Chapter Eight

People write entire books on “natural” childbirth, when having a baby is like trying to blow a grapefruit out your nose. Does that sound natural?

When the pains started in again, I thought about what Verna’d been saying to me—and anyone who’d listen—for months. She said I didn’t have a lick of sense. It made me so mad my face turned purple. But I guess she was right. If I’d had a lick of sense, I wouldn’t have gotten myself in trouble and ended up in Hog Gap on a stormy night wracked with pain. I’d be home with Mama picking strawberries and making jam.

I tried to picture how sweet the baby would be, sweeter than Mama’s pecan pie. But things got rougher, and all that came to mind was the sorrowful fact I’d rather have bamboo shoots rammed under my fingernails then go through any more labor.

Willa Mae tried to make the best of it. But the storm didn’t cooperate. It got worse as the hours wore on just like my pains. She checked out the window, then checked on me, checked out the window, checked on me. Back and forth, till she wore herself out and made me dizzy in the process. Finally, she dragged a chair in from the kitchen and sat down next to me to rest. She found an old windup clock that still kept time and placed it on another chair as a makeshift nightstand.

“I hate that clock,” I said. “It chews on every second like a cow with its cud.”

“We needs it, child,” Willa Mae said. “Keeps track on the pains.” I watched her lemon-yellow arms waddle in the air while she tucked in the sheets. Hours limped along.

“That clock ain’t working!” I said.

“I’m gone get you thinking ’bouts something else,” she said and dabbed at my forehead with a cloth she rinsed out in the basin beside me. Her hands were thick, warm honey, pink in the center, soothing and gentle.

“Murphy said you might read to me from a book you carry around.”

“Murphy say that?”

I nodded.

“Best not makes no liar out of that fine man,” she said, and her eyes snapped open. They were large round circles that rested on her face like shiny black pools surrounded by snow. “You keeps doing that breathing. I gits it from my satchel.” Willa Mae shuffled out of the room and came back with a cracked brown leather binder tucked under one arm. It was held together with an old black shoelace. She laid it at the end of the bed.

“This be it,” she said and lit the kerosene lamp.

“Murphy shuts the power down when I moves, but this works good. Some things is like that. Still works even when they’s old.” Willa Mae fumbled with the match, and a soft glow lit up the corner of the room. Another pain erupted below my belly. It quickly wrapped itself around my spine and surged upwards.

“Uuuhhh,” I gasped and sucked in a deep breath, releasing the air through my mouth. I turned and rolled to my side.

“Wheew. Wheew. Wheew…” I panted, just like she’d taught me.

“Keeps doing that,” Willa Mae said. She rubbed my lower back while the pain swallowed it whole. “You doin’ real good.” I clung to her words like sap on a tree and welcomed the strokes from her broad hands. It was all I had to ease the pain. Once it passed, Willa Mae lowered herself onto the chair. Her vast bottom spilled over both sides. She placed the journal carefully on her lap, opened the cover, and ran her fingertips lightly over the pages. They were peppered with watermarks, fat, dimpled, inviting pages with uneven edges the color of whiskey. A faint musty odor drifted into the room. I settled under the covers and breathed in the scent, curious about what was inside, praying that whatever it was would help keep my mind off the pain. Willa Mae tucked her glasses carefully around each ear.

“These from Murphy,” she said, “He gits me new pairs by and by as I needs ’em. They looks real good on me, too.”

I nodded that they did and took another deep breath. Willa Mae stroked the binder resting in her lap and began to whisper the words spread out on the page. My eyes were heavy and my body ached, but the soft mattress underneath me was heaven. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the sound of Willa Mae’s voice as the story drifted toward me. The words from the past inched forward, and the present slid backwards. I let the cabin rise up and carry me with it as the birthing continued.

What a battle. The pain beat me down. It bruised me bad. It wounded a soft, tender spot inside that used to be me. I cried out when I rode the worst of it, but Willa Mae’s murmur—soothing and steady—never let up. Her velvet words carried me past the hurt. They tossed me gently into the current of another girl’s life. I bobbed up and down on the swells. When the next wave clamped hold of my belly, I slipped under that current and mercifully got lost somewhere beneath it.

• • •

Them nice white folks what builds this cabin for me say writes down how you ’members it. How your chilluns be sold and tells about when the freedom come and that mean ole Massah has to set you free. Writes it all down, lessen you forgets. I won’t forget, not none of it, I say. I still sees my little chillun’s faces and wonder they still be out there somewheres, but how I gone know if they’s looking back? I be ninety best I know. They growed up and old theyselves by now, but the white folks keeps at me. “Land sakes, I gwine writes it down!” I say. This how it go.

I running longside the wagon and the speculator men got my babies. They got Thomas, he three, but he thinks he older. They got James and LuLu, too. That wagon near full up when it get here and still they stuffs more poor niggers in it. This fine-looking big colored woman, with a face round as the moon and real shiny, got hold of LuLu. She be patting LuLu’s back and moving up and down, while she do’s, but that kind Negro woman ain’t got what that chile need. LuLu still take the milk be in my breast. She been fussing the whole time they takes her, now she howling. I got my hand on the wagon and when she keeps doing that fussing, my milk comes in again. I runs real fast and stay with that wagon, and I reach out to that woman got LuLu, thinking maybe she hands her back to me and I can hides her somewhere without Massah be knowing bouts it. And then, James see me and he start crying and reaching for me to takes him. He hardly much bigger than LuLu.

“Mammie!” he say in the sweetest voice what the Lord gives him.

“Gits me, Mammie,” he say, and whilst he doing that, Thomas be waving and smiling. He think he going somewhere and be coming back soon. He keeps up that waving all the while that wagon bumping long this road got more holes than Massah’s old socks. I still running and doing my best to keeps up.

James, now he waving, too, but James not smiling like Thomas be doing. He got good sense, James do. That little boy got a sadness to him like he knows what things be bout. He knows when that wagon comes, the folks get in never comes back. Mostly, Thomas forget that, cause he is hit in the head with the cracker when Massah whips some poor nigger won’t work harder and Thomas get in the way when that bullwhip snap back. Near kill him, it do, and he got a scar in the front of his head got a ridge big as a snake. Mostly now his black hair, what be real kinky, hides it good.

The wagon going faster now, and I be having trouble keeping ups with it. And that speculator man what drive them mules, have it go even faster. Use the bullwhip on ’em, same kind they beats us folks with. My legs is young and strong and I can’t let that wagon goes so easy, and I keeps running after it. But they’s a hole in the ground that grabs my foot and down I goes. My foot stuck bad in that hole and when I twist to get it out, this pain shoots up like a hot poker be branding it. I yanks it free, but that wagon mostly be gone when I goes limping after it even though I wants to run. I’s still waving, but my chilluns is getting smaller and ’fore long I can’t see none my babies sweet faces what got them pretty brown eyes, no more. And my eyes works good, too. I ain’t but seventeen, best I know.

’Magine them babies own daddy sell’em like that, like they’s no more than a sack of good eating taters. Law say he can. He be the Massah. Ain’t nothing I can do’s bout it, and dat’s a truth.

The speculator mens take all three them babies be mine and Massah’s. And they takes one more thing. Just reach their big hairy white arms down, what got them wiry muscles, and takes my heart, the whole thing. Maybe not, maybe it climb in that wagon all by itself. Ima tell you, everything pretty much be gone after that.

Two year later that Freedom come and I goes looking for them babies. I do’s that nigh on fifteen year, but I ain’t never seen ’em agin.

That be Marse Major Stowers I makes those chilluns with, but he weren’t the master I be born to. That be Massah Jordan. I was the third girl of my Mammy. There was seven of us chilluns counting four boy ones was my brothers. They was all born before me and I never knew none them and never seen none them neither. Massah Jordan buy Mammy from her old Massah and she be having the baby in her belly be me when he buyed her. Massah Jordan be a good Massah and he say he not one to buy a woman to take from her chillun be’s left behind, but Mammy’s old Massah say he be selling her and what baby she got in her belly anyway, so he might as well takes her as another.

Mammy was a house servant done all the cooking and we was royalty and dat’s a truth. When I’s born, Mistress Jordan sure ’nuf love me, she do. And Massah and Missy keeps loving us like we be’s their own. Missy gives us pickaninnies pennies on Saturday for to buy stuff with. Throw’d them shiny monies right off the big front porch for us to cotch. We chilluns push and shove to get them shiny monies and I always gets me some, even though I be mostly the smallest. ’Cepting one time I not get me any of that shiny money, but Missy seed it and say, “Stand back, children. This is for Tempe.” And she lean over the rail of that big front porch house was a castle for sure and drop two of them pennies clean into my hand and I cotched them quick ’fore the other chilluns rush at me. Missy say, “Harold, Ollie,” they be’s some the other little Negro chillun what live on Massah’s place, “You got yours. Let Tempe be, or I’ll whup you now.” And Missy sashay her full skirts ’round in a circle and flounce off into that big house wherefore Mammy be cooking her something good to eat that morning for her breakfast, ’cause Mammy was a fine cook for sure she was.

I be too young in those days to be’s a working Negro child on that plantation. That long time before the big war come between the gray and the blue soldiers. We chilluns spent our days just playing and having ’bout the best chilehood chilluns can have. We hitch us rides to and from the fields when we’s able and sometimes we gather all the rotten fruit lay on the ground in the orchards and throwed it at each other. And we chase the ganders ’bout and we make plenty games up for to play, too. The Negro man Old George, couldn’t do no regular work no more, care for us in the day while all the mammies be at work. He be pretty good to us, ’lessen we get out of hand. When we does that, he say Raw Head and Bloody Bones come to gits us in the night and land sakes we be good after that. Massah Jordan tell Old George to feeds us chillun all we wants so we grow big and strong and can do the work some day. Old George breaks up the cornbread and puts it in the big trough what he made for us to eats from and he pour the buttermilk over that bread. Then we eats it with the dipping spoon he gives us to eats with. We’uns stands in line like we little piglets and eats till our bellies full. We’s acts like little pigs, too, pushing and shoving so to keep our place. Some chilluns don’t use no spoon and ’fore long the corn bread and the buttermilk turn near red as the clay be on their hands. At nights we gits our dinner like that, too, but the vegetables go in with the cornbread and the milk and the pot-licker, and some meats, too, whatever kinds they got for us, that’s what they puts in. It be pretty good that way. Old George make it up and we gits all we want so that be good, too. Mostly, it sure be heaven in them early days for me. Later when things git bad when Mammy be gone I thinks back on them days and sure miss them forever and dat’s a truth. That was long before the Freedom come, ’cause when it come Mammy be no longer where I could ever find her and I never did know if she seen it or made use of it. Missy be gone by then, too, so I lost both the women I loved the best in the whole world and they was good to me. Yes, they was.

Massah and Missy had six chilluns of their own and they was the best friends I had. Four be girls and two be boys. The girls be Hannah, Ellen, Louise, and Caroline. The boys, one he be the baby, they was Luke and William. How I love that fat baby William what had the yeller curls and blue eyes. I help Mammy kere for him and totes him for Missy when she let me.

“Sit still, Tempe, and hold him tight. He’s a handful,” Missy say.

“Oh, I hold him tighter to me than a squirrel hang on that tree,” I tells my Missy and points yonder to the tree with one hand and near dropped that baby on his head with the other! But she cotched him, ’cause Missy stay real close when I hold that fat baby William what was a handful. And a good thing, too. I git me a whupping for sure I drop that baby. Missy be ’bout the finest lady in that land, for sure, but my mistress not one for nonsense or dropping no babies on their heads, ’specially one be her baby William what she near died birthing and scared Mammy to death thinking she would them three days that baby what’s supposed to come out and didn’t, then finally did.

I loves my Missy and my Mammy to this day. Hard to think which one I loves more. And they loves me too, wherever they is. They never lays a hand to me, ’cepting once and then I deserves it for sure. I et all the pies Mammy baked for the wedding guests come to stay for Missy’s sister what married that fine soldier be in the gray army, ’cepting there wan’t no fighting gwine on at the time I know of.

“What you got all over your clothes?” my Mammy say.

“Nothing,” I say, and looks down and sees my tackling shirt all we colored chilluns be wearing covered in the blackberries and the strawberries what dripped down from the pies I et.

“You be in Mistress Molly’s berry patch?” Mammy say.

“No’m,” I tells her and dat’s a truth. I be by the back window where them pies be cooling and eat’em with my fingers soon’s they cool and then hardly, ’cause my fingers was burnt some, they was.

“Best not be in Missy’s berries,” Mammy say.

“Oh no’m,” I tell Mammy, and run off to the window again and finish with the pies I am eating, ’til my belly near bust. Come for a time later my belly swelled up from them pies and I be in the terrible pains and rolling on the ground and hollering like the ladies does what have the babies. Missy hear me moaning and runs out to me and Mammy comes too.

“Tempe,” Mistress says, “What’s wrong, child?” She sure be worried, ’cause she loves me, that Missy do.

“I et the pies,” I say. “They’s poisoned!”

“What?” Missy say.

“Mammy, what for you poison them pies?” I ask Mammy. Mistress look at Mammy like she be waiting for her to explains a good answer. Mammy say, “Them pies be the best in Georgia. I bakes ’em for Sissy’s big wedding party. Ain’t no poison in the pies!” Mammy cross her arms and put out her chin. “Uhm, uhm, uhm,” she say.

“Oh my, Tempe,” Missy say, “Did you eat Mammy’s pies?”

“I did. I et the pies,” I say. “They’s poisoned and I saves Sissy and I saves all da others what might eat them pies from dying.”

“Uhm, uhm, uhm!” Mammy say, and shake her head. When I gets done being sick from them pies, Missy give me a whupping, but not too hard, ’cause she love me, that Missy do. And Massah Jordan he loves us all and was the finest master in the land for sure and we go on like that for pretty good many years. When Miz Caroline, their oldest girl child, is near a woman, Massah get the fever, might be that scarlet one he got, might not, no one else gets that kind fever he got I know of. And Massah die. Lordy, how we carry on. They let all the Negroes be his march right through the big parlor where they got him laid up all nice on the satin kivers. We chilluns mostly thinks on him like he our pappy and for me I figure he was for sure my pappy. My skin be light yeller and Mammy’s be dark, and my nose don’t spread far on my face like most them others.

“Massah Jordan be my pappy,” I say to the other chilluns and soon it gets to my Mammy what I be saying and land sakes did she lay on me good.

“Who say Massah Jordan be your pappy?” Mammy say.

“I say, Mammy. My skin be yeller and my nose not wide.”

“That don’t make for him be your pappy,” Mammy say, and she whups me. So dat be another time I gits whupped. I near forgot dat one.

“Don’t be telling them made up stories in your head again,” Mammy say.

“Who for be my pappy? He be a white pappy?”

“Lordy, Lordy,” Mammy say and goes inside to cooks the food in the big house. After Massah die a black lady work a’side my Mammy tells me I got three white maybe pappies and nobody know which one be him, not even Mammy.

“Your Mammy’s old Massah, who Massah Jordan buys her from, has three sons weren’t but near boys, and when the mistress be gone one day they ties your Mammy on the floor and what they done, they does all day,” she say. “Mammy tells her mistress when she come home ’cause Mammy a sight and Mistress beat them boys, but she send Mammy away when she learns a baby be come from it. That baby be you.”

“What be their names,” I say.

“Who names?”

“Names of them maybe pappies.”

“Land sakes, chile, I don’t knows the name be that Massah! How’m I gwine know the names of them sons be his?” she say. “What you needs to knows that for?”

“I needs know who my pappy be,” I say.

“That not how it works,” she say. “Where your head?”

So I don’t gets to know who be my pappy, but I pretty for sure knows he be’s white.