A large meal of hush puppies, collard greens, cornbread, and chicken was spread across the table in mismatched dishes and cloths. When Bessie asked for the salt, Carol secured her son with one arm and reached for a tarnished shaker with the other. Then she watched as Bessie tapped white flecks onto her food.
You know we got a girl comin’, Bessie said.
I already aired out the room.
D’you make up the bed?
I was fixin’ to.
Maybe put some flowers in a jar.
I know, Bessie. I’ll make it real nice I promise.
’Cuz this gal, she way past quick’ning, so I can’t do nothing except explain to her why I can’t do nothing. Now, if she ain’t goin’ home, she gonna stay with us until her baby’s in the world, which could be a while.
Carol was trying to restrain the boy in her lap. His wish, as always, was to slide under the table where he would find things on the floor to amuse himself or to put in his mouth.
Carol scowled. Quit it, Rusty!
Bessie dropped a chicken wing onto her plate with a hollow clunk. Lord Jesus in heaven, Carol, jus’ let him go. If that’s what he wants, where’s the harm in it? Lord knows I wish I could hide under the table, some of the folks we get comin’ round here.
Rusty slithered through his mother’s arms and disappeared.
He jus’ gets so grubby. And it ain’t normal that he can’t walk yet.
Bessie motioned to the window with a piece of corn. Have you seen the world, child? There ain’t nothing normal. In fact, if you were sane people would think you was crazy.
But he don’t talk so good neither. Have you noticed that?
Bessie wiped her mouth with a clean cotton square. There’s a chance that boy is special, Carol, like I told you last year.
Slow you mean?
Slow, fast, makes no difference. God turns the world at one speed.
Carol was many months past quickening when she arrived in the truck with Old Man Walker. Bessie had seen it right away and told the Cherokee that she hardly ever got any so young in such a condition. It must have been a nasty and dangerous situation he’d plucked her from. He stayed that night in one of the empty rooms, then got back in his truck at first light after Martha fed him sausage and biscuits, with a tin cup of black coffee to wash it down.
Carol’s delivery took place a short time later on the first hot day of summer. There were towels everywhere, with Martha hovering by the door, as she always did. In the end, Bessie didn’t need any help. Martha said it was like watching someone pull a catfish from a mud puddle. Carol felt the baby leaving her body. He was a big boy and she ripped during delivery. Despite the sweat-soaked sheets and blood from the tear, Carol thought Rusty was the most precious thing she had ever seen. Bessie made her stay in bed a whole two weeks after, drinking special tea, and making sure every day that everything down there was clean and dry.
Bessie picked up the salt again and shook it in her hand. A few dry pieces tumbled onto her palm.
Is there anything even in this? I need my glasses. And where’s Martha at. Martha!
Pans clattered from the kitchen. Then the woman who did most of the cooking appeared in the doorway, wiping her hands on a rag. She was tall and bent slightly at the very top of her body as if from always having to look down. Martha was Polish, but had learned to make the food Bessie liked, and even enjoy it herself.
What you want Bessie? I’m busy.
I’m going to get fatter than I am now if you don’t eat some of this.
That’s what you call me in for?
No, but leave the kitchen and come sit with us.
But when is girl coming?
On the evenin’ tide, Bessie said. Like I told you. That’s why we’re eatin’ our main meal now instead of at supper. Carol gonna make up the back room.
But that room needs airing out.
Carol’s doin’ it. Now please stop fussin’ and sit.
Martha tucked the cloth into her apron and joined them at the table.
I can help in the kitchen when I’m done with the room, Carol said.
After most of the procedures, Martha would spend hours scrubbing blood out of the linens. Her hands were like gray rags. She had taught Carol a good many things about cleaning and cooking. But when it came to baking, no one could compete with Carol’s biscuits.
Thank you, Martha said, spooning small mountains of things onto her plate. I could use help with all towels we have this week.
You’re gonna work that girl to death, Bessie said. Soak longer and scrub less would be my motto.
Martha huffed. Some of those towels want putting in trash.
With Rusty occupied under the dining table, Carol began to eat something too. I’ll take all the work you can give me, she told the two older women, seein’ as I don’t pay a cent for food’n lodgin’.
Bessie sighed as if she were annoyed. There you go again, Carol, worryin’ about nothin’. In case you ain’t noticed, this is not a hotel. It’s a home. I ain’t much travelled ’cept to Tennessee for trainin’ purposes—but the difference is you don’t need money to stay in a home.
But—
But, but, but, Bessie said. But ain’t gonna find my glasses, Carol, ’cause but never did nothin’.
After almost four years with Bessie and Martha, Carol had learned to milk a cow, milk a goat, catch an escaped goat, plant beans, dig potatoes, plant squash, harvest squash, and get blood out of almost anything.
Poultry or hogs usually came to them as gifts from the calloused hands of working men or grateful wives already struggling to look after the children they had and not wanting more. At first Carol thought that Bessie and Martha lived secret lives in the community, but Bessie’s old plantation house was well known, and people usually waved when they saw her out walking the fields with a heavy stick or grumbling past in the old truck.
Once, when they were chopping wood, Carol had asked Bessie if she was worried about the Ku Klux Klan burning something in her yard, or coming at night in their hoods to preach and holler. Near where she grew up, whole families—with babes in arms—had been dragged into their dooryards and beaten by gangs of men at night.
Well wouldn’t you know, Bessie said, one of those nasty ol’ Klansmen brung his daughter to see me couple of years back. She swung the axe and split a log with a single blow.
Carol’s eyes widened. He came here?
Yuh. From the next county. And I’m sure you can figure out why. Bessie put down her axe. Her forehead and cheeks were glistening with sweat. It’s what I hate the most. I’d chop their filthy bidness clean off if it were up to me.
Was she past quick’ning?
No, she weren’t, and I told him I would do it only, only if he keeps his dried up posse o’ white fools off my doorstep. I told him if I see just one flash of pillowcase, well, then ever’one is gonna know what he done to his poor child. And I mean ever’one, preacher, farmers, wagon drivers, bootleggers, the Civil War general who lives alone on Victory Hill talkin’ to hisself all day . . . even president of the United States if I have to.
Well if he’d bin like my daddy, Carol explained, then he’d probably be fixin’ to trick you in some way.
The big woman smiled. I ain’t nobody’s fool ’cept my own. I gave him a pen and a piece of paper to sign that said he got the pro-cedure in return for my protection from the Klan.
Carol laughed. I’ll bet he was mad about that.
He didn’t say a damn thing—just scratched out his ugly ol’ name right there on the paper that Martha wrote for me. It looked like a snake too, like the devil’s serpent when he told Eve to try that juicy ol’ apple. He knew his sin was about the worst kind. The Bible got whole chapters on it somewhere I’m sure.
Bessie sat on the thick stump she’d been using to split the wood. She lay her axe on the ground with the edge pointing away. Then she pulled a cigar stub from her pocket and lit the end.
That lil’ girl was here about a week. When her father came back, he was real bossy and short. I knew he would be and I was ready for it. It’s what men do to hide their shame and stupidity. I told him, there and then, that I sent that paper wi’his name on it, explaining everything what gone on, names and dates, what have you, to my sister in Illinoise with instructions to be opened in the event of my untimely demise by lynching or some such other nonsense. Well, Carol. You. Should. Have. Seen. His. Ugly. Ol’. Face.
You got family in Illinois?
Bessie chuckled. I’m an only child so far as I know, may the Lord bless my momma, born into shackles as she was. Anyway, his daughter, she run off six months later. May the Lord Jesus hisself help and guide that lost soul. Robbery, Carol, even killin’ I can forgive if there’s Christian cause . . . But not that . . . never, ever that.
Maybe you should’ve told the sheriff? About what he done?
That’s a good idea, Carol, except that he was the sheriff.
Once Carol had made up the new girl’s room and put some wildflowers in a glass vase, she helped Martha as promised with a mound of bloodstained towels that had been soaking in vinegar and cold water. Rusty was outside crawling around with the chickens. Carol could see him through an open window. How she wished he would stand up and walk like other little boys.
He’s turning four soon, Martha said, her hands deep in the basin of water. I’m trying to decide what cake is Rusty’s favorite.
It’s anybody’s guess, ’cause he don’t talk and he don’t walk.
When is your birthday, Carol?
I have no idea.
So how old you are?
Carol shrugged. Maybe eighteen? Maybe twenty?
Oh my God, so young!
Well, I don’t feel young, seeing ever’thing that goes on with people. I never imagined even a half of it. I was still playing with dolls when I first come.
Carol thought then of Mary Bright upstairs on her bed, and her mother’s shoe that lived now in the closet, in a box with some dried summer flowers. Carol hadn’t taken it out for a long time. The memory of her mother had become like a distant music that she strained to hear.
You don’t feel young, Martha went on, but you are still in beginning. Trust me, I know. You will have good life, maybe more children.
Carol blushed but went on scrubbing. I actually think about that. What it would be like to live in a town, come and go as I please.
What’s first thing you want to do in town?
That’s easy. See a movie.
Martha nodded approvingly. Ok me too. Maybe we all go.
I want to live in a town so bad, Martha.
And get married?
To a man? I doubt it. It’s jus’ so hard to trust anybody. Maybe a movie star from a magazine is what I need, someone gentle, but strong when he has to be.
Sounds like my brother in Poland.
What’s his name?
Jakob.
Well I wish he were here so I could marry him.
I was married once, did you know that?
Carol looked up from her work. No I didn’t.
Martha stopped scrubbing and picked something from the bristles of her brush.
I’m surprised Bessie not tell you. There’s not much to say. He wasn’t nice man. I came here because I get pregnant but knew I couldn’t bring child into same world as him to get same treatment.
You came to Bessie for a procedure?
Yes, but Bessie wouldn’t do it.
Why? Was you too far along?
No, but Bessie said not wanting husband was different from not wanting baby. So, if I want, I can have baby and then live in house until I find good situation.
What happened to your husband?
Martha folded a wet towel over itself. After one week he found me. I was so afraid.
What did he want?
To take me back, like I am dog. But Bessie wouldn’t let him come in house. He called her names, dirty this, dirty that, and told her he had gun in glovebox of car. Bessie said that no matter how big his gun, hers was bigger. He went away but came back next day and said he was going to call police. Bessie walk right up to him with piece of paper in hand which she let him look at for few moments. She told him it was signed document from state judge saying that as favor for helping his sister, the judge was willing to put one man of her choosing in jail for rest of life.
For real?
Martha’s face softened into a laugh. It was certificate of guarantee for new Maytag refrigerator—but my husband couldn’t read.
What happened to him then?
Well, it was hard time, so he went in California to pick fruits. Many men went. Then almost one year after Bessie chased him off, he was killed by policemen in workers’ camp.
But what happened to your baby?
Martha let the towel she was holding slip silently back into the gray water. She left the sink and sat down at the kitchen table.
Carol followed, pulling out a chair as quietly as possible.
He was born in morning, and we buried him in afternoon at the edge of meadow.
Martha stopped talking and held her breath until the impulse to cry had passed.
Bessie read from Holy Bible, I will never forget, Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. That means he didn’t suffer, don’t you think?
Carol reached over and touched her hand. That’s exactly what it means.
Eventually Martha got up from the table and went back to the sink.
You don’t have to feel sorry for me, Carol. I like it here. Especially now with Rusty taking our shoes off under table, oh, how he makes me laugh.
Before the last rays of sunlight could dim and be forgotten, Carol took Rusty in his wagon to the woods so they could pick more wildflowers—the colorful ones that grew only in places where light could finger the ground in a dazzling spray.
Once back home, Carol found a clean Mason jar in the pantry and filled it with cold water from the pump outside. Then she gently shook out the flowers before dropping them into the jar and arranging each little head so that none were hidden or crushed. When that was done, she carried the vase up to Martha’s room. Bessie saw her on the landing and said that flowers were proof God made the world to be enjoyed.
At dusk, the three women sat on the front porch with a platter of cut peaches, waiting for the lights of a car. Rusty was on the steps playing with his rubber ball. Deep in the woods, a lone whippoor-will sang at the edge of night’s curtain.
When the fruit was eaten, Bessie lit her evening cigar and Martha went inside for the shotgun. Once or twice, there had been no girl at all, just a man full of rage and bitterness for what he himself had done.
As they waited, calmed by the sizzle of Bessie’s cigar, all around them in the trees, insects chirped and rattled in an overlapping rhythm, and Carol wondered if everything in this world wasn’t just a rehearsal for some other more perfect place, where there was no cruelty or suffering, but no kindness or salvation neither.