Jilo (33 page)

Jilo couldn’t bear another moment of this madness. “What do you want with me?” she screamed, causing the weird woman to stop short.

“I want you to join in the dance, dearie. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.” She sent the bottle crashing against Tuesday’s stone, and though the shards of glass remained to bear witness of her presence, the Beekeeper herself was gone.

EPILOGUE

The Savannah Morning Star

January 1, 1960

Page B1

Connelly, Taylor Wed at Midnight Service

As church bells and fireworks announced the dawn of a new decade in Savannah, Edwin Taylor and Adeline Connelly were married at the stroke of midnight in an opulent ceremony attended by many of our fair city’s premier citizens. The bride eschewed the recently popular tea-length dress for a Paris original (see photos above and Page B5) featuring a flaring, ankle-length skirt. When asked about the unusual timing of her nuptials, the bride commented . . . (Story continues Page B5.)

Sapelo Island—March 1960

Tinker didn’t need to open his eyes to know his wife had already risen. Their bed was too narrow for two bodies to sleep without touching, especially now that Jilo’s belly hung low and hard and round. The baby was taking its own good time to come into the world. Way things were going lately, Tinker couldn’t say he blamed her . . . or possibly him. The women all had their opinions on the sex of the child. Baby hanging low, said some, gonna be a boy. Others insisted it was a girl because when a needle was hung suspended over Jilo’s stomach, it always swung left.

Tinker had learned to listen to his wife’s intuition. She didn’t share her private thoughts often, so when she did, he paid attention. Jilo said it would be a girl. Said the little one had told her so herself. Wanted them to name her Rosalee. They’d both already started referring to the little one by that name. As for Tinker himself, well, he didn’t give a damn. Boy, girl, didn’t matter. He was gonna love that child no matter what. Loved its mama too much to feel otherwise.

Tinker let one eye pop open, only to discover the room was still full dark. He let the other eye open to serve as a second witness. He pushed himself up on his elbows and listened, hoping to hear any signs of movement, but the only sound that met his ears was Robinson’s steady breathing. A pang of worry struck him, and he swung his legs out of bed, resting his feet on the cool wood floor. He found his way to the window and pulled the curtain to the side. Still full dark out there, too.

Feral hogs wandered the island. Poisonous snakes were plentiful. It seemed that nothing on God’s green earth frightened that woman, which made Tinker proud, anxious, and angry all in the same instant. He’d fought too hard to find her, to turn her heart toward his own. He was not gonna lose her to some preventable tragedy. It was one thing for Jilo to wander off by herself during the day, but heading out before the sunrise? That he truly wished she wouldn’t do. He’d talk to her once again of his worries, founded or not, and hope that this time her stubborn streak would let her hear how afraid he was for her.

Most men would have simply put their foot down, forbid their wives to go off wandering in the wee hours, but he knew better than to try that with Jilo. Heck, Tinker wouldn’t want a woman who’d let him boss her around. Not Tinker. He liked his women with a bit of spine, and the woman he’d found had plenty of it. Stubborn, proud, on her worst day twice as smart as he was on his best. The very things that caused him to worry over her were some of the same characteristics that made him love her so. She combined all these impossible traits with being strong, brave, and having the kindest heart he’d ever known.

He had brought her down to the island to get her out of Savannah during that Taylor fool’s wedding. It had been a feat to drag her here, kicking and screaming, to this small house his family owned on the island, but as soon as they began to cross the sound, a change had come over her. He’d watched as the tension fell from her shoulders, listened as her laughter came, and came easily. This small stretch of land, barely a stone’s throw from the mainland, seemed to bring her a sense of peace. What had been intended as a week’s vacation had turned to two, then three. Jilo seemed so happy here, he kept finding excuses to put off their return to Savannah. Her lack of objection told him it was right.

Every three or four days, he’d cross back over to the mainland, use the telephone in Meridian to check in with the men he’d left in charge of his stores, handle any odds and ends that came up, then he’d get right back into his borrowed bateau and go home to his wife and children, born and unborn, adopted and natural. They were his. All three of them.

He was taking advantage of the free time this long stay had given him to take Willy in hand. Tinker had known boys like him before. He wasn’t fool enough to think he could change Willy, and besides, he loved the boy exactly as he was, but he would be good and goddamned if he didn’t teach Willy how to fight. The day those sons of bitches forced his car off the road, he’d stayed conscious only long enough to watch as Willy was dragged, defenseless, from the car. Nope. Never again. He was Willy’s papa now—he didn’t care if he was only a dozen or so years older than him—and that boy was gonna be nobody’s victim. He felt the anger steal over him again, and the Red King’s mark twitched, prodding him, encouraging him to commit violence. He drew a breath, then shrugged his shoulders to make them relax. The mark was fading, had been since the day the Red King placed it there. In time, with enough prayer and good works, Tinker hoped the good Lord would take it from him. For now, he’d make sure he did nothing else to help it sink its roots deeper into his soul.

He lit the kerosene lamp and cast a glance at Robinson, still dead to the world, his peaceful expression helping to calm Tinker’s spirit. He rose and dressed, then carefully carried the sleeping Robinson under one arm into the kitchen where they’d set up a cot for Willy. He set the lamp on the table and then nudged the cot with his knee. “Here,” he said, “take care of your brother.” A groggy Willy reached up and pulled the boy into his embrace.

Tinker passed by the table and blew out the lamp’s flame. His eyes struggled to readjust to the dark. Life was kind of like that—it was a constant back-and-forth between moments where everything seemed so clear, so perfect, and those in which a man was left to grope around in the dark, nothing to guide him but the few familiar objects found by his own fumbling hands.

He found his way out to the house’s main room, then crept out the door. When they’d arrived here, the small front porch had been sagging, but he’d spent two afternoons replacing the rotting boards and bad brace. Now the porch was set to face another decade or so of whatever Mother Nature had to throw at it. He chuckled to himself. Might even outlast the rest of the house.

He stepped off the porch and turned to the east. The sky overhead was changing. The deep black-blue of nighttime was giving way to the color of fresh plums. Though the tall pines blocked his view, he knew a strip of red would soon form on the horizon, and the entire sky would catch fire. He passed around the side of the house, heading south to find the thin stretch of land that cut across the marshes and led to the beach.

As he made his way along the trail, the bushes began to shake. Two whitetail deer burst out of the growth and turned to run on ahead of him. As they faded into the distance, he found himself humming Binah’s song, “Come Some Sunny Day.” Binah was living the life of a queen up there in Detroit. He’d meant to tell Jilo he’d heard it on the radio again, playing in the store in Meridian when he went to call Savannah, but the song’s hit status had come to seem like old news now that radio stations, white and black, all around the country had begun to play it.

“Beneath your feet and always faithful, like your shadow on the floor
 
. . .”
he sang the song’s opening lyrics, though not loudly. It was the crack of dawn, and no one was in sight, but he still didn’t want to risk being heard. He wasn’t a singer, not like his sister-in-law. That girl had a voice. She’d cut her record soon after landing in the Motor City. She’d written Jilo to say she’d recorded the whole song barefoot, her feet swollen from pregnancy. Jude Wills had been born soon after. When she performed for folks now, Binah always kicked off her shoes before singing “Come Some Sunny Day,” because it just didn’t feel the same if she tried to sing it with her feet bound.

“She’s a star!” Willy had exclaimed the first time the family listened to the song together.

“She always was,” Jilo responded. Tinker knew his wife took great pleasure in the knowledge that everywhere that Taylor boy went, Binah’s voice was there to remind him of his foolishness. She took a bit less pleasure in knowing Binah had gone to the trouble of tracking down their mama Betty. Even though Binah hadn’t laid eyes on the woman since she was an infant, she’d taken Betty in and showered her with every luxury. Their mama, Jilo sometimes groused, had found a way to live her dreams through her abandoned daughter. Still, with each letter, each phone call from Binah, he could see Jilo was softening. Someday she might actually take hold of the receiver when it was Betty on the other end of the line.

As he drew near the beach, the sound of the crashing surf inspired him to sing out louder, but the sight of his beautiful wife, all done up like a morning glory in hues of purple and blue, the sweet darkness of her features set aglow by the red-and-orange dawn, made him fall silent.

Jilo wandered along the white sand, dyed rosy by the first light of day, both hands over her round stomach. Another conversation, he reckoned, with Miss Rosalee.

For a moment, he felt like he was intruding. He was about to turn now that he knew she was safe, head home and leave her to her private thoughts, but she stopped and turned to look at him, like something had alerted her to his presence. She raised both hands and waved him forward, welcoming him to join her.

His heart filled with so much love, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to take a single step, but still he felt his body begin to jog along, his shoes, meant for city streets, digging down into the loose sand, grains of it kicking up and grinding into his socks. He didn’t care. He kept trotting along, and soon, the wet, compacted sand helped carry him to her side.

The wind was whipping so, he worried she’d catch her death. He shrugged off his coat and wrapped it around her, then draped his arm over her shoulders and pulled her to him. When he leaned over to place a kiss on the top of her head, she raised her face to him, offering him her lips. He smiled and kissed that beautiful, smart mouth. A little fire lit in her eyes—passion, love, and her own brand of sauciness.

He could have held her there forever, but all too soon she slipped from his embrace, leaving him to trudge behind her as she continued north along the glistening sand, not stopping till she reached the beached remains of a fallen oak, its branches missing, its tangle of roots bleached bone white by sea and sun. He held back, watching, positioning himself just far enough away that he could take the whole of her in.

She traced her finger along a blanched root, then turned to face the sea.

“Thank you for this,” she said, without ever taking her eyes from the whitecaps breaking on the surf. Her words were nearly lost in the roar of the wind.

He drew nearer to her. “For what, my love?” He wanted to know the specifics of what pleased her, ’cause he wanted to make sure he kept on giving it to her.

“This place. Our time here.” He began that instant to calculate what it would take for him to move here and make this place that pleased Jilo her permanent home, when she spoke again. “I’ve been thinking about the students they arrested in Savannah.”

Tinker was taken aback. “I didn’t realize you were paying attention to the goings-on there.” A couple of days earlier black students had been arrested for demanding service at downtown Savannah lunch counters, but he hadn’t realized his wife knew. He hadn’t said anything, not wanting to upset her this close to Rosalee’s delivery.

Jilo glanced over her shoulder at him, a smile on her lips. “I’m always paying attention.” She turned back to the sight of seagulls soaring above and swooping down into the sea. She stretched out her hands, like she was trying to catch the rising sun, then wrapped her arms around herself. “The baby’s not coming yet. Rosalee says she won’t be ready for a week or two.” She paused and looked back at him. “It’s time we got back, Tinker. It’s taken its own sweet time, but the world’s getting ready to change. I can feel it, as sure as I feel that sun on my skin and the wind on my face.”

Tinker could resist no longer. He reached out and pulled her into a tight embrace, her back pressing up against him. “It isn’t gonna happen overnight,” he said, “and it isn’t going to happen easy. There are too many people out there who like things just fine as they have been.” He let his voice drop. “Too many people out there who’d even like to turn back to the way it was before.”

She pulled free of his grasp and turned to face him. “And that’s why we have to go back.” He could see the fire building in her eyes. “I’m no fool. I know the kind of evil we’re facing won’t disappear overnight. Hell, it may never die away at all. At least not completely.” Her sweet face hardened, a tiny line forming between her brows, and her eyes narrowed. “I’m not saying we’re going back so we can deliver the children into a land of milk and honey. I’m saying it’s time we take them back to the real world, so they can learn how to fight.”