TWELVE

The Island was divided. Each eye and each ear was an antenna that picked up every gesture, every word. Rumors raced back and forth between those who supported Cora and those who supported Titay. There was agreement on only one thing: Martha had denied their way.

The church bell sounded for the evening services. Martha did not want to go, yet she dared not stay away. When she and Titay arrived at the church, the people had already gathered. The women greeted Titay, but none greeted Martha. Ocie, now only weeks away from labor, barely nodded to Titay before she and her mother joined Cora.

Martha and Titay sat together. Titay joined in the singing and clapping while Martha sat subdued, her bandaged hands in her lap.

Finally it was time for the testimonials and prayers for the sinful. One by one women and men rose to ask for prayers for forgiveness and for strength so that they would sin no more. Martha was there in body, but her mind was far away.

“There is a sister in our midst tnight who’s sinned,” the prayer leader said. “Her sin can be fogived. She can be cleansed in the blood and made white as driven snow. She need only come, confess, repent and cast erself on the altar.”

Martha sat still with the amens and hallelujahs all around her. Suddenly she knew it was she who was being asked to repent. She stiffened, the rising anger trying to find space inside her.

“She know who she is. Come, come, sister buke the devil and deem yuhself.”

Martha felt crowded with guilt and shame, and for a moment she wanted to stand and cry aloud for forgiveness. But fuh what? Her shame and guilt turned to anger. She stared straight ahead as if contracted, petrified. Voices, pleading and condemning, flowed over her. She sensed Titay trembling beside her and knew tears were flowing down her grandmother’s cheeks. Still she could not bring herself to move or speak.

The service ended and the members left, their stares burning in Martha’s mind. She walked home, shouldering her wounded dreams, wondering how she would ever redeem herself and leave Blue Isle with her grandmother’s blessing.

Martha slept late. She woke with a start. The silence around her was like that in a deep cave, and for a moment she thought she was still asleep. Then she heard the Gulf, like the heartbeat of a giant, coming through the momentary silence.

For days now no one had come or passed close to their house. Titay would remain in her room most of the day. At twilight she would walk down to the edge of the Gulf. Martha grieved for her grandmother and wished she could undo the shame she had brought upon them.

Martha lay still, thinking it must be almost noon. Her mind told her that she should eat, but her body rejected food. She was full all the way up into her throat. What a fool I was. Never shoulda gone that far jus t’ see im. She tried to bring back the warm feeling she had known when Hal gave her the mirror; to recall the sheer joy on the boat, but all that came was a feeling of shame. It had been so wonderful, and it had turned so ugly.

In her mind she saw Hal as he had been the last time she saw him—hands deep in his pockets, his shoulders hunched. The shame crowded in on her again. How could he say he’d marry? He knowed I wanted t’ leave this place.

She remembered that he had said he would help her go away. But how could she face him again? Did he now think, like some on the island, that she was brazen, without manners, conniving? No, she could never look at him again. How could I be stupid nuff t’ think he liked me? Never shoulda gone t’ the Gulf. Then nobody’d knowed how I felt and it coulda last foever.

She sighed and looked at her rope-burned hands. The swelling was gone, but they were still a little sore. Titay demanded nothing from her, and Martha was grateful she could stay indoors, mostly in her own little room.

How would she face the cold stares, the ugly whispers and the self-righteous indignation of the women? She knew well what was in store. The silent isolation meted out on Blue Isle was worse than flogging. Maybe she should have repented, asked redemption and been restored.

Noise from nearby houses—the sound of singing mixed with the rattle of dishes being washed—let her know the meal was over. Martha turned out of bed and opened her window wider. Then she heard movement in the front of her house and footsteps coming toward her room. She scrambled back into bed.

A knock put her on guard. She did not answer. She raised up just as Titay peered in the room. The look on Titay’s face forced Martha out of bed. “What is it?” she asked in dismay, taking her grandmother’s arm leading her to the bed.

“And t’ think I brung er in this world. She talk t’ me like I’m a … oh.” Titay’s breathing came in gasps. Martha had never seen her in such state.

“Who, Granma? Who?”

“That girl, Ocie. Called me a old woman … say I ain’t got no order in m’ own house, so I ain’t fit to birth no baby o’ hers.”

The hurt in Titay’s voice shocked Martha. “What she mean, no order …”

“Tis that Cora,” Titay interrupted. “She’ll midwife Ocie. All the women gather round er now. Her way is won.”

“Don’t say that, Granma.”

“Tis true. Oh Mat, I’m old and tired.”

Martha looked at her grandmother. Her thin shoulders were covered with a worn black shawl. Wisps of white hair showed beneath her head scarf, messily tied. A rush of anguish flooded Martha. Why not ask forgiveness and go back to the rounds with Titay?

Her grandmother broke the silence. “Fogit yo way, Mat. Marry the stranger and take m’ place. Don’t let Cora put er way on this island.” Then Titay was quiet. The silence thickened. Finally Titay pleaded, “Say yuh do it, Mat … bring peace to us.”

Martha still said nothing. She sat, knowing they were miles apart. Her mind flashed to another time when they had been at serious odds. She was then almost twelve, being pressured to confess her sins and be born again. Martha did not know what that meant and would not confess. Then she had spent nights on the mourners’ bench as if she were alone in the world, with prayers and rebukes around her. For days the women, including Titay, avoided her as if she were a leper. Still she had waited. She had to know that some change had come in her and in her world.

But that storm had passed when on faith she had been baptized and restored to the good graces of the island.

Now she felt the tears burning in the back of her eyes and stinging her nose as she realized that she had always been a thorn in her grandmother’s side. What would save her this time? She could not rely on faith for she knew. She had not sinned. She had acted to save her life and the Marraine. That was good. She would not marry Hal. If Ocie and the women chose Cora to deliver their babies that was their right. She would leave this island one day soon, she hoped, with her grandmother’s blessing.

Martha was so set on this idea that she was startled when Titay pleaded again. “Say it, Mat, say you’ll fogit yo way and marry.”

“Granma, I don’t want t’ marry now. I wanna go way t’ school.”

“Who fill you wid all this crazy notions? Where yuh git yo ways?”

“From m’ own heart.”

“Girl, don’t yuh know, you can be fooled tryin t’ learn yo ownself?”

“Who can I go t’, Granma, t’ ast things?”

“Tis not our way, t’ ast why or what be.”

“Ways change.”

“You done come t’ a lot o’ knowin all a sudden,” Titay said. “Whyn’t yuh say you’ll marry?”

“Cause they’ll think me a liar. I didn’t do nothin wrong.”

Titay lost her patience. “Yuh go gainst the island, be lone wid a man and say yuh do nothin wrong?”

“I saved m’ life.”

“N played in the hand o’ the wicked.”

“Aw, Granma …”

“Girl, don’t yuh know yuh can’t tear down the walls and the roof o’ a house and the ceilin stay? If you don’t marry that man you know what’ll happen to yuh? Nobody’ll want yuh. Who’ll want sich a hand? What’ll yuh do?”

“In time somebody’ll want me fuh what I am. Things change, Granma.”

“You’s a woman,” Titay shouted angrily. “That yuh can’t change. A man want a woman that keep his way. And where yuh think yuh gon go? Mongst strangers?”

Martha said nothing. The only sound in the room was that of Titay’s labored breathing. “Alone and lonely be fuh ole women like me,” Titay said as if talking to herself. “Mat, yuh young. Yuh needs arms fuh shelter.”

“Oh, Granma, listen, I heah you, yoself, say, ‘A woman who got no place t’ put er hand fuh support, put it on er own knee!’”

“You say words in the right place, but tis doin the right way that count, Mat.”

“You want too much from me, Granma.”

“Tis too much t’ keep the way? T’ marry that man?” Titay sat still for a moment. Then she said, “Yuh know, you think yuh wise, don’t yuh? But mind you, Mat, no one wise is wiser’n er own people.”

The silence in the room now was more ominous than any that had yet fallen between them.

In a voice full of tears Martha said, “I never thought mahself wise. I only want t’ know.” She turned onto her stomach and covered her head in her arms. She fought to hold back her tears until Titay left the room.