by LOTT, BRET
Annie was hitting Burton’s leg with her free hand, the other still holding on to the blanket. The boys were leaning over, poking a finger in her hair, another in her ribs, another under her chin, them laughing at each twist away their baby sister made, her giving only halfhearted squeals, enjoying the attention. It’s what children did together, I’d realized only after James and Billie Jean’d been at each other’s throat their first five years or so. A game, see who could poke who the most until one or the other cried, got Momma mad.
But I wasn’t going that way this morning, not even after the age I’d seen in Leston’s shoulders earlier, not even after knowing there’d be another whole stretch of time in my life when another child would fall party to this game of attention and tears.
Annie, as always, broke first, finally gave up slapping at Burton’s leg.
She backed up a foot or so from the boys, and sat down on the floor.
Her eyes were closed, tears spouting out now, her mouth open in a loud cry.
In walked Billie Jean, still in her nightshirt and socks, one hand scratching at her head, a creased and wrinkled Photoplay in the other hand. She stopped in the middle of the kitchen, yawned, then opened her eyes, and said just loud enough to where she knew I’d have to make remark, “Why can’t a woman get enough sleep in this place? ” She put her hands on her hips, gave a look as grown-up and hard as she could muster at her brothers and sister.
“Momma, we didn’t make her cry, ” Burton hollered, and Wilman put in, “Momma, she did it herself.”
Annie still cried.
But all I could see my way to doing was to stand there at the stove cross my arms, and smile. The bellyaching and crying still went on, even Billie Jean looking up at me, saying, “Well? Why can’t a woman?
” They all wanted me to break, I knew, they all wanted in their own way nothing more than what they’d lost when the next child had been born, just a hug and a soft word from me. My full and undivided attention, what I knew I would never be able to give any of them again. That was the sorrowful part of being a mother, each of your children had to move up a notch toward some end of childhood with the birth of the next child. And so I wouldn’t get mad at any of them, wouldn’t holler and carry on about getting a switch or holding back the quarter for a movie and popcorn in town Saturday if they didn’t straighten up, all of them.
No, this morning, I would only love them. Soon enough they would know what was coming.
That evening, supper spread across the table in steaming bowls and plates of hot food, we gave thanks, Leston at the head of the table, me next to him. The children, starting with Anne next to me, were seated around the table by age, so that James was sitting next to Leston, all of us holding hands. “Dear Lord, ” Leston said, his voice as low and even and empty of fear as every other night, “hear our prayer, we give You thanks for the many blessings You bestow on us each and every day, and ask that You bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies.
Amen.”
The children let go each other’s hands quick as they could, but Leston still held mine. I looked up at him, saw him smiling at me.
“Almost forgot, ” he said. He closed his eyes, still smiling, and held his empty hand out to James, who looked at me. His face was his father’s, the same spray of freckles Wilman had gotten, the broad forehead and giving eyes the same green as my husband’s. I smiled at him, but it didn’t change the puzzled look he’d taken on, mouth slightly open. He said, “Momma? ” and slowly moved to take his daddy’s hand. My eyes fell to his hand as he placed it in Leston’s, and I saw the calluses and cuts, evidence of the hard work he’d been doing for over a year now at the lumber mill. But even those scars were only pale imitations of the ones Leston’d had for years, his big, red hand now swallowing up James’. And I remembered for a moment James’ soft, white hands when he was a child, remembered my firstborn at my breast, suckling to keep himself alive, drawing deep my milk with the same mighty purpose each one after that’d had.
James’d dropped out of the high school last January when the first men left for the armed services, back when Roosevelt was making the big pleas for all able-bodied men to join up, and many a job needed doing around here went begging. He was only fifteen, but neither Leston nor I minded much his quitting, he’d learned to read and write and figure quicker than any of my children so far, had enough common sense about him to pick his way through whatever this life would give him.
But he and Leston hadn’t spoke much to each other since then, and I knew it was because James’d chosen to take on at Crampton’s, and not follow his father out to the woods, not bore holes into tree stumps with a hand auger, then shove in pieces of dynamite and light fuses, scatter like scared bats. A piece of me was glad for that, too, Toxie’d already lost three fingers on one hand and the hearing in his right ear, this the result of a fuse too short and too fast. James’d chosen instead to head out each morning to the mill, to walk the two and a half miles there and tend saw, shove in boards at one end all day long.
I knew the reason they didn’t speak other than to ask for the salt or comment upon the weather, though, had more to do with Leston than James.
Something in Leston made him want the family with him, wanted his sons to be there to take up what he’d grown to consider a firm income, an honest trade. Many’s the night we would . lie awake and dream out loud for what we wanted, and though my own desires had more to do with seeing my children grow up with their parents alive and well, loving brothers and sisters surrounding them just those things I never had Leston’s was always about his own company, run by him and his boys. He imagined them all in old age, marching into the woods each morning, a battalion of niggers behind them, until every stubborn stump of heart pine’d been boiled down in Pascagoula. To him, James’d already abandoned the family, though I knew that for James, Crampton’s was only his first chance at trying out himself on the world. “Momma? ” James said, still looking at me. “What’s this about? ” At least the two of them were still holding hands, I thought, this time of prayer what we had left to unite us. I whispered, “Just let’s pray.”
I smiled at him, gave a small shrug. Leston’s head was already bowed, waiting for us all.
The children were looking at me, and I reached to Annie’s hand, took it in mine, her hand bigger than even this morning, her growing up with every second that went through us all. I bowed my head, knew the children would follow.
Leston said, “Dear Lord, please make certain to take care of the new life in Momma. Amen.”
When I opened my eyes, every one of my family was watching me, all except Annie, who reached a hand to her plate for a piece of honey cornbread.
Now it was over. They all knew, and we’d begin the accommodations each had to make from here on out. Annie would be the hardest hit, I knew, her not looking at me was sign enough she didn’t yet know what any of this meant.
Billie Jean was first to speak. “What will I tell all my friends at school? ” she said, on her face some kind of pure horror, eyebrows twisted into each other, mouth fallen open. Her hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail, and she had on one of Leston’s old shirts, the sleeves cuffed up to her elbows. She held a fork in one hand, her knife in the other, forearms resting on the table. “What am I supposed to say? Am I supposed to just say, Hey, y’all, my momma’s having yet another baby’? ” “Yes, you are, ” Leston said. “And you listen to how you’re talking to us. You listen.” He’d leveled his eyes at her.
That would be his last words to her about the whole matter, I knew.
Billie Jean closed her eyes, nodded. “Yes sir, ” she managed to get out.
She held them closed longer than need be, just to make to us some kind of point, one lost on Leston, who looked down to his plate, forked up collards.
“A baby? ” Annie said, looking up at me. She’d already eaten half the slab of cornbread she’d been given, the crumbs dusting her chin and hands. Nye-nye, like at every meal, was d
raped across the back of her chair, a thin and forlorn comfort, though Annie couldn’t see it unless she turned all the way around in her seat.
“Another baby, ” Burton said. “A baby, a baby. There’s too many of them here already, ” and he turned to Wilman, gave a push at his shoulder.
Wilman said, “You’re the only baby, the only burrhead pickaninny around here I know of, ” and pushed Burton just as hard, the two of them suddenly arms and hands.
“Wilman, ” Leston said. “Burton.” They stopped quick as they’d started, and seemed to draw down on themselves, the threat of Leston’s belt across their bottoms unspoken in this household, but always present.
He’d done it enough, just stood up from the table and carted them out the house to behind the repair shed, where off would come his belt. A few minutes later there they’d march, the three of them in a line headed back toward the house, Wilman first, Burton next, the two of them with red eyes and wet cheeks and not making a sound, Leston behind them and rebuckling the belt.
My heart broke each time that went on, but there wasn’t much I could do.
Once, a little over a year ago, he’d taken Billie Jean back there for painting on thick, red lipstick she’d been given by a friend at school.
I’d followed them out, certain I wouldn’t interfere. Leston was the daddy, the one whose job this was, but when I’d seen her bend over with her hands at her knees, Leston with his arm raised, belt in hand, I’d let out a small cry, sound enough to give him cause to stop, glance at me.
“Go on inside, ” he’d said, his mouth barely opening with the words.
I’d had to turn, give up to him my child, my first girl, and head back to the house. I’d never struck any of them, always in my head the clear and polished picture of Missy Cook slapping my momma for no reason at all. The punishment was up to Leston, and I was glad for it.
The boys started in on dinner as though nothing happened, the moment of Leston’s silent warning and the news they’d have another child to terrorize either lost on them or of no matter. I wasn’t sure how hard Burton and Wilman’d fall when the next one finally came on. They were too close together, but maybe that was better for them, they had each other, and if they chose to kill each other or to be best friends both of which they were willing to do at any moment of a day at least they’d have their own company.
No, it was Annie, my baby Annie, I was worried most about. She was still looking up at me, only nibbled at the cornbread now, more crumbs than bread into her mouth. She held the bread with both hands, then let go with one, slowly reached above her shoulder and behind her, took hold of the blanket on the back of the chair, her eyes still on me.
She blinked.
I leaned toward her, brought my face down close to hers. I whispered, “Now don’t you go to worrying, Annie. You’re my baby girl. You know that.” I swallowed, the hurt of the possible lie I was about to tell her thick in my throat, the memory of my momma dying pushed too close to me so that I thought I might never breathe again, not after giving to her the same comfort I’d had to give each child when they found out they wouldn’t be the ceriter of my world anymore, “Momma will always be here, ” I said. “Just you don’t worry about me not ever taking care of you.” I reached a hand to her face, traced the perfect curve of her cheek, touched a finger to her thin eyebrow. “Momma will be here to take good care of you.”
She smiled, slowly pushed a corner of the cornbread in her mouth, took a bite too big to handle. She let go the blanket, and brought that hand to her mouth, covered it while she chewed, her eyes on me the whole time.
I sat back up, a hand still to her shoulder, and saw James staring at me, a smile on his face, too. His hands were flat on the table. He hadn’t touched the ham on his plate, nor the collards or cornbread.
“James? ” I said, and Leston looked at me, then to James. Their eyes met for a long moment before Leston said, “Son? ” “Today is a fine day, ” he said, and looked down at his hands. He closed his eyes, shook his head. Then he looked at me again. “It’s a good day because you’re having a baby.” He paused. “It’s a good day because there’s a new one on the way to take the place of this old one heading out.”
He quick looked from me to Leston to me. “Today’s a fine day because I signed up today. That’s why it’s a fine day.”
Leston turned back to his food. He leaned forward, his forearm on the table, and forked up a piece of ham. He said, “You aren’t old enough.”
Slowly James lost the smile. “I signed up to sign up today, ” he said.
“It’s a new program the enlistment officer downtown let me in on. So when I turn seventeen next month, I’ll be in the Armed Forces.” He smiled again, this time even wider. He lifted one hand a little above the table, slapped it down. “Imagine that.”
But I’d imagined this day all too much already, his news nothing of the surprise he’d figured on it being. Leston and I’d both known a day like this one would be coming, a war we’d taken our sustenance from all along now laying claim to our son like a bad debt we owed.
Billie Jean sighed, let out, “I can’t wait to see you in a uniform.
It’ll be so glamorous, ” and James laughed, shook his head again.
I hadn’t moved, one hand on the small shoulder of my baby Anne, thankful she still had years I couldn’t imagine before she’d be out of this house, and suddenly I saw all my children lined up and waiting for a meal like this one, when each in turn would give up the love and care we had for them to a future no one could count on, and for some reason I thought of Missy Cook dead and gone for near on twenty years, every moment she was alive filled with the bitter taste of a daughter who’d left her for a Choctaw halfbreed. You could take your child’s leaving, I saw, with either hate or love, no matter what doom or good luck they seemed headed for. Only hate or love, there wasn’t any ground between.
I reached a hand across the table to James, held it out for him.
Leston, still with his arm on the table, still not having looked at his son, only took in another bite of ham.
James took my hand, held it tight, his smile only growing. There was no spite here, no malice aimed at his daddy, what I knew Leston believed moved his son to work at a mill instead of for him, and now made him want to join up and fight in a war we made our living from.
Here was only our son, our oldest child.
I said, “God will bless you, ” and I felt my eyes begin to fill. All the children were listening, this moment none of us ready for. Though Leston’s eyes were to his plate and nowhere else, I was still glad for my oldest’s hand in mine, for my youngest next to me, the rest of my children quiet and watching, glad, too, for the baby inside me, already growing.
And just as my eyes brimmed, one smooth warm tear slipping down my cheek, there came a knock at the kitchen door. It was a quick sound, three crisp knocks and nothing else, and I stood, let go James’ hand and smiled down at my children, all of them watching me, mouths open.
Their mother was crying, and I tried for a moment to think of another time I’d cried in front of them. There was nothing I could recall.
I knew the knock, that strange authority Cathe ral’d taken on the older she got, and when I opened the door, there she stood, across her shoulders an ancient and frayed wedding ring quilt against the cold.
Light from the kitchen fell down to her at the bottom of the steps, filled her eyes. She was looking right at me, staring at me. I swallowed, touched the back of one hand to the tear at my eye. I smiled.
“Cathe ral, ” I said, and took a breath.
Her eyes glistened in the light, her mouth closed tight.
I heard a noise behind her, the scrape of boots on hard ground out there. A small orange ember rose up, grew, died down. Nelson was with her, smoking a cigarette some ten or fifteen feet behind her.
“Go on, Cathe ral, ” he whispered, and the night air came into me, and I shivered, the same huge and awful shiver I’d begun my day with w
hen Leston’d pulled back the sheet.
Still she stared at me, this ability of hers to look me in the face for as long as she wished something she’d found, I knew, when she was born again, baptized in the Pearl River when she was-fourteen. She’d found Christ, she’d told me the next day, a little past two years after my momma’d died, Missy Cook trying to hold me by the throat every day of it. Each night after my momma died I’d been the one to turn off my gas light, and I’d taken to playing with Cathe ral as often as I could, even let Missy Cook know I was teaching her to read and write. For these transgressions, Missy Cook’d had Molly take a switch to Cathe ral, had spent three months straight coming into my room at night and turning up the gas, then turning it down again, even had Pastor come to the house each Thursday afternoon for a year, the two of us sitting in the parlor as though he were holding some kind of court. He asked me time and again if I knew disobeying Missy Cook was a sin, and if I knew teaching Cathe ral to read and write was almost nearly as bad. Then he’d go on to ask me how I felt about my momma perishing, and about whether or not I thought she might be in Heaven. Pastor never took his eyes off me, the two of us certain Missy Cook stood just outside the room, listening to all that went on. I never broke, never surrendered to him that I did all of this to give some sort of honor to my momma’s memory, what I thought she’d want me to do.
It wasn’t but a month after Cathe ral’d found Christ that I’d been baptized in the Pearl myself, the same Pastor working on me whatever magic the Holy Spirit had given him to save my soul from the ravages of sin. When I came up from under water, Pastor’s hand at my back and lifting me, I’d expected to see a new world, one somehow clearer and more delightful, leaves on trees brighter, greener, the sky some miraculous shade of blue. Instead, I’d only rubbed my eyes, then opened them to the same trees, their dull green branches heavy with late summer air, the sky a pale and hazy blue, the river itself the same thin wash of brown.