CHAPTER 20

The pain grew in that certain part of Mr. Kern, deepening that summer, though the prideful man mentioned nothing of it until Silva discovered him half alive in his parlor one afternoon.

“Sir, we gots to get you to a hospital,” Silva insisted.

She tugged at his near-lifeless form, feeling his hand slip from her fingers as her insistence was met only by a wave of his arm and she, no longer caring of any outcome inside that house good or bad, merely continued with her duties and paid no further attention to the man in the room.

My response, I must sadly admit, was of the same resignation, as I did not fetch the Missus or even call the doctor when I’d seen the old man in such dire straits. In fact, I did not concern myself with the Mister’s death until the plight posed by the Missus’s unmitigated power bestowed by that untimely occurrence finally hit me, and I knew his death would confer upon her the one thing she had always wanted: her freedom. And it was then that I acted.

The Missus displayed no visible sign of concern over the Mister’s absence during dinner, not that it was expected she would. In fact, upon hearing of his illness at the onset of her meal, she carefully finished her portion then sipped her coffee slowly between bites of sweet roll, before stealing off to his parlor room where she reproached Silva for not informing her sooner.

She found the old man on the floor when she entered, lifting him to her breasts like a newborn.

“Somebody get Floyd!” she yelled.

Floyd was the only one strong enough to carry Mr. Kern to his bedroom, where he ensured the old man was still of this world before he left for his own quarters, saying to him, “Ya gotta kick that demon,” and hearing Mr. Kern grunt back, “If it don’t kick me first.”

Mr. Kern appeared as feeble as a wayward ghost having returned to earth for a spot of unfinished business, his hair ivory and his skin gray-green, like the tint of an overcooked yolk, his eyes deep pockets that were dim as the shadows that hung around him.

“Promise me, sir, if ya don’t kick it first, ya better run like hell if ya see that white light comin’ for ya,” Floyd said.

Mr. Kern grinned, although even that small gesture seemed too exhaustive in his state as he soon lay back with his head on his pillow and closed his eyes. The doctor arrived by nightfall and brought with him an assistant who seemed more interested in the Missus’s delicate smile than actually caring for Mr. Kern. Lucky for us all, there would be no need for some lengthy hospital stay, the doctor assured, as the Mister’s condition had been brought on by a pesky bug and prolonged periods of dehydration. Still, he would need ample rest and would miss the remaining weeks of the harvest, a fact that ailed him more than the fever he bore.

Miss Lula remained outside during his recovery, never necessarily walking amongst the workers, just checking with Floyd to ensure things were run properly and that the boy was there. According to Floyd, she did not bother Fletcher anymore after her initial harassment, leaving him to toil and sweat and ache and slog out amongst the cotton for days and months and years, as that image alone brought more joy to her mind than actually having to look into the boy’s face and see the eyes of Mr. Kern. Elizabeth also shared these eyes, that familiarity glaring back, a familiarity of things she’d lost when Elizabeth accepted the grave.

Other than that first day inside the stables, I hadn’t seen Fletcher following his return. With Silva obliged to do nothing while Mr. Kern died, I spent most days in that upstairs quarters where he lay, nostalgia growing, as a spark does to a roaring flame, as I recalled the time with the Missus nearly two years prior when her illness took hold and we formed such closeness. Although he rarely spoke or even noticed my presence, Mr. Kern drew gentler during those passing days. Whether attributable to that inevitable shrinking that occurred in the elderly that caused those once-tall giants to appear like infants or that resolution that came when so close to the end, Mr. Kern was changing and visibly so. He spoke softly in his requests for this or that. He smiled more frequently although never quite long enough to savor it for even a moment. Surprising all of us, Mr. Kern did not die as some had expected, although he never fully recovered from that illness either. His was one of those rusted hearts that lived on out of spite or repetition, merely completing the same sequences day after day with his coffee, newspapers, and walks around the grounds if he had enough strength, finding this consistency to be a vehicle that allowed him to live forever in the humdrum that existed yet never stirred too high or too low.

What started out cooler had turned insufferably hotter as that season progressed to a rapid end and compelled upon us a show of brute force, as not to be labeled inferior with summers past. Just after noonday on one of the summer’s hottest, I caught sight of Fletcher for the first time in weeks, Floyd having brought the boys around back for a spot of relief. It was there that I noticed them in conference by the side porch, dangerously close to the Missus, who sat at the front house. Jesse stood by the weak screen door with his back toward my sights while Floyd stood in front of him and Fletcher just off the main path, where only his arm was visible. From that vantage, I could assume Silva was right, as the boy’s color had indeed grown darker, although it still paled in comparison to the other workers or even that of Jesse and Floyd. And unlike those other workers, Fletcher’s color would not last past this season and would surely once again fade to display that indelible difference that existed between himself and the other workers, that difference that was always there and that stretched deeper than color. The boy was tough, and that grace he showed wrapped tightly about him as if it were a part of his own skin, yet still, one had to wonder just how long it could last inside this house.

For four years nothing seemed to happen except for the weather. The cotton grew and was picked and chopped and harvested and sold. The workers came each year, then left that plantation just as desolate and solemn as before they arrived. The land constantly changed from white to brown to green with each passing season of those cotton fields, yet it was all predictable. Each day, Floyd and Fletcher pastured the cows out by the long fence line and kept the chickens content within their coop. Jesse tossed slop at the hogs and tended the Missus’s garden, where she grew patches of tomatoes, peppers, onions, and some okra. And nothing occurred on that plantation that the Missus did not oversee or dictate or decree, at least while her strength was with her.

Jesse had married a girl from Sidon and with that union became a wiser man. He worked efficiently now, never too hard yet never leaving a task undone. He was quieter and did his hours only in anticipation of returning home to Elise. There was nothing else about him, it seemed, his wife and love for her the only things that kept him alive. Fletcher, too, was a quiet presence, much as those snapping turtles that were seen then went unnoticed for weeks at a time, the boy’s eyes always a mystery and that smile no longer visible unless he was caught in conversation with Jesse or Floyd, which was seldom. Some evenings I would see him working the far reaches of the fields, a tall figure that would stand, stretch, then bend once more as he continued. Looking beside me on the porch, Miss Lula watched him as well, her pale skin no longer taking on color as it once did. No matter the length of time she spent outdoors, her color was always the same as when I’d first met her, when it seemed as if her skin could tear by the wind’s touch alone.

Maybe it was a lack of sleep or approaching illness that pestered her, but the Missus’s eyes had grown darker. She appeared ghostly as she slipped through the house and onto the porch then retired to her quarters without a single word to anyone. Some nights she appeared to be almost maddened as I would catch sight of her wandering the hallways. I found her one night just as Silva left the main house for the evening, and the plantation sat quiet.

The kitchen was dark and everything put away as I’d ventured to Mr. Kern’s room once more before retiring to sleep. Sleep had not only touched Mr. Kern but the Missus as well, as the entire upstairs quarters sat silent and bleak beneath the shade of midnight. I eased into his room and made final arrangements for my own rest, as most evenings my bed consisted of a chair beside the Mister’s bed. Some nights when Mr. Kern proved quite capable to sleep on his own, I would find my room out in the servant quarters with Floyd just as I’d left it, a small ten by ten space with a bed and a window, that’s it. Mr. Kern’s breathing had worsened as of late and was quite labored on this evening, causing me to prepare a blanket and pillow in the chair beside him as I closed my eyes and drifted to sleep.

A noise woke me around three in the morning as I opened my eyes to see a presence in the hallway. Begrudgingly, I shrugged off that final layer of sleep, feeling my mind once again connect with muscles as I stirred in the dim space that seemed oddly recognizable, as if fully lit. The strangeness of this place was so familiar—the sadness of that lonely corridor at night when outside sat the dark peak of nocturnal bliss; the buffing of an untrafficked floor by Silva or myself, so godforsaken yet innate that it no longer provoked despair; those halls as peaceful as Eden, as they sat empty most days and never had a single smudge on them. I knew these halls well, that setting pressed upon my memory, for they had not changed in four years, although they could sometimes seem as foreign as those thoughts I’d felt when winter came to Greenwood and I dreamt of my former home in Clinton with Henry.

Drawing from the room with heavy footsteps that slid along the floor, I searched for that sight I’d seen outside the Mister’s door, my figure taking on the gloom of the hallway as I lurched. I started in the living room, a site dowsed in affirmation of Jesse’s work, as those walls still appeared as crisp as the day they were painted. From the high windows hung drapes that the young man had indeed measured, rodded, and secured to the wall. In the air was a smell of lacquer that never quite faded and still infused the room with bitter hints of its presence. With no sight of that ghostly being, I stole into the kitchen as low and measured as before. Upon the wall hung the Missus’s clock that ticked every night and could be heard throughout the house like Morse code calling some far-off place. From the corner of my sight, an ethereal presence like that of a sheet cast in blowing wind rushed past the open door. The air was cold, the wind rapping against the window’s seams and now pushing its way through the hallways as it made that narrow space as frozen as the Missus’s icebox. The light lasted as I followed its trail upstairs and watched it stop just inside the Missus’s doorway.

Fear settled upon my heart like some ironclad appendage whose weight rendered it useless. I leaned forward against the doorframe, that hardwood floor seemingly better than any cushion of my bed as I rested. Still, this fatigue did not present itself as something physical, some ailment that could be remedied by sleep or a good meal. No, it was altogether different although still capable of robbing me of my strength and that bit of consciousness I had at this time of night. Fearing I would sit there forever if I did not stand, I finally entered the Missus’s bedroom. She stood at the window, her nightgown blowing like a sail set free of its sheaves.

“Miss,” I called to her back, my voice lost in the wind.

Her murmurs raised and lowered yet never really reached a decibel where they were actually audible. I approached and placed my hand on her shoulder, applying loving strokes that caused her head to fall and her arms to sway limp at her side.

“Miss,” I repeated. “It’s me, Bernie.”

Her white face turned to me with plum lips that trembled.

“I see you,” she said. “Mama sees you.”

Her eyes looked into mine yet I was sure her vision was that of a dream as she continued her nonsensical speech, and the wind kept up its fuss from the open window, causing her hair to fly wildly about her head. I closed the window and led the Missus to her bedside, her body easily manipulated like that of a tired child as she had little control over her faculties and stayed wherever I placed her. She lay down to sleep with the same murmurs as before, her skin a cold mass of ice and her eyes deathly.