Chapter Thirteen

Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, the rhythm of the train wheels chanted urgently to Fannie as she leaned her forehead against the glass window, the scenery flying by in a blur. Pushing the tip of her tongue out, she licked her lips and smiled, feeling her renewed connection to Clyde thrumming across the miles.

Soon. She would be with him again soon. She kneaded her breasts and reached for her bag under the seat. She pulled her breast pump free and went to the small bathroom.

The vacancy sign turned as she twisted the latch and sat on the cold metal seat. Unbuttoning her dress, she lifted her bra and let her breasts hang free, the nipples puckering in the cold air.

Fannie cupped her left breast, applied the plastic funnel, and began squeezing the rubber bulb, watching the stream of white liquid fill the attached bottle. She rocked back and forth, remembering the tug of Clyde’s mouth, the low, soft whimper of satisfaction as he suckled, and she rubbed his hair.

After twenty years of being perfect together, Mae broke them. She’d come shaking her ass into Clyde’s life like the miserable little slut she was and dragged him away, severing their connection. She’d felt it snap, a chasm opening between them and inside of her. She remembered their last night as she huddled on the floor, sobbing and begging, her fingers clutching at the empty air as he strode away from her.

The pain and anger of seeing Cora alive again that afternoon had almost been erased from her mind. Still, stomach acid bubbled with the memories. They became a tight burning sensation in her chest, churning upward into her throat as they bled into images of both Cora and Mae.

Fannie squeezed hard, causing a spurt of liquid to shoot into the bottle just as the train lurched and caused the suction to break. She switched breasts, attached the pump, squeezed vigorously, and grinned. She’d kept his milk this whole time, never letting it dry up, even when the one-year anniversary of his leaving came and went. When she got there, she’d be ready for him.

A whole year, she thought, of long days leaning over a hot tub—lye burning her hands—scrubbing the shit out of white folks’ drawers, saving her money for this day, the day he came to his senses and realized that he needed her. She’d heard it in his voice when he called. His plea. He was ready to let the Jezebel go.

This was the day. The train sped her steadily northward, each revolution of the wheels bringing her closer to her baby boy. Her mouth moved in praise. Her prayers finally had been answered.

Her mind searched for their connection until she felt it again, tingling through her. The tentative tendrils had continued to grow in strength every day. She felt his struggle—his fear, his anger—building, hastening her actions as she sold her few belongings and called on favors among their people in Chicago to make arrangements. Her boy was in trouble. He needed her.

Standing, Fannie unscrewed the pump from its jar, turning in the narrow space to pour the contents into the silver toilet basin. She tapped the floor pedal and watched the bottom open, the water swirling and releasing her milk to cascade onto the railroad tracks speeding beneath the train.

I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m coming. She let her thoughts flow with the clickety-clack of the wheels rushing her forward to Clyde.

The L train screeched in the distance, brakes squealing as it neared the platform two blocks away, and Clyde jerked, reminded of his humiliating walk home. The men’s laughter echoed inside his head, and he raised his fist, bringing it down on the arm of the chair with enough force to crack the wood. Leaning over, he planted his elbows on his thighs and rubbed his face with his other hand, oblivious to the pain tracing up his arm. The darkness crowded his brain, pulsing until he felt it would explode, leaking from his ears, his eyes, his nostrils, and his mouth. He let his jaw drop, unhinged, leaving an open path to free the darkness.

The sounds were indiscernible at first, not clearly inside his head or in the room. He lifted his head, his ear turned to the window, and listened urgently. The sounds ceased to be incomprehensible jabber with the voices of the many, gathering to form words, thoughts, and images that blazed along his soul. Leaping to his feet, he turned in a full circle, looking wildly around the room. He took one step forward, paused, then threw his head back and laughed out loud.

Mama. He’d heard her thoughts as distinctly as if she stood beside him in the room. She was coming. The darkness danced.

Clyde stood utterly still, then shook his head against the cloud of confusion descending and muddling his thoughts until he remembered the man, Jimmie, again. He sniffed the air, inhaling the stench of that other Mae, the whore Mae. His eyes narrowed to slits as he clapped his hands together, nodding his head up and down.

Oh yes, the darkness assured him. Jimmie had been there. He knew what he had seen with his own eyes. That man, in his apartment, following his wife like a lapdog.

His rapidly darting eyes stopped, resting on Mae’s prized blue trunk. She cared more about it than him, not letting him touch it. He stared at it hard, awareness filtering through the empty spaces left in his thoughts. The trunk was big enough. A man could hide in it.

Clyde shuffled forward, slamming his open palm against his forehead. Dummy. The voices congealed, chanting it simultaneously in the distant past and his tortured present—stupid monkey boy.

But he wasn’t stupid; oh no, not by a long shot. He’d just been blind, stripped of his power, and disconnected. His eyes narrowed as he saw Mae’s actions with cunning clarity.

He should have looked in the trunk first. That’s why she acted like she was digging in that damned trunk. She hiding Jimmie in there, covering him up. His footsteps became quiet, like when he tracked animals in the woods. He was silent as he crept up to the trunk.

“I gots your black ass now!” he trumpeted, jerking up the lid. His eyes eagerly scanned from left to right, anticipating the sight of the man scrunched down like a gopher in his hidey hole. He’d tear his shit out from between his legs.

A carefully folded quilt lay innocuously across the expanse of the trunk. Prodding it with his fingers, he stepped back, waiting for movement.

“Get up!” he screamed, spit flying from his mouth with the force of his words. Grabbing the quilt, he bunched the fabric against his chest, then ripped it, tossing it behind him. Rage flushed his face a deep purple.

The trunk’s contents that had lain beneath the quilt sat mute in their place—a layer of lace curtains, blue and white dish towels, and sheets embroidered with delicate flowers on their edges. He recognized Mae’s Sunday dress pressed beneath the nightgown she had worn on their wedding night.

He let his fingers linger lovingly over the silken material and remembered her lifting the hem to reveal her caramel skin underneath, the soft patch of black curls between her thighs slick with moisture. He remembered how she had guided his manhood to slide into her heat. How she tempted you with her sex, made you want her until you didn’t think of nothing else but being between those thighs, her holding you tight and hot while she squirmed underneath you.

The sound of the material tearing between his hands filled the room as Clyde threw his head back and howled, shredding the garment before tossing it to the floor. His eyes continued to scour the insides of the trunk in frustration, arrested by the sight of leather peeking out from deep within a corner.

His big hands pawed at the remaining clothing until it closed around Mae’s purse, hefting it in his palm. One eyebrow shifted upward, and he stared at the bag, stunned by its weight. Shaking it, he heard coins clinking against one another.

Clyde sat down hard on his backside, the purse resting on his thighs, coiled like a snake. An uneasy fear tugged at his spirit, and the darkness whispered, Treachery.

The purse seemed so small in his hands, the gold metal clasp fragile and awkward between his finger and thumb as he pushed it back. Reaching behind the seemingly empty interior, he felt inside the silk lining and pulled out a handful of letters, a wallet, and a worn leather coin purse.

He opened the small pouch that had weighed the purse down, heavy with coins, and turned it upside down. Quarters, nickels, dimes, and pennies cascaded into his lap, some slipping between his open legs and bouncing on the wooden floor. Clyde leaned forward, gathered them all back to himself, and then began counting, stacking each denomination separately. Twelve dollars and twenty-five cents.

In a haze of denial, he opened the purple wallet with a black clock embossed on its vinyl hide. He ignored the pictures in their plastic sheathes and opened the section for bills, snatching them out and counting them quickly before balling them up in his fist. His breathing became labored as he looked at the crumpled bills and the change before him. So much money. More money than he had, and only one way she could have made it. Flat on her back.

Picking up the letters with one hand, Clyde felt himself sliding headfirst into the darkness and cursed his ignorance. Reaching down, he grabbed his manhood and yanked with the other hand, relishing the pain. It had betrayed him. Thinking with the wrong head, letting that girl lead you around by your dick when your mama raised you better.

Clyde growled, grinding his teeth in anguish. The letters crumpled in his hand. Read it, the darkness demanded. Clyde leaned his back against Mae’s open trunk. The diminishing rays of the sun glinted off the window, offering just enough light for him to read.

He opened the first one from Mae’s father, postmarked a few days ago. He let the extra pages enfolded within the letter flutter past him to land on the floor between his sprawled legs. He read quickly, scanning the inconsequential rambling until his eyes snagged on Cora’s name.

He stopped, dropped Mae’s father’s letter, then snatched the other pages that had fallen to the floor and began to read, the power of Cora’s words bridging her from death and back into his world. He read each sentence carefully, incredulously, as reality shuffled, distorted, and realigned itself with each line. Pulling his legs beneath him into a crouch, he leaped to his feet, shaking his head in stupefaction.

Since I come back from the dead, after Clyde done killed me, I been plagued with spirits. When I first come back, I cain’t talk with nobody but dead folks. Well, least until I seen Fannie. When I seen her, it give me back the parts of my mind what was lost when I died. Helped me to remembers everything about Clyde and what I needs to do.

She was alive. Had been alive all these years, and somehow, he hadn’t known it. He thought back, remembering that day behind her house. He saw her again, crumpled in the grass, and felt the satisfying thump as his foot struck her skull and the bone gave in. He’d seen the light of life leave her eyes. He’d watched as the breath left her body, leaving it empty and still.

But here, in his hands, was another truth. One written by Mae’s father’s hand that contradicted what he believed, and one written by Cora’s own hand. The darkness had failed to reveal it to him. His mama hadn’t told him. She’s alive.

He paced the room, moving back and forth, occasionally looking back at the letter and remembering. The words branded into his brain. The final sheets glimmered in the dim light from the window, seeming to glow with an ambience of their own. Clyde scooped up the pages and turned on the bedside lamp. The mattress sank, springs squeaking, as he sat on the edge of the bed to read—the pages burned in his hands.

Clyde stared down, expecting to find his hands scorched and blackened. Instead, they remained the same as always, palms pink against the dark skin of his hands, the pages trembling in his grasp.

His mind reeled beneath the increasingly familiar fear and panic that had begun to dog his heels over the last few weeks, exacerbated by the letter he held. Rip it. The voices tried to break through the darkness, whispering to his tortured brain.

“No!” he shouted to the empty room. “Not before I knows what she done said.” Pieces began to fall into place for him, and the days and months began to make sense. She was the one. She’d come into his dreams, casting juju in his life without his knowledge and poisoning him by using Mae.

Clyde’s knee bobbed up and down restlessly, and he hummed. He allowed his mind to drift again to Cora. He saw himself bending over her, pulling something from her pockets. His eyes squinted shut as he concentrated and forced himself to see the object and feel it.

Standing, he walked to the closet again, pushing through the boxes until he found the one he was looking for, the only one he had packed when he left his mama’s house. Taking it back to the bed, he sat and opened the carton, folding the flaps to reveal what was inside. Cora’s journal lay on top.

He picked it up and ran his hand over the leather cover, then dropped it as it heated, scalding his hands more intensely than the letter had. He’d carried it with him over the years, never reading it, his talisman of success. His victory over the ones who would see him destroyed.

Realization dawned. Her journal was her juju, infused with her spirit and connecting her to him. It wasn’t the darkness that had failed; it was him. He had not killed her, and he had kept the journal.

Even now, it had helped her invade his dreams. His brows lifted in realization. That was how she brought Jimmie here. He was convinced now that the witch was the one who had brought him into the apartment and then snatched him out using her juju. And Mae is a part of it, the darkness whispered, making like she making herbs for that baby when she know she’s gon’ use them against you.

His hatred manifested into physical pain, tightening in his stomach and liquifying his bowels. Clyde leaned forward, doubling himself in half as he rocked and moaned. Clutching the letter to his chest, he waited for the spasm to pass. Finally, as it released him, he sat up straight and began to read again, the darkness fully descending both outside . . . and within.

Outside their room, three doors down, Mae stood framed in the meager light from the hallway lamps and repeated her instructions to Sarah Anne.

“He doing better now. That steam done really opened him up. You massages him with that there lavender oil and gives him that lemon juice and raw honey. See if he take your bosom. That be the best thing for him.”

Sarah Anne kept nodding, looking back over her shoulder to the crib tucked in the corner of the room, and listening to the sounds of Jeremiah’s breathing.

“You remembers he need that ginger and cinnamon I made, three times a day.”

Sarah Anne reached out and grasped Mae’s hands between her own, pressing a crumpled dollar bill against her palm, tears welling in her eyes.

“It ain’t much, I knows, and I cain’t thanks you enough.”

“No, you keeps it.” Mae tried to push the money back into Sarah Anne’s hand.

“No, ma’m. Don’t shames me by not taking it. I ain’t going to forget how you helped us.”

Seeing her determination, Mae nodded, folding the money carefully before depositing it in her apron pocket. She would need it to leave, she thought, her plans solidifying. She glanced over Sarah Anne’s shoulder at the small boy, sprawled on his back and breathing deeply in and out. A smile teased the corner of her lips as she blew a kiss through the air toward him.

The women parted, Mae turning to walk down the hall and Sarah Anne shutting the door quietly behind her. Her mind raced, crashing against the impossibilities that faced her. If she could get through the night, she could be gone before he returned from work, even if it meant returning to Papa and Verna.

Mae’s feet barely lifted from the carpet as she trudged slowly down the hallway, her mind picking at the threads of her life. Cora’s letter and her father’s worry gathered in her spirit, conspiring to make her run. Her injured hand throbbed, reminding her of Clyde’s brutality. And now, Fannie was coming.

Her thoughts tugged at one another as Fannie wove herself into her memories. She heard the woman’s voice screeching her rancor as it echoed through the bus station while she and Clyde tried to leave.

You trifling bitch. You gon’ be the death of my Clyde. You hears me? She kept screaming, running beside the bus after they had boarded to bang on the window as they took their seats. Clyde stared straight ahead while Mae shrank into her seat as Fannie continued yelling. The veins stood out in her neck, her mouth stretched wide, and the sound penetrated the thick glass. She using juju on you, Clyde!

“How you, Mae?”

Mae was startled, her uninjured hand going to her mouth to stifle a scream as Ruby stepped into the hall, her door open behind her.

“Clyde ain’t sounding too good in there,” she warned, shaking her head.

Mae’s eyebrows lifted as she lowered her hand, watching Ruby as she stared at her—searching for a way around her without being rude or hurtful.

“What happen to your hand?” The snuff behind Ruby’s lower lip rolled as she prepared to spit into her can.

“Oh.” Mae looked in the direction of Sarah Anne’s room. “Sarah Anne come to get me for little Jeremiah. He was real sick just like you told me he was, and I gots to rushing so bad, I slammed the top of my trunk on my hand. It all right, though; just need some salve on it.”

Ruby grunted and rolled her eyes, then spit into the can again. “Hmm, you sure you and Clyde all right?”

Mae pulled up a smile, the dimples in her cheeks deepening with the effort. “Of course, we fine. I done told you he a good man, Miss Ruby.”

The door to her room flew open, Clyde filling the door frame. Mae shrank in upon herself, pulling in her limbs as she crossed her arms to wrap around her body, any hope of fleeing dissolving. She lifted her head, holding the smile that did not reach her fear-filled eyes. Clyde grabbed her by her elbow, pulling her into their room before Ruby could open her mouth or say goodbye to her friend. A damned no-good man more like it, Ruby spat at the closed door.

Back in her own room, Ruby pushed the wad of snuff up with the tip of her tongue, spit it into the can in her hand, and then sat it on the floor near her rocking chair. Lowering herself into the deep cushions, she twisted her body and reached over to turn on the radio that sat on the table beside her. Finding a strong signal, she turned the volume up to its highest, a blues song blaring across the room, drowning out the sounds leaking through the walls. Lifting her knitting from the basket on the floor, she set the needles to flying in tempo with the rocking chair.

She shook her head slowly, attempting to free herself of her negative thoughts. Mae would be all right. She always was, and no matter what, like she always reminded her, he was still her husband. “Leave and cleave,” the Bible said. It wasn’t her place to come between a man and his wife.