CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Gus found blankets for us, then left us there to nap. I stretched out and tried to sleep but couldn’t. When I closed my eyes, I could still see the bell and hear it ringing.

After a few minutes, I opened my eyes. Jarmaine had been lying next to me, but she had gotten up and was sitting by the window, hugging her knees to her chest. Her face reflected the afternoon sun. I’d seen before that she was proud and determined. Now I saw that she was pretty. The sun made her skin the color of coffee mixed with cream. She had long lashes and deep brown eyes.

“What do you see?” I asked.

“I was thinking. I miss my mother. I feel bad about sneaking off. I didn’t want her to worry, but now she will.”

I pictured Lavender and tried to imagine what she was doing. It occurred to me that Lavender often looked worried, but I hadn’t noticed. There were lots of things about her that I hadn’t noticed or had taken for granted—her soft touch, her gentle voice, the way she brushed my hair.

“When I was little,” said Jarmaine, “sometimes I had trouble sleeping. She would sit on the bed and sing a lullaby—‘Hush, Little Baby.’ It made me feel safe. Then I could fall asleep. But she would still be worried. You raise up your children and protect them, then you have to let them go. They make mistakes and get hurt and run off without telling you.”

“We’re doing what’s right,” I said.

“It’s right for us. Hard for our parents.”

“Our mothers still love us. They have to.”

Jarmaine shook her head. “They don’t have to do anything.”

“Yes, they do,” I said. “They have to love us. It sounds selfish, but it’s true.”

Jarmaine grunted. I could tell she was thinking about it.

“Fathers too,” I said.

She looked up at me, and I remembered she had never met her father.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“What’s it like?” asked Jarmaine.

“Having a father?”

It was something else I hadn’t thought of. It just was.

“I like it, I guess. He’s not like Mama. He’s loud. He tells stories. We play football. People like him and want to be around him. I don’t know—he’s just Daddy.”

I thought of the disagreements he sometimes had with Lavender. “What does your mom say about him?” I asked.

“You want a nice story or the truth?”

I swallowed hard. “The truth.”

“Promise you won’t tell anyone?”

“Yes.”

“She doesn’t like him,” said Jarmaine.

She watched me for a reaction. I tried not to show it, but it hurt.

“She doesn’t like many white people,” Jarmaine added quickly.

“I thought she was, you know, part of our family,” I said.

“My mother has a family,” said Jarmaine. “There are two people in it.”

Maybe Jarmaine was trying to make me feel bad. She had succeeded.

“If we’re not her family, what are we?” I asked.

Jarmaine studied my face. “You ever see a water moccasin?”

“The snake?”

She nodded. “They live in marshes and streams. They’re poison. Step on them, and you die.”

“You think we’re like that?” I asked.

“White people are dangerous. That’s what my mother told me.”

Lavender swept our floor and set our table and made apple cobbler, all the while believing we were dangerous. The thought was alien, like we had landed on the planet Mars.

Jarmaine gazed out the window and shook her head. “You and I are different. I told you that before.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way,” I said.

“Oh really?”

“Look at us. We’re doing this together, right?”

“You think that makes us alike?”

“Maybe we want the same things,” I said.

“Look, Billie, you mean well, but let’s face it. White people want to keep us down. It’s always been that way.”

“Not all of them,” I said. “What about Mr. McCall? What about Grant?”

She shrugged. “They’re not like the others.”

“So, there’s hope for me?”

Jarmaine chuckled. “You don’t give up, do you?”

“No, I don’t. And you know who taught me that? My father, the man Lavender doesn’t like. The man who watched the bus burn. What do you think of that?”

She got to her feet and stretched. “I think I’m tired.”

“Me too. Come lie down. There’s still time to sleep.”

Jarmaine settled onto the floor next to me. I pulled the blanket over her, and she curled up like I’d seen Royal do. She closed her eyes, and I began to sing.

“Hush, little baby, don’t say a word. Papa’s gonna buy you a mockingbird …”

Lavender had sung it to me too, years ago when she had put me down for a nap. I wondered why she sang a lullaby about a father. I wondered what it would be like to have a baby and see her grow up. I remembered the disease Lavender had told me about, the one that made us dangerous, the one that rocked the bus and set it on fire, the one that could hurt people just by watching. I wondered if I still had it and if I would pass it on.