Grace (31 page)

“Do you know what I been through? To get back here for you? How could you do it, Mimi? Whoring around?”

“You left me!”

“So you laid with the first man you see, some . . . some nigger?”

“You calling me a nigga, too?”

“I didn't say that . . .”

“His name is Albert. And he ain't a nigga. When you left, he was the only person to take care of me.”

“Is that your story?”

“It's the truth.”

“Well here's mine. You're a whore. Just like the rest of 'em. 'Cause no man would look after somebody else's baby unless he had a stake in it.”

“He did.”

He gets up slow from his stool and goes to the door. “Then Albert's a better man than me.”

“It
is
funny, ain't it?” I say, these pasts we reach for like ghosts. Sometimes, we just got to be happy we survived. “You're right,” I say. “Nobody can go back to what's gone. Like reaching out with a hand that's not there.”

He holds the doorknob, ready to leave me again and I don't care. “Well, maybe when the baby's born, we can see who it favors.”

“Albert,” I say. “My baby'll favor Albert.”

He opens the door. Gone. Gone again. And this time, it don't matter.

44
/ FLASH

Conyers, Georgia, 1848

I
BEEN SPINNING THIS
gold coin around my fingers for most the night 'cause the worse thing about being pregnant is sleeping. Better, not sleeping. Cynthia gave it to me after Jeremy flicked it at her a few days ago. She said it was for the baby now. For me.

I told her I didn't want it. Not from him. Not for this baby. 'Cause there are things more important than money. Time is one. Peace, another. A good father for this baby. I've got all of that now without him. She said, “Don't let nobody tell you money ain't everything. Money keeps you from paying for things with your life.”

Before this baby, I took for granted sleeping on my stomach or sleeping on one side for as long as I wanted to. Cain't even sleep on my back, now, for drowning. Like deep breathing through a reed. It's how I feel when I remember Jeremy.

Cynthia told me not to punish myself for him, for still feeling love for him. “If a person never loved somebody pathetically and unrequited, they haven't met themselves yet, so consider yourself introduced. And lucky. We don't always get to touch the ones we want without losing everything.”

I
T
'
S JUST AFTER
midnight now, and I've been wasting time. Been folding clothes, counting unmatched socks.
How does that happen?
My mind's been racing with thoughts and feelings that pass and re-pass. Not just about Jeremy. And Albert. Or Cynthia. Momma. Hazel. A chaos of faces. Bernadette's, too.

Cynthia gave me her room like she promised. And in between time, Cynthia put Bernadette out in the shed across the road. Locked her in there for four days with only bread and water. Left her hollering and screaming like she was being murdered over and over again. When Cynthia finally got her out, Bernadette had throw-up all over herself, her clawing fingers were bloodied, and her screaming voice was gone. But she was cured of the leafs, though. Has been for almost a month and Bernadette say it ain't easy. Say, the first thing she think about when she wake in the morning is the leafs. Then she spends the rest of the day trying to forget 'em.

I
FELL ASLEEP
in this chair with my folding still in my hand. Might as well get up 'cause it's 3:00 a.m. and another couple hours of sleep won't make a difference.

I shuffle up the hall, gon' clean the saloon. Shouldn't be much to do 'cause it's been empty since Cynthia closed for business a few days ago—the day after her party. She's been telling everybody she's “renovating” but she tell me she need time to decide what she gon' do next.

Sam still comes to work every day. Been unloading them crates that he never got a chance to unload for five years. Some of the crates are more full than others, a couple of 'em only got one bottle inside from him cherry-picking 'em the last few years.

He built a new drying rack closer to where he wash. “Doesn't make sense to keep dripping across the floor,” he said.

A few of the girls are still here, too, some loyal, some hoping Cynthia will come up with a new way a woman can make money without being a wife. Bernadette's making dresses. She's got a ball gown on a wire
frame in the windows and when sunlight hits 'em, it throws sparkles of yellow and white light around the room, mixing with Cynthia's rainbows on the walls from her hanging crystals.

Cynthia and Sam are already up when I get to the saloon. “Evening, Sunshine,” Cynthia say. “Or should I say, morning.” She's sitting at the bar, nursing a drink, still wearing her wedding dress. Been in it three days. “It's about time you got up. Longest nap a person ever took.”

“It's only three,” I say.

“Yeah, but you was 'sleep at noon yesterday.”

Cynthia's just holding her drink in her hand. Usually, pouring it in her glass is the same as putting it in her mouth. Only a two-second delay between 'em. But this time, we're going on a minute.

“I've been thinking,” Cynthia say. “Maybe marriage ain't so bad. Maybe I
could
live with a man. A young sunflower like me gotta rethink her options. And Sam says he'll marry me.”

“I didn't say nothing about marriage tonight.”

He sets a glass of water in front of me.

“You don't want to marry me, Sam? I already got a ring. You can get down on one knee at sunrise or in front of the fire, romantic like, and . . .”

“See, that's the problem, you're too bossy. Most men find that intimidating.”

“The people you want to partner with should intimidate you,” she say, smiling. “Not because they're a bully but because they're that good and you know it.”

“And what makes you think I'd ask again when you've already said no?”

“I'm a new woman, Sam. You never know. I could've changed my mind.”

“All right,” he say. “Marry me.”

“No,” she laughs and shoots her drink. “I cain't marry nobody. I'd eventually kill him.”

“I know thas right,” I say.

A look of calm rests on her face. She looks around the room. “Isn't this a good feeling,” she tells me. “The stillness in here? Reminds me of the good ole days.”

“Naw,” I say. “Reminds me of the good days coming.”

“So what you gon' do, then?” Cynthia say. “You welcome to stay here, make this house a home for you and Albert and Baby Peaches.”

“Peaches'll be a boy.”

“Then, Berry. And y'all can still be my good deed before I die. It'll make me look like a saint. A white woman caring for a black baby always makes her look like a saint.”

“You ain't going nowhere,” I say. “You got Johnny to take care of . . .”

“That's why I got Sam. You'll keep him for me, won't you, Sam? Be a better mother-father than me.”

“I wish you'd gon' and divorce your death talk finally. Death, religion . . .”

“Then, what did you decide to do, Naomi?” she say. “You can be my backup for Johnny.”

“I cain't even think that far. I just want this baby out.”

“You say that now. Wait 'til it starts coming. When you cussing us all. I'll be sure to remind you of how bad you wanted it out—the baby and the old bag of blood that comes out after.”

“Mercy!” Sam say.

Cynthia laughs. “Too much girl talk for you, Sam?”

“You could talk about these late notices instead,” he say, opening an envelope.

“I don't pay taxes,” she say, and slides back in her chair, puts her foot on the table. “What's the government done for me? I'm still a woman.”

“Your problem is you always think you won't get caught for nothing. They could send you to jail.”

“People don't get caught for the real thing they did wrong, Sam. They get caught for some lesser thing, some small offense. Taxes, jaywalking, a fine . . .”

She's right, I think.

'Cause I'm still free.

Only Jeremy is accusing me of a lie now. And no one mentions the murders in Faunsdale no more. Even the papers have quieted down. But in my heart, I know I got away with murder.

45
/ FLASH

Conyers, Georgia, 1848

T
HERE ARE THINGS
that happened to me when I was alive that I didn't know happened 'til I was dead. So I cain't place myself there now and lie about it, 'cause it didn't happen that way.

I wasn't there to know. Didn't see it. Didn't hear it.

It's the same thing that's happening to you.

Other people will make choices for you, about you—win or lose, work or won't, live or die—and you'll have missed it.

Choices that could change the rest of your life and you won't even know it happened 'til you're dead. 'Til you get your turn with the flashes.

And once you've been in 'em long enough, you'll get to see everything.

I
BEEN IN
Cynthia's cellar below the saloon since daybreak. Ain't been back to sleep since before dawn. “Cellar” is what Cynthia renamed this secret place under the saloon. She gon' use it to store her good liquor. “It'll keep them skinny Irish from sliding over the bar top when Sam's back is turned,” Cynthia said after Sam told her, “There ain't no way
in hell I'm reaching into some man's drawls and retrieving the bottle they're stealing. Not even a twenty-dollar bottle.”

So Cynthia keeps her good stuff down here in the cellar now. Daylight is seeping through the spaces around the door that leads from in here to under the porch outside. The weight and wobble of drunk folks, fat folks, and the occasional horse taking a step up the porch, has made the doorframe pull away from the brick walls. All connected.

It's already getting warm down here. It'll be hot by one.

Heat gets trapped in this cellar and turns even the cool shadows to coal steam. It's hotter in the corners where night-made cobwebs melt and break in their centers like little hands letting go. I brush those webs away with my broom, roll 'em in the bristles.

I've been picking up all the solid dead things around me, pinching my nose before I touch 'em even though they probably don't stink. The other trash that was never alive is easy—paper, napkins, and cigarette ends kicked through the upstairs floorboards. I put 'em in my trash bag and tie it up ready for outside.

One-thirty has me washing the walls 'cause it's hot like I knew it would be. The water feels cool.

Albert just laid this wood floor a few months ago so the nails are still flat against the boards and deep in the wood. They ain't been disturbed by shifting earth yet.

He didn't finish the corner pieces of the floor, though. That's where he decided to throw all the bothersome things I got to clean up now—wood scraps and tins.

The floor near the door under the porch ain't finished right, either. You gotta tug the door real hard to get it open 'cause it's warped and wonky. Cain't spy good in the saloon above because of its noise and the strength you need to wrestle it. Best to come through the trap door under the tub and close it quiet behind.

I yank at the door now 'cause there ain't nobody in the saloon to hide from. I barely get it opened and drag my bag of trash under the steps hunched over 'til I get beyond the porch and can stand straight. I
scratch a trail in the dirt behind me now, erasing my wide footprints. I reckon my weight is half baby, even though everybody tells me I'm still small.

I can hear Albert at the side of the house hammering before I see him. Today, he said, is the last day he has to finish Cynthia's liquor cabinet before her grand reopening. Saloon and gambling only.

Albert's giving Cynthia a gift of metal finishings that he's melted to shapes—flowers and birds to work as doorknobs and drawer pulls. He made a big gardenia to be the centerpiece of the cabinet. I stand behind him, watch him nail it together.

Y
OU MAY NEVER
know.

May never know about the choice somebody made for you that changed your life. Just like I didn't know about the choice made for me that day. By the time I was standing behind Albert, watching him bang those last nails in, my life had already changed.

Two fields over, down a hill and off to the left, Soledad's house had been sitting quiet for most of the morning even though Mr. Shepard had been home almost six days. He had been sick with food poison for three days of 'em and stopped eating. He started feeling better. Good enough, he thought, to finish that letter to his brother. Good enough to keep his promise to Cynthia to host her grand reopening the next day. Good enough, he thought.
But he rested instead.

His shirt wouldn't get ironed.

His shoes wouldn't be shined. And his menudo would be left on the table cooling, then cleared from the table, thrown out rotting, then swallowed by the ground as if it was never there.

He had meant to pack his new deck of cards, pay his bills, start reading the book his gentleman friend gave him. So many things he was finally home to do, so much intention. All of it met by Soledad's decision.

She sat at her dining room table a full half hour after the choice she made, eating her stew. When she finally spoke, she said, “Mr. Shepard? You really should try this,” and stirred inside her bowl of menudo. “You know it took me all day to prepare it. Just for you, dear.”

She lifted the cloth that covered her pile of tortillas and took one, broke it, dipped it in. That was when she first seemed to notice the red stains smeared on the backs of her hands. She put her spoon down and snatched the cloth from under the pile of her tortillas, knocking them to the floor, crumbled to pieces. She used the cloth to wipe the blood, rubbed harder because it had dried. She gave up trying before they were clean, picked up her spoon, scooped her stew, brought it to her mouth.

Her fingernails were packed black-red and moist underneath.

M
Y PLAN IS
to help Albert lower his cabinet doors from the bathroom upstairs to down here in the cellar. His eyesight changed 'cause of the way his skin has healed at his brow. Above his right eye, the skin is pulled back tighter and thinner and it makes his eye water for no reason. So I'm his line of sight even though he want to do it all hisself.

“Shoo, fly,” he say to me. “Get back.”

He say he gon' use his ladder to guide the doors down instead of me since the last came rushing fast and almost hit me.

“You could hurt the baby,” he say and shoos me again.

“I'm pregnant, not useless. How you gon' get it through this gap without me keeping it on track from down here?”

“I'll manage it. Just move.”

He squats and lowers the long door along the ladder slide, got a rope tied around the gardenia piece, with the other end connected to his wrist. I reach my skinny arms up and help keep the door flat against the ladder so if the tie slips, it'll follow the ladder down, like tracks.

He say, “You not under this, are you?”

“No,” I lie and step back. The new wood floor he laid creaks like old knees in an empty tunnel.

“You are down there. I can hear you. Get back against the wall.” I squeak across the floor but when I reach the looser wood planks near the sidewalls, the squeak of the boards give out a donkey's hee-haw.

“All right,” I say. “I'm all the way back now.”

“Good. I'm gon' let it down now. If it falls, let it fall. You just watch it's fitting through and ain't caught on nothin.”

“All right.”

It slides smoothly as he lowers it, then stops. “What's in the way?” he yells.

I take a step forward—hee-haw.

“I said get back,” he say. “I can hear you.”

“How am I supposed to see, then?”

“Just look.”

“You want me to help. Don't want me to help . . .”

“Forget it,” he says and lets it go. It comes racing down the ladder, rocks forward, then slams back.

“You did it!” I say.

S
OLEDAD DIPS HER
spoon in her stew again, raises it to her mouth, catches her reflection in the sweating silver water pitcher on the table. Her face is misshaped from the silver's bend. She notices the blood sprinkled on her cheek and large swipes of red across her forehead and neck.

Mr. Shepard gurgles from the floor. The stab wounds around his arms and hands were done after the chest wound that woke him from his nap, fighting. There's so many now. So so many. The second-to-last wound was on his neck, the worst in his gut, twisted more than once. The knife's still there.

Soledad say, casual, “I really did deserve better than you, Charlie.”

He gurgles.

“But you never could see me. Always somebody else. So I asked myself, when do I get what I need?” She yells, “What about me?” She stops herself from talking, clears her throat, pats the tortilla cloth over her face, her hands tremble.

A thin flow of blood rises up from his mouth, then down the side of his cheek. She bends down to him, fixes his hair, combing it with her fingers, slicks it back with the flat of her hand, smiles. “Aren't you going to come and eat? I cooked this for you. Please, come and sit down.”

She sits at the table without him, sits over her bowl, pushing meats to the side with her spoon, as always. She puts a spoonful of broth in her mouth, swallows, then turns back to him.

Charlie's eyes jot toward her, fix on her. She says, “You always did have pretty eyes.” She lifts her whole bowl of stew to her lips and drinks it down like water. Chunks of meat fall around her mouth and to the table. She picks up the pieces and throws 'em in her mouth, smacks on 'em, swallows, wipes her mouth with her backhand. “No one keeps their promises anymore. You should've kept yours, Charlie.”

An exhale like a man blowing his hands warm comes out of Charlie.

“Charlie?” Soledad say. “Charlie?” she say again, this time with worry in her voice.