sure we got to get that test to see who belongs to who.”

  “Didn’t you hear me?” she barked. “I’m not having it. That’s already decided. What I need is some money to go for the abor- tion.”

  “Settle down. Settle down.” Bowie’s thick lips flattened into a serious frown. He pulled out a small wad of bills, pulled a $100 bill off the top and handed it to her. “Let’s just say this is a contribution to fixing your situation. You lucked out today. I got a little extra since I was winning.”

  “What! You got more there. This little bit might cover a night on the town. It ain’t enough to take care of my problem.”

  “Eve, you’re right about one thing. It is your problem,” Bowie said. He slowly backed away, palms raised, prepared to fend off an attack should she come at him. Then he disappeared into the club.

  Frustrated, Eve pondered her predicament standing in the almost empty parking lot. At least she got $100, she told herself climbing back into her car. But what was she going to do now?

  #

  Eve’s older sister, Becca, lived in a ramshackle house further into the bayou with her five kids and fisherman husband. Eve didn’t visit them that often. She didn’t care much for Becca’s beer drinking husband Alphonse. Once, a drunken Alphonse had grabbed Eve’s butt when her sister was out of the room. Of course, Eve set him straight. Ever since, she found being around him, well—uncomfortable. But she needed to talk to somebody. She hoped that Alphonse would be at work or at least, he’d be sober.

  Her nieces and nephews were out front. Samuel, the snotty- nosed three-year old squatted in the road throwing dirt in the air with his shovel with a passion. Marie, the five-year old, ran to Eve and latched on to her leg with dirty hands. “Auntie Eve, you bring us some candy?”

  “Not this time, child,” Eve said patting Marie’s tangled locks before freeing herself from the child’s grip.

  The oldest, an eight year-old named Dahlia, stood in the shade of the large magnolia, her upper body bent to the right to counter-balance the droopy-diapered 18-month old straddling her left hip.

  So young to have to play the mama, Eve thought. She’d always dreaded the thought of so many children. She’d seen what happened to her mother with a brood of eight. Becca was now in the same trap with five and many more fertile years to go. As for Eve, she would be perfectly ha
ppy to have none. Once this episode was over, she’d consider getting herself fixed.

  “Dahlia, your mama around?” Eve asked.

  Before the child could answer Becca emerged from the house with the fifth child, eight-month old Pierre, secured in the permanent grove on her hip.

  “I thought you might come by,” Becca said. “Auntie called me and told me you were in a bind.”

  “Bind. So that’s what’s she’s calling it,” Eve said sarcastically.

  The sisters half-hugged while Baby Pierre, biscuit in hand, drooled on Eve’s shoulder.

  “This one is sure getting big,” Eve said, not wanting to touch the mess he was making.

  “So what you gonna do?” Becca asked. “Maybe you should have this one.”

  It was the expected answer from Becca, a devout Catholic. “Have it? Then give it away so I could run into it later in life?”

  Eve sighed. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  “There are places out of state. Chances are, you wouldn’t meet your child ever again. Though that would be sad, huh?”

  “Not really.” Eve palmed her baby bump. “No, I want this gone.”

  “I got to tell you, I can’t help you. Alphonse didn’t get paid last week. He’s still working but business has been shaky ever since the oil spill.”

  “Guess I wasn’t looking for any funds from you. Maybe a little sympathy though.” Tears welled in Eve’s eyes. She sniffed to hold back the flood.

  “Hey Sis,” Becca said rubbing Eve’s shoulder. “I understand you gotta do what you gotta do. I never told anyone but I’ll share this with you.” She sighed. “I’ve had an abortion.”

  “Huh, you?” Becca’s revelation brought Eve back from the brink of tears. How could the good Catholic mother do it? She understood why, but then Becca—well it was hard to believe.

  “Yeah, it was right after Samuel. Alphonse was out of work and I already had the three.” Becca’s voice was almost a whisper. She didn’t want Baby Pierre, who was right there in her arms or little Marie who was playing at their feet to hear her confession.