The Sisterhood of Blackberry Corner

by ANDREA SMITH

  Insects gathered around the dim porch light. The summer heat had finally lifted and a slight breeze blew in from the creek. Bonnie raised her needlepoint canvas closer to her eyes to make out the design. She had detailed the mesh with colored pencil drawings of roses and lilies. After stitching the green border and most of the phrase in the center, she had only to complete the last few words, “evidence of things unseen.”

  Godfrey inched closer to her slippered foot. The old hound lifted his head from the floor of the porch and moaned lightly. Seconds later he slumped to the floor again. Even Godfrey had been depleted by the late August heat. His black and tan coat, which had lost its luster years ago, looked even dryer than usual. Now, like Bonnie, the dog enjoyed the tranquillity of a windswept twilight.

  Bonnie suddenly heard a car down the road a distance away. Godfrey’s eyes snapped open and his head shot up. Bonnie stood on the porch. Naz wouldn’t return from his hunting trip until well after midnight. She looked out but didn’t see a vehicle, and the sound of the car seemed to trail away. Probably someone who had wandered up too far, she thought. Godfrey’s head slumped onto the porch and Bonnie settled back in her chair.

  It was calm tonight. Two months after Naz’s discovery in the creek, not a single story appeared in the news about the girl he’d found. Time had begun to dull the pain and anger in the Three Sisters. Naz and his lodge brothers had set off for their first hunting trip in over two months. The men had suspended all such sporting activities in respect of the child. And for Naz Wilder, or any of the Brethren, to put off hunting especially at the height of White Tail season was unheard of.

  The night had quickly come and Bonnie tucked her needlepoint in the wicker sewing basket. She settled back just in time to catch a breeze. From her front porch, she could look down the road for miles, and now through the tunnel of willows she could see the last of daylight leaving Canaan Creek way off in the distance. Bonnie had always appreciated the remoteness of her home. It had been in her family for over eighty years, having been deeded to her great-great-grandfather, Alton Grayson, by a slave master named Mulcahy. Bonnie gave thanks every night that Alton had had the sense of mind to get everything in writing. More than a few families had lost their houses to the descendants of slave owners. That would never happen to Bonnie Grayson Wilder. This house was more important to her than anything, not only for its historical significance but also for its calm beauty. Large jack oaks spread their branches over the roof, webbing the windows through the morning sun and casting eerily human shadows in the twilight. The pale yellow porch that wrapped around the house like a silk band on a spring hat had been built, Bonnie knew, just for the lady of the house, Edna Mulcahy. On this very porch, Bonnie’s daddy once told her, Edna Mulcahy had kept watch over the slave workers that tended the gardens.

  Bonnie loved remembering the old stories, good and bad, that her father recounted when she was a child. But Daddy Wilbur, rest his soul, was known to enjoy spinning many a tall tale. He had spoken, for instance, about a small jack oak tree—one he called Edna, that, to this day, still stood close to the blackberry bushes spread out at the edge of the woods behind the house. Daddy Wilbur had said that Edna came alive, resembling a wild woman—hair flying every which way, eyes ablaze and skin the same color and texture as her bark. Supposedly, Edna appeared just to gobble up little bad boys (and boys only!) who tarried too long in the woods. Even at eight years old, Bonnie was suspicious of her daddy’s story. It came right on the heels of her being bullied at school by a boy named Joshua Owens who had threatened to follow Bonnie home and beat her up.

  Then there was Daddy Wilbur’s story about the path in the back of the house that went on for miles and stopped at the waters of Canaan Creek. The clearing was said to have started as a footpath and a tiny part of the Underground Railroad. Like with all of Daddy Wilbur’s stories, Bonnie wasn’t quite sure of how true it was. But true or not, this one seemed to be a part of Canaan Creek legend. So much so that a tour company from Charleston had asked Bonnie’s permission to bring a group out on the weekends to see the path. Having one of the oldest homes in the state of South Carolina and also a husband who was a former Negro League player made it a double attraction. But Bonnie and Naz, being the private people they were, declined the offer.

  All at once Bonnie heard a rattling in the bushes just past the porch. Godfrey’s growl quickly turned to a bark as he leapt to his feet and dashed down the steps. Bonnie stood at the top of the stairs, her bare arms wrapped across her chest as she scanned the front yard. She would hate to have to fire the shotgun again, but at least it scared off the wild animals. The one and only time she’d ever taken a shot, a coyote had ventured toward the house. The impact had forced her three feet back and flat on her butt.

  Godfrey’s bark had turned to a howl. Bonnie grabbed a flashlight from the milk bin and stuffed it into her dress pocket, then took the shotgun from inside the screen door. She could hear Godfrey just down the cobblestone walkway and right outside the gate. Bonnie stopped and took a deep breath. She cocked the rifle and aimed out toward the road.

  “Who’s there?” she called.

  No one answered.

  “Best show yo’self,” she commanded.

  “Don’t you shoot me!”

  Bonnie relaxed her aim. “Thora?”

  “And you get on ’way from me, Godfrey,” Thora scolded.

  Bonnie lowered the gun. She clicked on the flashlight. Thora Dean hobbled up the cobblestone walk on white, spike-heeled shoes. She stopped to kick at Godfrey, who circled her legs. “Git gone, ole dawg,” she yelled. “Don’tcha be tearin’ my stockin’s!” Her blue pillbox hat had fallen toward her face, shaking a few hairs loose from a perfect French twist. A white patent-leather pocketbook was slung over one shoulder.

  “What the devil you doing out there?” Bonnie asked.

  “Damn blackberries…” Thora fussed, “…gittin’ all over my new pumps.” She stopped to scrape the berry pulp from her white heel with a tissue. As she bent over, her heavy breasts threatened to pull her to the ground. “And that Horace,” she went on, “say he didn’t wanna make that turn on Blackberry Corner. Tole me it was still light enough to git out and walk the rest of the way.”

  “Well, boo fo’ Horace Dean.” Bonnie hugged her friend tight, enjoying Thora’s favorite scent of fresh gardenias. The woman was a vision in a turquoise dress that cinched her small waist so that it looked even tinier than it was.

  Arm in arm, the two women walked toward the house. “You know Horace headed straight fo’ the lodge,” Thora said.

  “I know he did. But he ain’t gon’ find Naz there. Some of the fellas went hunting this mo’nin’.” Bonnie stopped in the middle of the path to embrace her friend again. “I have missed you, Thora,” she said. “Ain’t had a soul to talk to in weeks…except Tilde and those.”

  “That mean you ain’t had nobody!” Thora replied. “And, girl, I missed you too. ’Specially havin’ to stay all that time wit’ that damn Mama Dean.” Thora took a seat in one of the rockers on the porch and hung her purse from the armrest. Bonnie knew that Thora Dean had just begun to talk. And when Thora Dean got to gabbing, there could be no end to the conversation. “I’m so happy to be back…’cause Lord knows if I’da spent one mo’ day in the house with Horace mama, I’da had to kill that old woman.”

  “No!”

  “Kill her dead! She a contrary ole bitch.”

  “Thora!” Bonnie laughed.

  “I ain’t even lyin’,” Thora insisted. “The woman cain’t hardly talk since the heart attack, but don’t you know, she found a way to cuss me.”

  “No, she didn’t either.”

  “Went on fo’ weeks ’bout how I cain’t cook, cain’t clean, talk too loud, drink too much, wear too much makeup.”

  Bonnie had to bow her head on the makeup claim. She had known Thora since they were children and now, both in their thirties, she couldn’t recall seeing her friend without her face fully made up. Som
e folks in church called her “kewpie doll” and said that her makeup looked like “war paint.” Those were the people who didn’t know her heart.

  “Talkin’ ’bout how I spend all Horace money on clothes.”

  “What Horace say?” Bonnie asked.

  “Not a gotdamn thing! I love that man, Bonnie, Lord knows I do, but he jes’ as weak as water when it come to his mama. She got them apron strings wrapped ’round his damn neck, let me tell ya! Oh, honey,” she said on a heavy breath, “I’m so happy to be back!” Thora slipped off her hat and set it on top of Bonnie’s sewing basket. “And ha’ mercy,” Thora’s tone quickly changed, “but what’s been goin’ on ’round here?! I ’clare, I leave town fo’ a couple months and things go straight to hell.”

  “You heard ’bout the chile?” Bonnie asked.

  “It made the local paper all the way in Huntsville,” she said. “Nearly lost my breakfast when I read that.”

  The uproar of finding the baby girl had died down in Canaan Creek, but this was still news for Thora.

  “That kinda thing never happen in the Three Sisters,” Thora went on. “Had to be somebody from outta town.”

  “I thought that too,” Bonnie said. “Pine still don’t know much. But I did hear, just this past week, that the po’ thing did drown there in the water. So that mean…”

  “Sweet Lord,” Thora said. She sighed deeply. “Such a tragedy. A cryin’, cryin’ shame.” Then she turned to Bonnie. “Befo’ we go on with this subject…”

  “I know,” Bonnie agreed.

  “Well, don’t jes’ sit there,” Thora said. “Girl, get to steppin’.”

  Bonnie dashed into the house and reached under the sink to find a bottle of Naz’s homemade blackberry wine. She put it on a wicker tray with two floral-bordered teacups and carried the tray outside.

  Thora pulled the stubby cork from the bottle and poured a tiny bit over the porch railing into the grass below. “To the ancestors,” Thora said ceremoniously.

  “The ancestors indeed,” Bonnie repeated. “And by the way, we gon’ have to stop po’ing wine over the railin’. A libation is fine and dandy, but them fire ants ’bout to take over the yard.”

  “I know that’s right,” Thora said, waving away a fly with her red-tipped fingers.

  Bonnie half filled both cups.

  “Best po’ a lil’ mo’ in mine,” Thora said. “Horace find the club empty, he’ll be here soon enough.”

  The two women settled back, sipping as daintily as if the cups contained hot tea.

  “Shoulda been at the meeting they had at the lodge,” Bonnie said.

  “Sad?”

  Bonnie nodded. “Folks come from all over the Three Sisters—a few from as far as Hooley and Taliliga. And, of course, there was yo’ friend Tilde Monroe.”

  “My friend.” Thora laughed. “Sound like you must be drunk already.”

  “The woman took charge like she always do,” Bonnie said.

  Thora slid a pack of cigarettes from her purse. “And of course you agreed wit’ her.”

  “I don’t agree wit’ everything Tilde say…”

  “Maybe not,” Thora said, lighting her cigarette, “but you sho’ly wouldn’t say nothin’ ’gainst her. And that go fo’ all them Harvest Club biddies.”

  “I don’t like Tilde’s ways most times,” Bonnie acknowledged, “but I agreed that we need to find out what happened to that chile.”

  “We all agree ’bout that, Bonnie. But that don’t mean that Tilde Monroe got to always have the final say! I ’clare, that woman’s mouth is actually outgrowin’ her big, fat ass.”

  The sound of their laughter echoed in the night. Bonnie realized that she hadn’t laughed in too long. The Wilder house was usually filled with good spirit, but after finding the child, even Naz seemed more withdrawn than usual. But leave it to Thora Dean to lighten the mood. And the more blackberry wine they drank, the more animated they became.

  “Speakin’ of babies, Bonnie Wilder…” Thora reached over and patted Bonnie’s flat stomach. “Anything happenin’ down there?”

  “Huntsville or no,” she said, “I’da called you straightaway if there was news.”

  “Aw, honey,” Thora said sadly.

  “’Sides, I ain’t even thinkin’ ’bout it no mo’.”

  “You’s a lie!”

  “I ain’t,” Bonnie insisted. “A thirty-one-year-old woman ain’t s’posed to be thinkin’ ’bout havin’ no babies.”

  “Molly Benson had a chile when she was forty,” Thora started. “Laura Spence had her first at thirty-seven. Not to mention that woman live in Pertwell and still shootin’ ’em out at damn near fifty. So don’t you start that mess wit’ me.”

  Over the years, the older women in church had said special prayers for Bonnie and Naz. They brought remedies for infertility, like a leather pouch filled with quartz crystal, chrysoprase and adventurine, which Bonnie was to wear around her neck when she and Naz “did it.” She was made to sprinkle rosemary under her bed and rub the stomach of every pregnant woman in the Piney Grove church. Bonnie knew these old Southern antidotes didn’t mean much, but after a while, she was willing to try anything to get pregnant. Naz wanted no part of the “old lady cures,” especially when they suggested that he piss into a red ant’s nest for virility. But twelve years into their marriage, the elders were resigned to the fact that this was indeed “the Lord’s will.” Perhaps not all trees were meant to bear fruit.

  “I still say you should at least consider adopting one of them kids from the county home,” Thora said, refilling Bonnie’s cup and then her own.

  “Naz ain’t thinkin’ ’bout raisin’ another man’s chile. No way, no how.”

  “But Naz was adopted himself,” Thora countered. “What the hell kinda sense that make?”

  Bonnie could feel a headache creeping around her temples. She wasn’t sure if it was the wine or the subject matter that had brought it on. Naz had grown up in a home with three other foster brothers. He loved his foster mother, Ida, but his brothers were, as Naz put it, “deviants, all three of ’em.” And he insisted that their behavior came right through their blood. Bonnie never did buy into the notion that babies came into the world with evil genes, but Naz was convinced. Though he was open to the idea of having children, they had to be born to him and Bonnie only. He wasn’t willing to take a chance with a “state issued” child.

  “We ain’t got to think about you adoptin’ kids no-way,” Thora said. “Doctor ain’t found ne’er a thing wrong with you, and nuthin’ wrong with Naz. So that say to me,” Thora reasoned, “that y’all ain’t doin’ it right.”

  Bonnie could tell that Thora was already getting a little tipsy from the wine, for her conversation was even more candid than usual. “Y’all need some fire,” Thora insisted. “Hot fire! Ever’body know that Naz love you as much as any man could. But you ain’t no Virgin Mary and you ain’t no damn missionary.”

  Since they were teenagers, Bonnie and Thora had confided in each other about every aspect of their lives. Times like this, Bonnie often regretted having revealed so many intimate details.

  “One thing I can say ’bout my Horace,” Thora prattled on, “is that he ain’t ’fraid of no heat.”

  “He afraid of his mama, though,” Bonnie threw in.

  Thora’s eyes squinted. “Now, you ain’t had to say that.”

  “Look,” Bonnie said apologetically, “Naz ain’t ’fraid of no passion either. We got passion. It’s just that…Naz know I’m from the old school when it come to those kinda things.”

  “You ain’t so old-fashion.” Thora smiled.

  “Don’t start with me, woman.”

  “I remember the day when you tole me how you would love to mount ole Naz like a racehorse and—”

  Bonnie drowned her out with an embarrassed squeal. “I ain’t never, ever said such a thing in my life.”

  “Well, you ain’t said it exactly like that.” Thora chuckled.

  “I ain’t sai
d nothin’ like that.”

  Bonnie could feel her own head beginning to lighten. She loved the sensation of the wind touched by the edge of fall and the scent of Thora Dean’s perfume. And though she hated to admit it, she enjoyed talking this freely.

  “You know jes’ what I’m talkin’ ’bout,” Thora accused. “We was settin’ right here on this porch when you turn to me and say, ‘Thora—’”

  “Joshua fit the battle of Jericho…” Bonnie sang out loud.

  Thora yelled over Bonnie’s singing. “Say you wanna be the one on top fo’ once in yo’ life.”

  “Joshua fit the battle of Jericho and the walls come tumblin’ down…”

  “You can drown me out if you want to, Bonnie Wilder.” Thora laughed.

  “Straight up the wall of Jericho…”

  “I remember,” Thora said, wagging her finger playfully, “and so do you!”

  “Well, if I did say it,” Bonnie conceded, “then I musta been drunker than I am now.”

  “Liquor speak the truth,” Thora insisted. “And if that’s what you want from yo’ man…girl, go’n and ask fo’ it! Grab Naz and have yo’ way.”

  “I cain’t do that.”

  “Damn sho’ can,” Thora insisted. “Ain’t that why you fell in love with him in the first place? Say you could be yo’self with him. Say he was the most exciting man you ever met.”

  “He still is.”

  “All I’m sayin’, sweetheart, is that you need to tell Naz what you want! I bet he’d love it! And you never know what might come from that passion.”

  The wine softened the edges of the trees and the light from distant click beetles looked like tiny flashbulbs in the dark yard. Bonnie and Thora sat in a peaceful silence. Bonnie wondered if her longing to have a baby did quench her passion. She loved loving her husband but if the truth be told, she couldn’t quite feel him anymore. She could only feel the possibility of a child. Even when Naz touched her in that special place, she reacted more from habit than arousal, so that sex, once so real and uncontrived, had become more of a performance. Still, Naz never complained. His kisses were filled with hunger, his body with longing. But perhaps his performance was as mechanical as hers. Then again, he did get to that moment of pleasure, which for Bonnie was the most important part of the act: his pleasure, his seed. She’d never let up from wanting a child, but perhaps, if only for Naz’s sake, she would add just a bit more heat.