Grace (3 page)

3
/ FLASH

Faunsdale, Alabama, 1846

T
HE RAIN
'
S BEEN
slapping the ground all day, soaking through the house, making our floors mud.

Hazel put a fire on to keep us warm. I like to watch it burn yellow and orange and see-through—a halo of colors birthing light through the ruins like the rainbow after the flood. It reminds me that God's still here.

I been getting better at my reading since it's been getting dark early. Hazel's been practicing me for hours today and my butt bone hurt, but ever since she said, “Use the only part of your backside wit some meat on it,” I been tilted up on my thighs so this oak chair don't hurt so much. If I was big and healthy like Hazel, I could sit any ole kinda way, but as it is, I got to sit crooked.

The boys especially like her healthy. You'd think them boys could see right through her clothes the way they stare at her chest. She keeps her arms crossed when she outside so cain't nobody see 'em. Peoples think she got a bad attitude because of it. Truth is, the only thing she ever hated was her big tits. I wouldn't mind if I had 'em even though she say they sweat underneath. I'd be happy to wipe 'em dry all day long but I ain't even got a bump yet.

Hazel promised that my fat's gon' come after I get my period. I ain't told her it come last month cause I'm gon' surprise her. Just wake up one morning wit a big fat butt and big tits and Hazel gon' say, “Why you wearin' my britches?” And I'm gon' say, “My ass too big for mine.” Then we both gon' laugh.

But today, I got just one fat leg.

Yesterday, a wasp stung me on it when I was popping berries from that ole mulberry bush next to the pigpen. It hurt so bad and I cried so loud 'til I seen my leg getting big. By the time I got home, it was swolled up like an air-blown pig gut. I ran back to that ole bush and spent the rest of the night swatting at it so that wasp come back and get the other one. He didn't come back, though. Now I got just one pretty leg. I been sitting wit it half off the chair, swinging it around so Hazel can see. But she ain't said nothin, yet.

Momma's been pacing the room since she got back from the church gathering this morning with Massa's nana and the other white folk. She allow Momma to go, stand outside the window and listen.

Momma's brushing the dust off the window shutters wit her fingernails. More like a scraping but we don't stop her. Thas how she keep busy sometimes. It let me and Hazel keep to our reading. We take turns. It's Hazel's turn now. “‘Yay though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.'”

“Hazel?” I say. “God like art?”

“What? No,
art
means are. You
are
with me.”

“Well, why they talk like that? Thy and though?”

“That's just how God talk. Let me finish.”

“A'right.”

“‘Thou preparest a table . . .'”

“Hazel?”

“What.”

“You think God understands us then? We don't talk like that.”

“He understands all different kind a talk.”

“What about Momma? She don't talk. He understand her, too?”

“I imagine he do. Now let me finish, then you can read.”

I be quiet.

She starts slow like she think I'm gon' say something but I'm just gon' listen this time. She say, “‘Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies.'”

“Hazel? What ‘preparest' mean?”

“God's expecting you. Always with you. Even when you don't think He is. When your enemies are all around you.” She push the Bible to me. “Here, now you . . .”

A hush covers our room. The rain quit beating, the bugs quit chirping, and Momma stopped scratching, all at once. The kind of off-quiet that make you pay attention and expect. Like the moment after lightning, waiting on thunder.

Hazel turns 'round to the door, then back to me but not looking at me, listening for something. When it don't come she taps her Bible, say, “Now you read.”

A loud knock at the door stops me, scares me. I don't know who that knock belongs to 'cause it's hard and slow and nobody's supposed to be out after dusk on a Sunday.

Hazel listens to the door, using her whole body to hear it, watches, but don't get up.

Momma starts brushing the shutters again.

“Hazel?” I whisper.

She puts her hand over my mouth. When the knock starts again, she gets up quickly but I don't want her to answer it.

She go to the shutters, peeks through the split, then dashes back to me, whispering, “It's Massa Hilden. Go in the other room with Momma.”

She snatches the Bible and pitches it under the table. I run quiet across the floor, grab Momma's hand on the way, and we slide through
my bedroom door. I turn over my hiding barrel to get it ready to cover me, but when I see Momma standing alone, I don't get under it like I should. I wait near the door with her. Want to listen. I leave it cracked open to see.

Massa walk in before Hazel get back to the door.

“Massa Hilden?” Hazel say. “We wasn't expectin' you. Momma came down wit a spell this mornin, been sick all over the place.”

He strolls to the middle of the room carrying that silence with him. He stops next to the table, wipes down the arms of his brown suit jacket—first time I seen him in it—and straightens the cuffs while he looks around. He takes a cigar out of his pocket, lights it, and like a baby on a teet, he sucks on it in short spurts to get it going. His eyes draw to the floor when he do. He moseys over to the Bible there, picks it up, throws it on the table, flips through its pages.

Hazel stands watching him from next to the opened front door. I reckon she hope he blow out.

Massa closes the Bible, walks his fat fingers across the tabletop, then around to the backside of the table, next to the fire pit. He picks up the poker, stabs the wood, sizzling ash.

Hazel don't know what to say over his quiet. Finally she say, “I'm sorry we not so tidy this Sunday evenin. Momma's been fightin a bad sickness and I don't want you to catch it.”

“Darlin. I'm not here to see your momma. I'm here to see you.”

He pokes at the fire, then stabs a log with the sharp end of his poker, shakes it 'til the log falls off in a thud. “It's been quite a few years now. No boys from your momma, just the girls. Got a pretty penny for 'em but I still need my boys, they bring in the real money. You understand that don't you, Hazel? Finances.” His eyes slide toward her.

I open my door a little more so I can see better.

He say, “I need someone to take your momma's place. A strong woman. Good hips.” He raises his hand, waves at the opened front door. “You don't mind if my friend, Boss, come in, do you, Hazel?”

That black man come in. He ain't nobody's boss except that he the same one who lay on top of Momma.

Massa keeps poking at the fire and don't say nothing to Boss even though he came in like Massa asked. Massa buries the orange tip of his cigar into our table, finally say, “Now then, Hazel. Let's see what you can do.”

Hazel creeps back to the wall, passing by our door. She look over her shoulder and into my eyes, then straight away. She hangs there in place. Ain't no crying from her—there never is no more—but her breathing is fast like a mouse caught in a jar. There ain't nowhere to go but fly. Boss grabs her arm, pulls her back into the middle of the room where Massa is. He snatches the back of her hair so her face shoots to the ceiling.

I want to be strong like her and don't cry neither.

I scoot back along the wall, squat down to my old peeking hole and frame my hands around it. I mash my cheek to the wood and air streams through the space, watering my eye. My tears are cold before they fall. I wipe 'em away, making the sight of Hazel across the room clear.

Boss presses his front against Hazel, smashing her back against the warm wall next to the fire. She shuts her eyes and turns her head. A soft wisp of hair falls and soaks into the sweat on her face. Boss brings a dark finger to the strands, sweeps it away to kiss her cheek. A kiss that musta sickened her cause she buck up, her legs rearing and sending a knee between Boss's legs.

But she don't get away.

Boss grabs her waist, lifts her up but her legs and arms keep moving like she running on the ground, then they go wild, swinging, sending her and Boss back against the wall. Her foot slides in the fire.

I wish I never looked through this hole.

Hot tears pour down my cheeks while the firelight flickers on Momma's face. She stands in the door's gap looking to Hazel.

She don't say nothin.

Her eyelids flutter.

I hear Massa in the other room. “Hold still, girl,” and there's a shuffle. Their back and forth turns the shadow show on Momma's face into movement, the three shadow lines down her face, a dance. The shortest line in the middle is Hazel. The two shadow lines come together on her face making Momma's skin gray. She don't blink, though. She come alive.

At once, she burst through the door. “Choose me!” she yell to Massa. “What chu want me to do? I do it.”

“It's too late, Letti,” Massa say.

“I'll give you a boy this time! I'll be good. I could do it this time. God gon' bless me wit a boy. Please!” She throws herself down and wraps her arms around Massa's leg, hugging him like she loves him. He kicks her off.

“Momma!” I yell, stumbling in the room.

“No!” Hazel say.

“Hot damn!” Massa say, scared or surprised. I don't know which. He tilts his head from side to side trying to place me. Then finally, “I knew it! You look just like that bastard. I should've killed him when I had my chance, thieving from me.”

Massa comes close to me, leans into me. His swollen nose is laced with thin red veins, like he walked into a bloodied cobweb.

“I'm ready,” Hazel say. “Massa . . . I'm ready.”

He touches my cheek with his damp yellow fingers. “Where have they had you hidin, darlin?”

“Leave 'er lone!” Hazel say.

“Don't worry,” Massa say, grinning. “I won't bite.”

I hold still, hear the buzz of that strange silence again. Broken now by footsteps trotting up our porch outside. A knock at our door follows. This time, quick and eager.
I know that knock.

Nobody moves.

“Get it,” Massa tell Hazel.

She don't go.

“Girl!” he say.

When she get to the door, she opens it slow. James is there with a handful of freshly picked wild flowers. His smile is like the sun on 'em, but when he sees her, his face dims. “You all right, Hazel?”

From where I stood behind her, I could see a tear fall from her chin to her chest. She shakes her head slowly trying to make it so Massa cain't see. James takes a step back down the porch.

“Don't leave the boy waitin,” Massa say, pushing the door open all the way. He puts his arm around Hazel. “Take the flowers, girl.”

Hazel's slow to. But she do.

“Where's my manners? Come on in, boy.”

James obey. He's with us now.

His head's hung low as he walks through our door, searching the room with his eyes. He stops across from us, alone and small-looking.

“So what brings you my way on a beautiful evening like tonight?” Massa say. “Oh . . . the flowers. That's real nice.”

James bows his head meekly and folds his hands in front of him so he ain't a threat. His Sunday shirt hangs past his knuckles. James say, “We was gon' ask permission, suh.”

“You was gon' ask permission?”

“Yes'sa. Got permission from Massa Lewis and . . .”

“I look like Massa Lewis?”

“Naw, suh,” James say. “If you just have a word wit Massa Lewis, suh.”

Massa relights his cigar, puffs it slow, patting the top and bottom of it with both lips. He say, “Seems to me I got a fox in my henhouse, Boss. A fox messin 'round with what's mine. What I clothe, feed, and provide shelter. Screwin 'em before me. What you think about that, Boss?”

Boss shakes his head. “Very disrespectful, suh.”

“How you punish somethin like that?”

Boss lifts his shoulders. “Don't know.”

Massa pulls his cigar out of his lips slow but makes a quick jerk of his hand. Before I know where it went, the wall explodes a hole of blossoming splinters. Shards of wood fly in my face and prick the front of my neck and chest. The sound crashes in my ears. I cup 'em to stop the
ringing but a smell like burnt hair and wood sweeps the air. Everything sits still now except for Massa's gun making its smoke dance.

Hazel and Momma throw themselves to the floor but James ain't moved.

His big brown eyes are wide open, with a hole in his forehead.

A line of blood slides down like sweat.

He falls to the floor.

Hazel's hands draw to her mouth and tears cover her eyes.

“Shit!” Massa say. “See what you made me do!” he say to Boss. “You short-poured the lead again. Made the bullet split. I told you to re-melt the whole damn thing together. You can't patch a bullet!” Massa slides his hands down the back of his head. “Fuck me!” he say. “You know what that's gon' cost me, Boss? Do ya? I was just gonna scare 'im.”

Massa rams his pistol back down his pants and its pearly white handle flashes us from under his brown jacket. He follows the bullet's path to the wall, touching the impact. “See, Boss? It shoulda missed and gon' clean through here.”

“Yes, suh, Massa, suh.”

Massa blows out hard, washes his hands over his face. “You made me kill that fox.”

Hazel won't move her sight from James. Tears drip steady from her chin while Momma cry, “Jesus, Jesus.”

My hands stay on my ears. I'm afraid to move 'em, 'fraid to let out the ringing that's in 'em and make all this true. I imagine its church bells instead.