Swan Place (10 page)

“I’m Savannah,” she said. “I been watching you hang out sheets, and I wondered if you wanta play.”

“Play?”

“I have a checkers game,” she said, tilting her head toward Aunt Mee’s.

“You staying with Aunt Mee?” I asked.

“Just for a while.” She paused and the face went solemn. Just like somebody had blown out a candle. “‘Cause my mama died. And now folks in her family have to decide who’s going to take care of me.” The back of my neck prickled.

“Your mama died?” I breathed. She nodded a few times, but then she ended up her nodding with her chin very high in the air and a determined look in her eyes.

“My mama died too,” I said, holding my chin exactly like hers. We stood there for a long moment, looking right into each other’s eyes.

“Well, do you wanta play?” she asked, at last.

“I
 . . .
don’t think I have time. I have work to do. And my little sister and brother to take care of,” I answered.

She brightened. “Children? Oh, can I see them?”

“They’re asleep.”

“When they wake up? And I’ll help you with your work and when it’s all done, we can play!” That word again. That perfectly good but strange-sounding word.

“I’ll go get the checkers.” Then she hesitated. “Is it okay?”

“Is it okay for you to get the checkers?” I asked, a little confused.

“No. I mean is it okay with you that I’m not white?” She separated the words, like they were stones she had to step onto, for getting her across something she didn’t want to fall into. And her question surprised me, because all I’d been thinking was that here was somebody else who knew what it felt like to lose your mama. I studied her hard then, realizing that this wasn’t some white child Aunt Mee was taking care of, but a very light-skinned black child. The face waited, all full of hope, with the eyebrows held high and the eyes wide and the mouth just waiting to break into a smile.

“Of course I don’t mind,” I said. And that was true. Because it didn’t matter to me that there were some folks in our town who were against the black people. Mama had never been, nor Aunt Bett, nor Roy-Ellis, and that’s what I grew up with—knowing that you treat all folks the same.

“You kin to Aunt Mee?” I asked.

“Yes,” she smiled and the dimples carved themselves into her cheeks once again. “She’s my grandmama.” She lifted her shoulders in a hopeful shrug, and then she held out one arm and ran her hand over the brown-sugar/cream-colored skin. “Grandmama says I’m a throwback to some white folks who were in our family a long time ago.”

I didn’t know what throwback meant, so I said, “Run on then and get the game, and we’ll get all the work done so we can play.” And just like that, she turned and ran off into the tall weeds. The scurrying sounds died away, and then there was only the hot silence of early afternoon, and the sun shining down on the clean sheets, and me thinking that, at last, maybe I had found me a true and loyal friend of my very own. Somebody who knew what it was like to lose your mama.

I was washing up the lunch dishes when I heard a soft knock on the back screen door. “That you, Savannah?” I called.

“It’s me!” came the reply.

“Well, come on in.” I heard the squeak of the hinges, and in a moment, I saw her coming across the back porch almost on tiptoes.

“Hi,” I said, and she froze to a stop.

“Can I come in?” she whispered.

“Of course.”

She came into the kitchen ever so slowly, looking all around.

I kept on washing the dishes while Savannah crept around, peering into the dining room and looking back at the porch, as if something unexpected might jump out at her, and she needed to be sure of a way of escape. What a strange little thing she was, creeping around on her long, thin legs and with her shoulders hunched up around her neck. I just kept washing dishes, but I was smiling because there was no way
not
to smile. Finally, after she had looked all around, she whispered, “You wanta play?”

“There’s work to do first,” I said, and it startled me, the way I sounded just exactly like Aunt Bett.

“Okay. What do you want me to do?” I gave her a damp rag and asked her to wipe down the table. Then I had her finish drying the dishes while I folded the clothes that had come out of the dryer.

“What you hang out clothes on the line for, if you all got an electric dryer?” she asked.

“I always hang out the sheets,” I explained. “Because the sunshine makes them smell so nice and fresh.”

“We hang out all our things, ‘cause we don’t have a dryer,” Savannah said with a toss of her head that said she didn’t mind. Then she added, “When can I see the children?”

“Soon as they wake up.” And right at that moment, as if on cue, Molly appeared in the kitchen doorway, wearing only her panties and with her face in the deep pout that was her usual after-nap expression.

“A-h-h-h!” Savannah breathed.

“Molly, this is Savannah,” I said. Molly put her thumb deep into her mouth and scowled. “Savannah, this is Molly.” Savannah’s face was wreathed in a smile, with her dimples all deep and shadowy.

“Hello, Molly,” she said. “I’m glad to meet you.” Incredibly, Molly’s thumb came out of her mouth, and she smiled and walked toward Savannah, with her arms held up! Savannah put down the towel and picked Molly up. Molly wrapped her legs around Savannah’s narrow waist and she put her head down on Savannah’s shoulder.

“Why, I never!” I said, still not quite believing what I was seeing.

“Children always like me,” Savannah said. “But I don’t know why.” She started swinging ever so slowly back and forth, giving Molly what was really like a sideways rocking. When Little Ellis woke up, Savannah liked him just as well, but he didn’t take right to her, the way Molly did. Instead, he clutched me and just stared and stared at her.

“It’s okay,” she said, with Molly still wrapped around her. She whispered, “I like little girls best anyway!” We had a good time that afternoon. We fixed a whole platter of vanilla wafers with peanut butter on them, and I found some cake sprinkles in the cabinet and sprinkled them on top of the peanut butter. We all had milk to drink, and we ate that whole plate of cookies, while Savannah told us a wonderful story about a rabbit that outsmarts a fox. We laughed until our stomachs ached. Afterward, I wiped all the peanut butter off Molly and Little Ellis while Savannah washed and dried the plate and glasses. Then we played checkers, with Molly sitting in Savannah’s lap and Little Ellis sitting in mine. We played three whole games—Savannah won two of them—and we all had some Kool-Aid. Then, while Molly and Little Ellis and Savannah watched cartoons, I started getting supper ready.

I heard Roy-Ellis holler, “I’m home!” and all of a sudden, Savannah came just flying through the kitchen, her going so fast she was like a little blur as she went through the door and across the back porch. She didn’t even stop to get her checkers.

“Who was that?” Roy-Ellis asked as he came into the kitchen and reached into the refrigerator for a cold beer.

“That’s Savannah,” I explained. “Aunt Mee’s granddaughter.”

“Timid little thing, isn’t she?”

“She’s really nice,” I said.

Savannah came back
the next afternoon, but her eyes were wide and darting.

“Who was that man?”

“Roy-Ellis. My stepdaddy. You shouldn’t be afraid of him,” I explained. “He’s a good man.”

“He scared me,” she confessed. “I don’t much like meeting new folks.”

“But you liked meeting me
 . . .
and Molly and Little Ellis,” I argued.

“That’s different,” she argued back, and I decided not to press her about it. And now that Savannah knew to listen for Roy-Ellis’s truck, she always hurried away before he came in. But not running real fast, like before. And she always said, “Bye!” when she headed out onto the back porch. On Friday, she told me that she couldn’t come on Saturday if Roy-Ellis was home. And she could never come on Sundays.

“Why?” I asked.

“‘Cause Grandmama makes me keep the Sabbath.”

“Huh?”

“We go to church, and afterward, I’m not allowed to play and we can’t do any work. Grandmama even makes Sunday dinner on Saturday so she won’t have to cook. I’m not allowed to do anything except sit on the porch and read the Bible.” I thought of our Sunday afternoons after church, and a big Sunday dinner at Aunt Bett’s, after which we could come home and do just about anything we wanted.

“Why’s Aunt Mee like that?” I asked.

“Dunno,” Savannah said. “But that’s the way she is.”

“Couldn’t you
sneak
over here Sunday afternoons?”

Savannah’s eyes grew wide and she shook her head. “That would be a sin,” she said, simply.

“Oh.”

Savannah bit her lip and frowned. “We have to keep the Sabbath
holy
. That’s what she says.”

“Well, we can play a little on Saturdays, because Roy-Ellis works a lot of overtime.”

“Okay.”

So on Saturday, I guess Savannah must have looked to see if Roy-Ellis’s truck was gone, and it was. She came up the back steps whistling. “Hi, Dove,” she started. “Can you come out in the yard and talk with my grandmama a little minute? I’ll watch out for Molly and Little Ellis.” So Savannah went on into the living room, and I went out into the backyard, where Aunt Mee was waiting.

“Hi, Aunt Mee,” I said. “What you need?”

She kind of tilted her shoulders back and forth and looked at her shoes before she spoke. “I just wanted to tell you not to let Savannah wear out her welcome, is all.”

“Oh, she won’t,” I laughed. “She helps me, especially with Molly and Little-Ellis.”

“She always did love little ones,” Aunt Mee confessed. “But she’s timid about Roy-Ellis.”

“I know.”

“And I didn’t want him to get his feelings hurt about that.”

“It doesn’t hurt his feelings. He knows Savannah’s a little timid.”

“She is,” Aunt Mee said. “She is that, sure enough. Well, I better get on back home. I got things to take care of.”

“Does it make things hard on you for Savannah to spend time over here?” I asked.

Aunt Mee laughed. “Goodness, no! You ought to see her just flying through her chores, so she can come over here and play with Molly and Little Ellis.” Then she added, “And I’m glad she has you for a friend. She doesn’t make friends very easy.”

During that first week
of summer vacation, Aunt Bett called and wanted to know why we didn’t come down to her house very often, and I told her about Savannah and how much I enjoyed her company.

“Well, you do as you please,” Aunt Bett said. “But just remember that we’re right here and we’re family and you’re always welcome.”

“Yes’m.”

“Well, I’m bringing you all some summer things today, so if there’s anything you want me to do at your house, just let me know.”

So that afternoon, Aunt Bett came driving up with her whole backseat filled with clean, carefully folded clothes for us to wear during the summer. And goodness knows, Molly and Little Ellis were certainly needing new clothes, because they had outgrown almost all the things Aunt Bett had loaned to us a few months earlier.