Descendants of Hagar

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Descendants of Hagar Page 23

by Nik Nicholson


  I think about how I always planned to go back to church after Miemay passed. Then I feel how I done become like Miemay. I think about how bad things was with Daddy and how tense they still is. I think about how nobody in the family speaks to me, and don’t speak to my daddy because of me. I think about all the ways things done changed between everybody. I think about Miemay again, and about how much I miss her. I don’t know how long we sitting in the dirt crying fore I realize she holding me back, tight.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  SISTERS

  “Jesus,” Ella whisper, staring down the lane of vendors as a tall lean dark-haired white woman comes. She got an umbrella shading ‘a from the Georgia sun, so I cain’t see ‘a face. I look at my sister trying to read ‘a mind, but she don’t say a word. Just stand stiff, swallow hard, look at me, then at the woman.

  I feel like it’s something I should know, but I don’t press Ella for details. Maybe she cain’t tell me now cause Grit here. After what happened with Coley, I just take every day as it is cause you never know.

  Me and Coley ain’t spoke much since the first day of the fair. Today I’m here at my stand with my sisters, Ella and Grit. They sitting with me behind the counter, helping pick pickles and apples out of barrels. I’m glad to have ’em with me, I’m feeling so different.

  When the woman finally gets in front of us, she stops too, staring at me. I look down at the ground, and over at Grit. Iain sure what’s going on, but I cain’t be in no trouble, I mean, Iain never seen this lady.

  “Hold your head up, girl,” she speak firm. I do and try to find something to look at, avoiding ‘a eyes.

  “Diamond! Why is your head hard as a rock! Your father told you this what’n a good idea.” A white man Iain never seen before come storming down the lane after ‘a.

  “I want to meet her, Clayton. I haven’t got any other sisters or brothers. My mama is dead. I don’t care if she is Niggra, I want to see her. Family is family, and I’m curious. They say there is a striking resemblance.”

  When she say that, I look at ‘a, in ‘a eyes, and it’s like looking at myself in a mirror. Cept it’s more detailed than that blurry-looking glass I got at home. Only real difference between us is, her eyes are bright blue and mine green. Both of our faces have sharp features, high cheekbones, sharp jawlines, long necks, pink lips and hair bout the same length. Her waves relaxed, like she had to braid it to make it bend that way. Mine braided too, into two thick braids and tucked under a hat.

  “How old are you, girl?”

  “Twenty-two.” I’m still in shock, trying to understand what’s happening, how we looking like twins. I’m remembering Hunter Beaumont telling me to turn around. I’m remembering his brother Lowell Beaumont saying, “she looks just like a black diamond.” Then I didn’t know there was a woman named Diamond. I actually do look like her.

  I look more like her than I look like my own sister Ella standing next to me. I glance over at Ella just to check and make sure Iain forgot who she is, what she look like. Her hands different, her fingers larger, the tips of ‘a fingers stubby, mine flat like boxes. Her features are rounder, softer, and when I look back at Grit, she looking like a younger Ella. Then I look at the woman’s hands.

  “Guess it ain’t no harm in it; Mama was long dead fore you were born, or conceived. I’ll be twenty-eight my next birthday, and she died in child birth. I was the first and the last. From what I understand your mama worked in the house for our family.”

  Ella come stand behind me close, looking at the woman in front of us. Ella don’t seem as shocked, and I’m wrapping my mind round it all.

  “So what do you do, girl?”

  “Work,” I say short. Way she looking at me remind me I’m a nigga and she white so I add, “ma’am.” Shrinking in myself, I start to feel shy.

  “You married? Got any children?”

  “No, ma’am.” I look at ‘a hands and the ground.

  “You’re a lil old to be without a man. Then again, I’m even older and I’m not married either. I think being high strung run in the family. I’m thinking about getting married, but Clay works my last nerve.”

  “Yes’um,” I say, staring at the table, comparing ‘a hands to mine. I’m thinking bout whether anybody else look like ‘a. I’m running my mind over my brothers and sisters. I’m looking for another mirror.

  I think about my oldest brothers, Jeremy, Noah and then Zay. I try to see myself reflected in Jenny, and Grit and then Ella. Ella and Noah look so much alike folks use to think they was twins, but it’s eleven months between ’em. Then I think, Ella and Noah brown like Daddy, got his… I swallow hard.

  “Daddy ain my daddy?” The tears fall, and I lean on Ella. Breathing, I hold my lip tight, it tremble, and my eyes do what they want.

  “I was gone tell you, but it just what’n never the right time. Then all this happen with Miemay, and Daddy, and you and Mama ain never got a long no how.” Ella speaking to me firm, like she trying to calm me down.

  I don’t remember breathing in but I feel all the air escape.

  “Take it easy,” Ella warn.

  “Ma’am?” I breathe slow, putting my hand firmly on the counter between us trying to brace myself. “Is you saying?”

  “Yes, she is,” Ella say gently, but firm. She standing so close to me, half ‘a body against half mine. I realize she bracing herself for me to fall.

  My brains swimming in the muck of all this. Iain got no daddy. Then I think about why Mama hate me. I look at my skin.

  “Oh.” I cup my mouth to catch the sound and I try to swallow it. It’s too much hurt, it get out. “Oh.” I shake my head to try and stop the feelings from coming, but they come hard as I realize, “Oh, oh.” Is all I can say as the pain ooze out of me, as I remember how Mama looks at me, and I know.

  “I’m sorry, I thought you knew.” The white woman, a stranger reaches out to me and touches my arm like she know me and rubs my shoulder. “I thought you were proud like most niggers are about their white daddies. All I been hearing is how there’s a girl walking around here, who looks just like me. The other day even my own daddy said so.”

  “Your daddy?” I get out just above a whisper, and I challenge ‘a with my eyes for crushing my world.

  “Our daddy, Hunter Beaumont,” she say like I should be honored.

  Shaking my head I step back, slowly. I look at Ella, and feel betrayed she ain never tell me and I find out like this. I look at Grit and can tell ‘a heart heavy, too. Iain got no room in my mind or heart to think about nobody else’s feelings.

  I don’t know how many steps I take back before I almost stumble over a chair. Then Ella catch me by the arm and hold me up. I feel Ella’s strength, and think, maybe I got my strength from Mama. Iain small as this woman standing in front of me, but I’m seeing myself for the first time and understanding.

  When Ella let my arm go, I start out of the stand, and then out of the fair. Ella hot on my trail.

  “Linny? You cain’t walk back to Zion. They be done done something to you. You light, and you know how they like nigga women.” Then she pull me and I snatch away from ‘a.

  I ball my fists up, open my arms and punch all round me like one of them wooden toys. Like my arms only got so much motion. I punch and punch. It’s a tightness in my arms, and I swing, and fight, and cry. Finally I hear my own voice, “Nobody wanted me! Miemay ain’t even my great grandmother! Mama hate me!”

  Ella cry, looking at me. I snatch off my hat, and grab my braids and cling to ’em like a rope over a cliff.

  “That’s why you use to comb my hair. That’s why Mama said it was hard to comb my head. Every time Mama looked at me, she frowned. I tried to figure out what I done to make ‘a not love me. She be hitting me, and I be trying to figure out how to make ‘a love me. And now I know why, she don’t wont me.”

  “How it happen?” I ask, looking at Ella and she upset, too. Her chest heaving, she shaking ‘a head no, like she got a choice on whether she c
an tell me bout how I came to be. Her eyes pouring. “How did it happen?” I demand to know, wiping my eyes and staring at ‘a.

  “You already know, she ain wont it. What else is it to say? Why you wont to go over every lil detail? Ain’t gone change nothing.”

  “Aaaah!” I cry loud like I’m wounded and get scared of my own voice. “Why me?” I whisper pulling on my own clothes.

  Then I remember Miemay telling me how she loved ‘a children, even though she didn’t love their fathers. I remember her telling me bout wanting to be mothered, but wouldn’t nobody mother ‘a, cause she was a stranger. She was telling me in ‘a own way, why my mama wouldn’t mother me. She said if nobody else loved me, she did.

  I breathe heavy, I accept, I know and I understand. Things make sense now. Why Mrs. Harper and Ella be combing my hair. Why Daddy, ain’t my real Daddy, take me with him to work every day after Mama cut my hair off. They all knew she hated me.

  Same reason Miemay charged Reverend Patrick with looking after me, cause she knew this day would come. Same reason Reverend Patrick tell me bout his mother hating him, and his sister and brothers cause they was black.

  “People been telling me all my life in they own way.” I’m smiling at Ella through tears, wiping my nose with my bare hand, getting up, pulling myself together cause crying don’t change nothing.

  “Linny, I love you. I’m glad you were born. The situation what’n the best, but you here now, and you cain’t take no blame for what happened to Mama. You was a innocent child.”

  “I remind my mother of being raped,” I resolve, dusting myself off.

  “You cain’t do it like this. You cain’t take all that on you.” Ella grab me, but I cain’t be consoled.

  “Iain Madelyn Remington, Cassius Remington’s sixth child. I am Madelyn Somebody, who ain’t part of nothing.” Something bout all this make me laugh, this painful laugh Iain never had before. “Is that the real reason everybody was so upset about the inheritance? They probly saying, ‘Linny ain’t even our blood.’”

  “Blood ain’t everything.”

  “It’s all there is.”

  “Miemay gave you ‘a name and raised you like one of ‘a own. If anything, you was like a daughter to ‘a.”

  “Like her daughter, not her granddaughter, not even her great granddaughter.”

  “Oh Linny.” Ella hold my face and look in my eyes. “This is why Iain never had the heart to tell you. We all knew, cept maybe Grit. Ain’t never been a right time for this. We all knew this would break yah heart.”

  “How it happen? I wont to know. I wont details.”

  “You don’t wonna know.”

  “I’m tired of not knowing. I’m tired of secrets. I don’t wonna find nothing else out by nobody else. You got to tell me.” I breathe deep, tired and angry.

  “Mama and Daddy, they,” she stop looking off somewhere, maybe for ‘aself. “They the Hilliard house couple.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  ACCEPTING THE TRUTH

  When the rooster crow, I barely stir. I watch the sun creep up over the hills and into my window, making it hot. I know it’s things got to be done, but for what? I think about how my mama look at me, how I came to be, and I think about how Miemay gone now.

  I think about Miemay telling me bout just laying there and letting somebody breathe on ‘a. I think about Mama and Daddy. Wonder if my real father make it so my mama cain’t stand to be touched by my Daddy, but she got to do it. I want to stop thinking bout all this, it disgust me, but the thoughts keep coming til I’m sick.

  Then my mind get wild. I start thinking bout women not loving the men touching them, but cause they wives and have some duty, they allow it. I think about Coley wanting a husband, and how all women being groomed for that day they come to bow for some man. I think about Grit and Granger.

  I hear Coley moving across the hall. She cain’t cook to save ‘a life, so I been getting up to fix ‘a something. I don’t get dressed, just slide on some shoes, and go down in my sleeping clothes. I start some water to boiling, drop a little salt and butter from the cooler. Then I go out to the coup, and get some eggs from the hens. Then I get a little meat from the smoke house.

  I don’t know how I look but I feel ugly. I feel heavy as this morning, when the day don’t seem to have no possibilities. Tomorrow I will be the daughter of the man who raped my mama. Today, I’m a woman with a mother who hates ‘a because she reminds ‘a of her father. Then I think about how I ain’t blood. I think about how Miemay ain’t my grandmother. I remember the day before the council, and the way those men looked at me. I remember being afraid night riders would come, rape me, maybe kill me. Little did I know one of them had already raped my mama. There was my father looking at his work.

  “Are you trying to burn yourself up?” Coley push me back and start hitting my waist with a wet towel.

  I didn’t even smell my nightshirt catch fire. Ain much when I look down. Done burned a hole, but it’s a bigger hole in my spirit. I feel dizzy, tired and barely here.

  “When was the last time you ate something?”

  I don’t say nothing. It’s like I can hear ‘a talking but I cain’t respond. I’m in some kind of fog. I don’t even want to play my piano the way I did after Miemay died. It usually get me through hard times, but now I cain’t even muster the strength it’d take to sit up on the bench in front of it.

  When I look down and see that everything done, but the bacon, I don’t even wait. I figure Coley can finish making ‘a own bacon.

  I climb the stairs, on my hands and knees. I feel like crying but I won’t. It’s no point, and Iain got no more tears. Some part of me wish I what’n born, so my mama ain’t got no living reminder. Some part of me shamed.

  All the times somebody said I was the prettiest or most beautiful child, it was cause I got lighter skin than my sisters. And knowing that everybody knew now, makes it seem like they was poking fun, maybe at my mama, maybe at me. What’s pretty bout what happened to my mama?

  ***

  “We’ve got to get out of here, or we’ll never leave this house,” Coley calls through the door.

  I don’t want to leave this house, don’t want nobody to see me. I feel like they looking at what my real father done, and I’m ashamed. I’ve been looking at my blurry image in the looking glass, and I see how I look more like Hunter Beaumont than anything else. I don’t want to look like him.

  Today, Iain even weed the garden. All I did was get up this morning and feed the animals. Ain nobody pulled the eggs. I don’t know what Coley eating and I don’t ask or care.

  “Linny? You hear me talking to you?”

  When I sit up to talk, words seem to carry tears. Sound got tears in it. All I can do to keep from crying or killing myself is lay here in this bed til this pain get away from me. But it don’t go, it’s like the night sounds, it’s still stirring, but the pain get more peaceful.

  Soon as I move, I remember how much I hurt. I remember my mama don’t want me with good cause. I remember my daddy ain’t my daddy, and my sisters and brothers only half. Then I think about how they wholes and I’m half. I remember things, things I wish to forget. I long for the time before knowing who I really am.

  Then again, it seem like I ain’t none of the things I’m is. Iain the woman who ain’t got no daddy. I’m Miemay’s granddaughter, who makes decisions, and dreams, and makes things. I’m the woman with her own land, and world to consider. I’m a woman who didn’t marry, and doesn’t have children of her own. I’m a woman who could go anywhere or do anything cause Iain tied down. I’m the woman who tends to her own fields, and fixes things in her own barn. I’m this woman who rides horses, and dreams of a world where she can be all the things she is, and it be okay.

  Then again, I wish I what’n so many things. Wish I what’n stubborn. Sometimes I wish I was more like my sisters. Wish my whole life be thinking happiness is some man choosing you, and yall having some kids. Then again, maybe I wish that what’n wha
t made other women happy, or that it what’n enough alone to make ’em happy. I wish they were really free, to go searching for what they really want. Then folks wouldn’t think I’m so strange.

  “I know it’s hard to go on, but the world isn’t going to stop because you don’t go out in it. We’ve got to make the most of it.” I hear the door knob turn, and Coley push the door open slowly.

  I keep my eyes on the wall and stay silent. I’m afraid if I think about ‘a coming in here, I’m gone cry, or be mad. I’m so mad with the world, with God really.

  “I don’t really know what to say. I heard what happened at the fair. Maybe-” she say, sitting down easy on the bed, “you know, they say everything happens for a reason, and everything to fulfill God’s will.”

  “What could God’s will be? What I done, but be born, to deserve all this? Why my Mama got to hate me? Why my daddy ain’t my daddy, and I got another daddy done forced hisself on my mama?”

  “I don’t know.” Coley scoot closer to me.

  “Lately I-” I stop myself cause I don’t want to talk about the Bible like it’s just any other book. Don’t want to ask questions bout it, or force nobody to really think about what it say.

  Still, it’s been burning me up, this whole talk of destiny and will. What’s my destiny? What’s God’s purpose for my life? I certainly ain’t trying to be no wife, and I don’t fit in here. I think about what Miemay use to say, “You’ll know by how it feel if you on the right path.” She say, “It come easier. It be hard sometimes cause life ain easy, but fighting come easier than giving in. It be a easy choice to fight, cause the battle be destiny.” This fight over my inheritance don’t feel right.

  “Lately what?” Coley pry.

  I feel like talking, and not talking. “Look at Judas. If he hadn’t betrayed Jesus, they’da never killed Jesus and mankind wouldn’t have been saved. But how you think that made Judas feel? But it was his destiny? Am I cursed? Is it my destiny to suffer? I don’t wont that for my life.”

 

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