Grace (16 page)

21
/ APRIL 1863

Tallassee, Alabama

I
T
'
S BEEN TWO
weeks since negroes decided to leave without asking. They were wrong. Then last night, a man came to Annie's without asking. He was wrong, too.

I had been chasing after his black buggy since I first heard it a quarter mile down Annie's road. I wished to God that it was George. My hope helped make me swifter.

Falling rain was spreading around the buggy like tears, promising me it was George inside.

It bumped along the muddy road with its horses grunting and snot spilling, promising me George. And when the horses slowed in front of the Graham house, I was quivering for my satisfaction. Let me see him! I wanted to kill him.

A burst of firelight glowed from inside the carriage. Its door swung open where I was waiting, and a lamp came through the opening, then the arm of the white man. His whole body folded out. It weren't George.

The man hopped down from the buggy steps, limped in place to keep his balance, held the lamp out in front of him, and stabbed his burgundy cane between loose stones. He threw his coat over his head and his black hair flattened in the rain. Mud sprayed on his trouser as
he began his hobble to the front door, a walk like an almost-tipped-over jar, rocking to find its flat bottom again. But he couldn't right hisself. He was a gimp. He shook his good leg on the front porch and the other he wiped down with both hands while I went inside.

Bessie was scrambling up the stairs toward Missus Graham's bedroom. I met her at the top of the landing and could've swore she looked right at me. But as soon as I thought it, she walked right through me. “Missus Graham!” she said opening Annie's door. She went in without asking, said, “Missus Graham!”

“What the hell's wrong with you, girl?” Annie said, sitting straight up.

“It's Mista Graham, ma'am. He here.”

Mr. Graham's knocks returned to the door and Annie leaped out of bed like a child caught napping instead of cleaning and pulled a dress over her head, checked her face in the mirror, twice, rushed down the staircase, pinning her hair on the way. By then, Bessie was already in the main room, waiting for Annie's signal to open the door. But instead of giving the sign right then, Annie waited.

Fourteen years she'd waited. Fourteen years ago, Mr. Graham—her then best friend—left her in the middle of the night with Scotch on his breath and unspoken words on hers. And now, his knock was at her front door again, a stranger.

He knocked harder, surer. He said, “Annie, open this door!”

Annie grabbed hold of a chair, bracing herself, but still waited.

“Annie!” he said.

She took a deep breath, nodded to Bessie. When the door opened, he came barreling in. “Next time you hear me at the door,” he told Bessie, “open it.”

“Yes'sa, Massa Graham.”

He was a beautiful man, Mr. Graham was. Like a garden statue standing there, five foot nothin. He threw his soaking-wet coat on the rack, letting its water rain on Annie's newly polished floor. Bessie got him a towel.

He looked around the room, puffed his chest out, held his shoulders back, his legs spread in a wide stance like he weren't a gimp and put his hands on his hips, nodded his head as if he was saying, yes, I live here. . . . Yes, I own this house. Everything in it's mine.

“Get me some tea,” he said to Bessie.

“Yes'sa, Massa Graham,” Bessie said.

He took stock of the room, kicked off his shoes, and finally acknowledged his wife. “Annie.”

“Richard,” she said.

He dried hisself off, then threw the towel on the floor, stretched his back to cracking and something caught his eye on the grand mantle over the fireplace. He limped over to it, then fingered the plain porcelain figure and a matching white vase that sat in the middle of the mantle, lonely and small, even though they was a pair.

Richard moved the figurine along the shelf one way, then moved the vase the other. He stepped back to look at his new arrangement. Unsatisfied, he switched the vase and the figurine again and stared at 'em. Finally, he grabbed 'em both off the shelf and said, “No, even you can't fix empty, Annie,” and laid them down like captured chess pieces.

“I wasn't expecting you,” she said.

“This is my house,” he said, looking at her for the first time. “I live here.”

“Not for years,” Annie said.

“I'm not going to let you bully me out of my right, Annie. My property. My house. My place in it. I'm the head of this household,” he said, as if restarting a old argument new.

“I only meant that . . . I've missed you,” she said.

“Psh,” he said. “You couldn't wait for me to leave.”

“That's not true, Richard.”

Bessie came in with his tea. He waved at her to set it down the farthest she could from Annie and he went to it, took it, told Bessie, “Take my shoes to my room.” But instead of getting 'em right away, Bessie looked to Missus Graham. Annie nodded and Richard raised his voice
and his hand at Bessie. “You do what I say do,” Richard said. “I don't need Annie's approval.”

“Yes'sa,” Bessie said.

“Lincoln thinks he can infringe on our way of life,” Richard said. “Has taken it upon himself to take away our rights, our livelihood, kill our brothers. Remove our property. He's freeing slaves to allow them to live among us as equals. Wants us to treat these mongrels as ‘brothers,' too. It's wrong. Wouldn't you agree, Annie?”

“Is this about Lincoln?” she said.

“I intend to protect what's mine from any challenger.”

“Do you intend to stay then?”

He sipped his tea. Then again while she watched.

“If Mr. Graham pleases,” Annie said, “make a new bed, Bessie, and see to it that he's comfortable.”

“That
we
are comfortable,” Richard said.

“Yes. That
we
are comfortable. Clean sheets.”

That's when he said it: “I have someone accompanying me.”

“Oh. Of course. Make a place for him, as well.”

“She's pregnant,” Richard said. He used the word
pregnant
like it was some throwaway word, small talk, the same as saying,
it's night outside.

“What?” Annie said, raspy.

“With child,” he said. “She can help you to manage the property until it's time for the baby to come.”

“And her husband?”

“Dead,” he said. He wouldn't look at Annie.

“How long?”

“I wouldn't know.”

“How long, Richard?”

“Two or three years.”

“And you brought her here? You brought some pregnant whore to my house? Look at me and tell me, Richard. Is it yours?”

“You heard me the first two times.”

Before he finished his words, Annie swung at his face and he caught her hand, threw it down, held his gaze on her 'til she was the one who looked away.

He left her there that way, went outside and brought back that girl wrapped in three or four blankets and a hood over her head. When it slid off, she was the spittin image of Annie but a whole lot younger. He said to the girl, “This is my wife.”

“How do, ma'am?” the girl said, smiling.

Annie spit in her face but before her mouth closed, Richard's backhand crushed Annie's lips. “Be a lady, Annie! You're still my wife.” Annie covered her mouth with shaking hands. “If anyone asks,” he told her. “This is your cousin, Katherine, visiting from Mississippi. Her husband, the father, is away at the war.”

Richard put his arm around the girl to help her to the stairs. He called to Bessie to fix Katherine some warm water, some dry, clean clothes, and to re-dress his bed, Annie's bed, for Katherine. And for a long time, he sat in the chair across the room from that girl, watching her sleep. And Annie took herself into a guest bedroom where she stood 'til sunrise.

22
/ FLASH

Conyers, Georgia, 1847

I
WALK QUIET ALONG
the path of a stream, pressing my feet softly on the spongy ground where the short grass and flooded water trace my footfalls.

Trout, brown and green and yellow, wade in place beside me, waiting for food. A few feet away, a lone fish jumps from the water and splashes down, chasing a bug or watching me. I take a step behind a tree, lean back further to keep my shadow off the surface. Upstream, Jeremy's hiding behind that mostly bare bush, but I can see him clear as day 'cause the small spring leaves ain't near enough cover for his blue shirt.

He signals with his hand for me to move down further, holds it up again to say stop, then points down to the water. I drop my fishing line in and my bright red salmon egg rides the running water, gliding toward him.

It disappears.

Jeremy shoots his thumb up from his fist, confusing me. What I'm supposed to do?

“Pull up on it!” he yell. “Pull up!”

The fish leaps out of the water and my pole shoots out of my hands, straight toward the waves.

“Don't let it get away!” Jeremy say, hopping over rocks and around a tree to get to me. I dive on that pole, pound my fist on the handle, jam it in the soggy grass. Water sprays in my face. When Jeremy gets to me, he grabs my pole and yanks the fish on the other end. “You all right?” he say.

I spit out the dirty water, wipe it away from my eyes. “It's that fish that gotta worry,” I say.

He watches the place downstream where my line pierced the water.

“You got it?” I say.

“I got it.”

He closes one eye and follows the line to where that fish should be even though it stopped moving.

It splashes!

Jeremy pulls up on our pole, the fish fights side to side. He winds the line around his elbow and hand, careful not to break it, and drags its fight to the shore. Finally, he lops it out of the water, puts his foot on its side to keep it from jumping back in. Takes the hook out. The hole where it was pierced trickles blood water.

He puts his finger through the fish's gills and holds it out to me but I shake my head. “I don't want it.”

“It's your first fish,” he say and raises it to my face. I cringe.

“Don't be scared,” he say. “You grew up on a farm.”

“Not a fish farm!”

“Come on, Mimi.”

I like when he calls me that.

“I can't take your first fish.”

“But it's alive,” I say.

“Not for long, it ain't. Put some salt and pepper on this bad boy and . . .”

“You cain't eat it! You said it's my first fish. So I say put it back in the water with its brothers and sisters.”

He hugs me with his free arm, laughing. “It's got family now?” The fish's neck fans in and out.

“Throw it back in!”

“What you gon' give me if I do?”

“My appreciation,” I say.

He sets it down in the water. It only floats. Paralyzed.

“See,” he say. “It don't even want to go.” It jerks and disappears under the blanket of dark water.

Jeremy twirls me around and into himself, and rests his body behind me. He say, “Now that we're gonna go hungry, we'll have to find something else to do.”

His closeness makes me nervous. “Cynthia will be back soon,” I say, quick.

“Tomorrow. First thing. I know. She told me.” He lays his head on my shoulder and kisses the side of my neck.

“Did she tell you where she was going?” I say, quicker.

He brushes his lips on my ear and whispers, “How about we stop talking about Cynthia.”

“What you want to talk about then?”

“Whatever's on your mind. I want you to take me there.”

His words make me shy. I try to make him forget about my mind, about being so close to me. I say, “We only got bread and butter now. What else we gon' eat wit it?”

“
With
,” he say. “Not ‘wit,'
with
.” He turns me around to him, presses his belly on mine.

“With,” I say, my tongue stuck under my front teeth now.

I feel frozen 'cause we touching this way and ain't nobody around to stop us.

“Can I hold your hand?” he say, and takes it without my yes.

He grabs my hand through the fingers like James used to do Hazel and walks me along the stream to where the sunlight is on our blanket. Our lunch sacks are there, too, filled with bread and no fish. He collapses on the blanket and leans back on his elbows, watching me.

I know what his watching means. How men, in their minds, take themselves on a magic carpet ride without us, imagining. That's what Cynthia say. But I don't know what it means. Not exactly. I've never laid with a man the way women like Cynthia do. Like Momma had to do. Or like Hazel would have done with James because she loved him.

I love Jeremy. But I don't understand how laying together feels good.

Don't understand how the screaming means
good.
Good enough to pay for. Good enough to lose your mind for. Good enough to spend the rest of your life submitting to because you have to or because of this
good.
It is a wonder of God's hands that He would put our greatest pleasure in our tools of creation.

I would like to know that magic.

And why Cynthia values it so. And how a man, in so doing, can change the substance of a woman forever. From virgin to something else entirely. Or, is that a manmade rule? That he can lie down with as many women and wives as he wants and still get up with his value.

I want to keep my value.

I don't want many men, I only want one. But manmade rule say I cain't marry him, neither.

I want to keep Cynthia as we are.

This is my body.

I want to decide my own value. I don't want a price tag no more. A slave or a woman. Valued twice. First as a woman and again as not white. I'm priceless. No matter what's been done to my body, by me or somebody else. I want to make my own rules . . . if I wanted. If I was sure.

Jeremy pats the space next to him so I can sit with him but I'm slow to go. “It don't matter to me that you a negro,” he say. “All I see when I look at you is woman. Beauty is beauty.” When I finally sit, I hold my knees to my chest, keep him far enough away. He slides one finger along my arm.

“People will hate to see us together,” he say. “Me loving you. Our happy children.”

“Children?”

He turns my chin toward his. “Could you risk it?”

I suck in my breath. Hold it. Cain't turn away 'cause he's holding me there with his eyes—the tiny red threads inside the whites are tying me up.

I see for the first time the tiny brown freckles that trace his eyelids above his light lashes. A single lash is out of line, bent and longer than the rest. He say, “Can I kiss you?”

I cain't breathe.

Before I can say no, his mouth is coming close to my face. I cross my eyes, watch his lips form a pucker—see 'em soft and funny looking, more crinkly than I expected. I cain't help but laugh.

“What?” he say. “Why you laughing?”

“You funny.”

“You don't want my kisses?”

I put my hand over my mouth, catching my giggles.

“All right, but these some good kisses,” he say, opening our lunch sacks.

He lays out the bread and a flask of something on the blanket. “I brought wine,” he say, moving hisself over to make more room for me.

I try not to embarrass myself and eat too fast but I do. He twists off the metal cup on top of our flask, pours the wine in and offers it to me. “No, thank you,” I say.

He drinks it hisself, pours another. “Come on, Mimi. Just one sip.”

“I don't want none.”

“You know I wouldn't give you nothing to hurt you. It'll help you relax.”

I shake my head. I never had a drink before.

“Come on, for me?” His
eager
makes me want to try. I pick up the cup, sniff the wine, cringe at the smell of off grapes.

“That's it,” he say. “Taste it with your nose. Breathe in the aroma.”

“Aro . . . what?”

“Just taste it, Mimi.”

I bring the cup to my lips, sip it, and spit it out, bitter.

He laughs at my coughing. “You all right? Was it that bad?” he say, taking the cup from my hand. He sips it. “No, that's good.”

I keep coughing.

He sets the cup down next to him, says, “I thought you'd like it. It's supposed to be the best around. Spent yesterday's winnings on this bottle.”

I think I broke his heart.

I reach over his lap and pick up the mostly full cup and chug it all down in one go.

“Whoa, Mimi.” He takes the cup. “You ain't supposed to gulp it like that. Savor it. Take a sip. Put it down. When the flavor's gone from your mouth, take another sip.”

I blush.

“You don't have to be embarrassed. Everybody mess up their first time. Here . . .” He fills my cup again. “Now try.”

I take in a deep sniff of it. “Like that?” I say.

I close my eyes 'cause I think I can smell it better that way. Its scents breeze in me—pear, vanilla, a little cherry, maybe. I sip it and it runs in smooth, swishes between my cheeks, caresses my tongue, licks the roof of my mouth, and slides down my throat. The flavor seems to last forever. Better this time.

He say, “It was good, wasn't it?”

I open my eyes.

“I always want to make you happy. Whatever you like in this world, I'll give it to you.”

I feel my neck and shoulders warm from the drink and my eyes bulge. A drip of wine rolls down my lip. He kisses it off. I don't stop him.

He say, “Was that funny?”

“No,” I whisper, floating limp like that fish did.

He lays me down and scoots himself close to me, rests his hand on my side and presses his lips on mine again, holds 'em there this time. He opens his mouth, a little. His tongue touches mine.

“Did that feel nice?” he say.

I nod and raise up to his lips this time, want him to taste me again. He slides his hand up my side, touches my breast, spiraling his fingertip around my nipple. It tingles me everywhere.

I stop him. Slide his hand over to center, hold it to my heart. I don't want him touching me like that. No, Cynthia don't want him touching me like that.

“Let's go,” he say, and grabs my hand to pull me up with him to leave but I don't get up. I keep his hand in mine and nudge him down 'til he kneels.

I want his touches.

I want to stay here with him forever.

He say, “I need to tell you something. I've kissed other women . . . been with others. Done more than kissing. A few.”

I stop him talking. Kiss him open-mouthed the way he just taught me.

“Mimi . . . you're so innocent. You sure you want your first time to be with me?”

He's asking too many questions.

“I don't want to take nothing from you,” he say. “Except to take you from here. Keep you mine. We could get married . . . well, not official, but . . . we could live like husband and wife. I'd never take another . . .”

“Yes,” I say. “I do.”

His face softens and every fine wrinkle in it goes. He's like an angel to me. I say, “Be my first time. Show me what to do.”