II

THE DAYS FOLLOWING NOLA’S RETURN settled into an uneasy rhythm. Septeema did not come around Nola unless she was asked. Nola caught Septeema looking at her sometimes, but she never tried to talk to Nola, or smile.

“The girl don’t talk?” Nola finally asked Miss Marius one day when her patience had almost run out.

“Give her time, Nola. You something new, that’s all.”

“How much time is she going to need?”

“Well, you’ve been gone what, twelve, almost thirteen years? That’s all her life, you know.”

“Don’t seem like but a minute.”

“But it’s been all of her life.”

“All of hers, about half of mine. Damn, I didn’t think it would take so long.”

“Neither did we, Nola. Neither did we. Try to see what it must be like for her.”

* * *

Nola watched the girl they called Raisin, the girl she called by her given name, Septeema. The girl that came out of her body. Hers. Not the one she was always running to, the one she leaned up against and hugged. No matter how good Miss Marius was, the girl belonged to her.

See what it must be like, Miss Marius had said.

Must be for her what it is for me, Nola thought while walking quickly, angrily through the trees.

El was out here. She could feel him calling her, pulling her on.

“What you want with me now, El? I come for the girl like you asked, ain’t that enough?” Nola called out to the trees. “All I wanted was to be left alone, you hear me? ALONE! Didn’t want no baby fooling round me, didn’t want nobody knowing my name. And here you come, up behind me all the time, wanting. What about me, huh? What about what I want?”

Nola stumbled into a clearing in the trees. She stood in a circle of light in the green. She raised a hand into the air, pointed toward the apex of the sun, then turned in a slow hot circuit.

‘You think I’m going to do what you say? Follow behind you, like a child? Well, I’m grown. A woman now, boy. You watch and see what I’m gonna do.”

Nola turned around and stomped her way back to Miss Marius’s. Septeema was sitting on the front porch with the girl with the mark on her face. They both looked down when Nola walked into the yard. The big girl, Lucille, turned a corner on the house, running. She stopped dead still when she saw Nola.

“Something wrong, Miss Nola? Raisin done made some offense?” Lucille asked.

Nola didn’t respond, just walked up to the porch.

“We’re going to the lake, Septeema.”

Raisin looked at Nola, but made no effort to move.

“I don’t feel like going right now,” Raisin said.

“We’re going to the lake now, Septeema. I’ve waited long enough.”

“You want me to get Miss Marius, Miss Nola? She’ll get the sour out of Raisin,” Lucille said.

“No. Thank you, Lucille. I don’t need Miss Marius to take care of this.”

“You ought to be glad you got a mama come for you, pretty as she is. Ain’t nobody else sides Miss Marius gonna put up with you,” Lucille said.

Raisin looked at Lucille the same way she’d been looking at Nola. The girl with the mark touched her on the arm.

‘You better go, Raisin,” was all Wilhelmina said.

Nola watched Septeema sit back against the house, pulling herself inside herself. Raisin closed her eyes and for a long minute nobody said a word. When Lucille was ready to burst from wanting to run and get Miss Marius, Septeema stood up and walked out of the yard, headed for the trees.

‘You better slow down, girl. Miss Nola can’t walk fast as you,” Lucille called out to Raisin’s rigid back.

But Lucille was wrong. Nola could walk as fast as Septeema, she was mad enough to walk a quick hundred miles. The two angry kinswomen walked into the soothing dark of the trees. Their haughty footsteps on the dry red road were the only noises heard beneath peaceful woodsounds.

Nola watched the girl’s stiff back.

She’ll break before she bends, Nola thought. Well, if that’s the way it has to be ...