Chapter Thirty-seven

“You can’t blame yourself, Adie,” Mama said. “People do what they gonna do.” Even so, I did count myself guilty. Surely there was something I should have done. I’d been busy with Grace and Sam and the chickens. I knew Buck was hurting, but I hadn’t noticed how deep his wounds had festered. I was getting things ready for the new baby. Mostly, I left Buck to himself.

“We had no way of knowing,” Murphy said. “Won’t do us any good to hold ourselves up for punishment. We got these babies to think about.”

Willa Mae said, “Deys joy for you no matter all dis sorrow gwine on. You gots to takes dat joy for dat sorrow eats it clean up.”

“We best not blame each other for what we shoulda done,” Verna said. “I know all about blame, Adie,” she said. “You let it in to visit, and it’s gonna want to stay.”

“This weren’t your fault,” Mama said. “Ain’t nobody knows what’s in another’s head excepting the good Lord. And if He couldn’t stop him, what makes you think you could?”

All the words said to me were kind and soothing on the surface. But they couldn’t get near the knot in my chest, this deep ache that sucked the air out of me. My other parts, my arms and legs, my skin, were no longer connected. They moved about like usual, but the sensation was they belonged to another. I stumbled over a pull-toy left on the kitchen floor and lost my balance. I regained it by grabbing hold of the stove. My arms flew outward and my fingers on one hand ended up on the burner still hot from the last pot of coffee Mama brewed. Guess my body parts weren’t as disconnected as I thought. A fierce, burning pain grabbed hold of my hand and traveled up my arm. I yanked it free; my fingertips bone white, then red as apples. Mama plunged them into a bowl of ice. The lump in my chest was still there, but it became bearable, as the pain in my hand got all my attention.

“Adie girl,” Mama said, “you need to go rest yourself.” She patted my wound dry, spread butter on my fingertips, and carefully wrapped them in gauze.

“Poor chile,” Willa Mae said and shuffled me off to bed. My legs followed. I let Clarissa and Willa Mae do for the little ones, while Rebecca accepted the food and saw to the kindness of those who came calling. Once again, folks came with platters of comfort food. We had so much macaroni and cheese we had to send some back home with the ones who brought pies and cakes.

Verna and Mama made arrangements for Buck. Me, I curled up with Tempe’s diary and traded my sorrows for hers.

• • •

Miz ’Lizabeth, that kind white woman we share crops for ’long with her husband comes calling dat week and brings sum pretty cloth for me to sews new dresses wid. She sees dat face what be mine and how longs it is and asks what be troubling me. I tells her dat Thomas be drinking and fighting agin, is all. Miz ’Lizabeth say to takes him to the revival what coming dat next week and wash him clean in da river. I say for sure dat what I do, sure ’nuf and I thanks her for dat pretty cloth she brings, too. Mostly I thinking dat I don’t know hardly whats I gwine do. And dat little girl baby, what be’s our, you know dat little Heart, she jis’ playing in the wind, not a kere in the world, and da sky falling down on us and dat’s a truth. Little Heart, she be’s eight year old, bes’ I remembers. When Thomas sober up from the corn likker I goes about and tells him the story about me branding the babies and do’s he member the pattywagon takes him away all dem years go. He say what dat got to do wid dem baby’s be branded? And I say, “Don’t you see dat brand you gots on your bum?” And he say what of it? And I tells Thomas I puts dat brand dere. He say, “You is gwine crazy. Maybe lots a’ womens put the brand on dere babies ’fore dey’s sold.”

And I say dat might could be, but den I gets him to looks in da mirror be on da wall by da bed. “Who dat cuts my hair?” he acks and I tells him I do’s. “See dat mark from da cracker whip? When you’s little you is hit in the head by Massah’s ol’ cracker. Das how I knows dat brand on you is one I puts dere.” And what Thomas do den, he falls to da floor and wraps his hands right arounds my feet and den he pounds his head on da floor. He be moaning so loud he skere Heart so bad she come running in from the yard. I pulls Thomas up and sits on the bed. Thomas he put his head in my lap and he cries like he be’s a baby.

“Oh Mammy,” he says. “What habs we done?” Now Heart be crying and I be’s, too.

“What’s we gonna do, Mammy?” Thomas say. I don’t say what we gwine do, eben though I knows what we gots to do. One of us gots to leave. We can’t be carrying on like we don’t knows what we knows. After whiles Thomas git up and go off and takes some dat corn likker. I packs a bag for Heart and me and ties it up in a bundle. We gwine have to take da wagon and da mule. Thomas, he strong and kin plow da fields wid out dat mule, but Heart and me can’t walks to where we’s gowing. I don’t know where we be’s going and when we gets dere to dat place where it be and I say, “Okay, dis be where we’s going”—dat could be real far when I says dat—so we gots to hab da wagon. I cooks potatoes to eat for Heart and makes up sum turnip greens wid fatback and sum bisquits be real good, and I eats sum, too. I’m not want to eats, but I gots to hab my strength for to travel, so’s I do. Den we off to bed. ’Fore I do I leabes a note to Miz ’Lizabeth say for her to tell Thomas we loves him but we gots to go and he know why it be bes’ and for to tells him dat. But when the moon is high and the res’ the sky be black I hears the dogs barking and da sheriff man comes pounding on da door. I gits up to open it and dey got hold a’ Thomas by the arms and be dragging him and he is full of blood. His head be bashed in worser den I eber see’s it.

“He fighting agin,” dat ol’ sheriff man say. “I should locks him up, but you bes’ fix him up first. He hurt real bad dis time,” he say. Dey puts him on da bed and I cleans my Thomas bes’ I kin. I wash him kereful and he be moaning. “I takes kere you, Thomas,” I say, “Makes you good as new, den we takes you to da river and wash you clean like Miz ’Lizabeth say and we kin habs a good life eben wif what we knows.”

I wraps him in da sheets and sings all da songs Thomas always like for me to sing. I stays and pats him and sings for him all da night, I do’s. But sometime come morning I falls to sleep next to Thomas and when I wakes Heart be up and playing by da bed wid da dolls I makes her wid bits of cloth.

“What be’s wrong wid mise daddy, Mammy?” she acks. “He be’s real cold and he hard like dem rocks be’s outside. Jis’ stare like to skere me, Mammy,” she say. And I looks and dere is Thomas jis’ like Heart say. I starts wailing and ’fore long Heart be wailing and den the dogs be barking and soon Miz ’Lizabeth come running. She see what happen and get her husband John Evans and they do’s what they kin, but they like to neber gets me to stop dat wailing.