Aunt Margaret thought about church the next day and started singing. She thought about the people who were going to be there, how they were going to be dressed and where they were going to be sitting. She knew that Aunt Polly Williams liked sitting by that first window near the pulpit. Aunt Polly would come to church before any of the other members just to get that seat. If anybody else sat there before she did, she would be mad all day. Sometimes Glo Hawkins did that just to make Aunt Polly mad. Once they had a fight in the church. Aunt Polly told Glo Hawkins to move, and Glo Hawkins told her to go sit down. Aunt Polly started beating Glo Hawkins over the head with her pocketbook, and it took three or four other people in church to stop her. Aunt Margaret, thinking about Aunt Polly, had to smile to herself. She thought about the other people who wouldn’t be able to come to church because of sickness. Whenever she thought about the sick people, it always made her sad.
Aunt Margaret heard noises in Louise’s bedroom. It sounded like Louise was pushing something heavy across the floor. Aunt Margaret stopped singing and listened a moment. Louise stopped pushing whatever it was she was moving. Aunt Margaret thought it sounded like the dresser. She started singing again. Louise started moving the dresser again. Aunt Margaret laid her iron on the side and went out on the gallery. But Marcus was raking leaves just like he was supposed to be doing. Aunt Margaret came back inside and started ironing and singing, and the moving started all over again. Aunt Margaret stopped and listened; the moving stopped. She started singing; the moving started. She stopped and faced the door. She was still humming her church song to herself, but she was humming so low she was sure Louise couldn’t hear it. All the time she faced the door, she couldn’t hear a sound.
Aunt Margaret went quickly to the front door, and this time she saw Marcus looking toward the house. She moved toward the end of the gallery just as fast as she had come outside, and looked around the corner of the house at Louise’s bedroom window, but she saw nothing but the curtains. She thought if she stood there long enough she would see the curtains move, but they never did. Aunt Margaret moved away from the end of the gallery and looked at Marcus again. He had gone back to work; Tite was working right beside him.
Aunt Margaret went back inside and started ironing. Everything was quiet in Louise’s room now. Even when Aunt Margaret started singing again, nothing happened in the room.
Fifteen minutes after she had been inside, she saw Marcus and Tite coming toward the house. They went around the house to the hydrant, and a minute later Aunt Margaret heard the water running in the barrel. She stepped back from the ironing board to look at Marcus drinking; then he was holding Tite up so she could drink.
“ ’Nough?” he asked Tite.
“Wee,” Tite said.
Marcus and Tite started for the front, and Aunt Margaret moved back to her ironing board. She hadn’t been ironing a minute, she said, when she heard a loud, booming noise in Louise’s bedroom. She jumped around and faced the door, then she went to the door and asked Louise what was the matter. Louise didn’t answer. Aunt Margaret heard another noise: it sounded like two people moving fast and trying to be quiet at the same time.
“Wait,” Aunt Margaret said. “I know this ain’t what I think it is.”
She ran to the front door and looked across the yard, but she didn’t see Marcus or Tite. She ran back through the house to the back gallery, but she didn’t see them by the hydrant, either. Now, she ran back to the front, and this time to the end of the gallery, to look around the side of the house. Tite was standing outside the fence, letting the dog lick her hand. Marcus was nowhere in sight.
Aunt Margaret started to holler at Tite, but she remembered Tite’s bad heart. She was scared, too, if she hollered and Tite jerked her hand back too quickly, the dog might bite her. So she broke away from the end of the gallery and ran toward the steps, but after going halfway down, she ran back up again.
“Master,” she said. “Master.”
She broke inside and started beating on the door with her fist.
“Come out of there, boy,” she said, beating. “I mean, come out of there, come out of there.”
She heard something slam against the wall—it sounded like a piece of furniture.
“What was that?” she called. “What hit there?”
Nobody answered. Then she heard the same noise again. It might have been a chair one of them was throwing against the wall.
Aunt Margaret moved back to hit the door with her shoulders. She said she knew that that little frail latch would fly off even if Tite had hit that door hard enough. She hit it. But like she had hit one of those oak trees out in the yard, she went falling back on the floor. “What in the—” She got up and hit it again. Again, it was like hitting one of those oak trees.
“So that’s it, that’s what she was doing,” Aunt Margaret said. “Propping things back there.”
“Come out of there, boy,” Aunt Margaret hollered through the door. “You hear me?”
She said one of them slammed that chair against the wall again. She said she tried to vision what chair it was, but she didn’t have time for visioning. She started to hit the door with her shoulder, but she thought about Tite and ran out on the gallery. Tite was still at the fence, letting the dog lick her hand. “Master,” Aunt Margaret said, and ran back inside. Just about then that chair or something else heavy slammed against the wall. Then it got quiet—too quiet.
“What y’all doing?” Aunt Margaret said softly, holding her ear against the door. “Miss Louise, what y’all doing in there?”
Then she heard another loud, booming noise, like somebody had jumped from one end of the room to the other. Marcus said:
“I got you now, I got you now, you pretty little hot pretty thing. I got you now, hanh? Hanh? Give me my two little pears here. Give ’em here. Give me my two little sweet pears.”
Aunt Margaret said she hit that door with all her might, but again it was like hitting that oak tree. She fell and got up and hit it again: this time it was like hitting that oak tree with another tree behind it.
She heard a slap.
“What was that?” she called, and listened. “What was that? You slapped that white woman, boy?”
She said she heard, “Why you pretty little hot—you taking it off or I’m go’n tear it off?”
“She ain’t go’n do nothing and you neither,” Aunt Margaret said through the door. “Not long as I can draw breath.”
She hit the door with her shoulder. She fell, got up, and ran out on the gallery to see what Tite was doing. Tite was letting the dog lick her hand, so Aunt Margaret ran back into the room.
Marcus was saying, “Lord, look how pretty you is. Lord, I didn’t know you was this pretty. How can a man leave all this pretty goodness and go—Oh, Lord, look at all this. And look at my two little pears hanging here, just look at ’em.”
Aunt Margaret hit the door and hit it again.
She heard Marcus saying, “Now see me, see how pretty I’m is. See that? See?”
“Boy, you naked in there?” Aunt Margaret called through the door. “You naked in there, boy?”
“Let me kiss you,” he said. “Oooooo, you sweet. Good Lord—Lord, have mercy. He know you this sweet? Let me kiss this little pear here … now this one. Two of the sweetiest little pears I ever tasted. ’Specially this one here … Go on touch it. That’s right, touch it. Won’t hurt you. See? See?”
Aunt Margaret hit the door again. She hit it again, again, again. Then she heard him laughing. She figured he was carrying Louise to the bed, because the next sound she heard was the spring when they laid down. She pushed against the door again—not with her shoulder—with both hands. But she knew it was no use. And even if she had got into the room, it would have been too late now. She could tell by the deep moan that Louise made.
She turned now and went outside to pull Tite away from the fence. While she led Tite across the yard, Tite raised her other hand and showed her a nickel. Aunt Margaret didn’t say anything, she couldn’t say anything; she started crying when Tite wasn’t looking. She sat down against one of the big oak trees and pulled Tite in her lap.