The Wilful Daughter (23 page)

“
Millie, why don’t you show Miss June around?”

“
Sure, ma’am.” Millie came over and took June by the hand. “Come on. I’ll show you everything.”

“
No running, Millie,” Cora added softly. “Try to act like a lady.”

“
Yes, Mama,” Millie said as she dragged June out of the house.

They walked in silence for a while for June realized that she did not know what to say to a child. She had always been the child, the baby. Her sisters taught but she had no desire to do that and she had no reason to help with the Sunday school lessons, except to play with the children. Children belonged in their place. They didn’t help you get men or boys to look at you. They just. . .

“
You too little to be a rich, married, lady,” Millie said and June remembered from listening to them on the playground that children said what was on their mind. They didn’t try to be polite with the truth.

“
I’m almost nineteen. That’s old enough to be married.” Millie giggled and pulled June towards the pond in back of the house.

“
We go swimming here a lot. You can go too.”

“
I don’t know how to swim,” June told her and Millie turned to stare.

“
You can’t swim?” June shook her head and sat down on the blanket of velvety grass. The air, the pond with the dragonflies whipping by, the blue of the sky, was all too perfect. “What did you do in Atlanta in the summer when it got hot?”

“
Well,” she started and suddenly she couldn’t remember. Summers were picnics in the shade of big trees in their large back yard and last summer there was going to Emma’s. That was not something for Millie’s young ears. Her reply was simply: “I can’t remember.”

“
You didn’t ever go in the water?” Millie stood over her looking totally mortified with her answer.

“
I used to take care of my brother before he died. He was older than me, Millie, but he couldn’t walk and when it got to hot he couldn’t stay out in the sun too much. He started breathing funny. So I did things with him.”

“
Like what?” Millie pulled her pigtails to her face as June recalled their little garden near the trees and the places she took him in the buggy to do his paintings.

Millie took it all in and with eight year old wisdom retorted: “Your brother sounds nice. Mine is real mean. He doesn’t even like me.”

“
I bet he does but he won’t or can’t tell you, Millie. Boys are like that.” June once again tied the ribbon that was coming loose in Millie’s hair. It felt hard and coarse like the wool mama knitted with. If she had a daughter maybe she would get to dress her and tie her hair in lots of bright colored ribbon. No, that honor would go to Minnelsa. “Sometimes boys are mean, though, Millie. They lie to you.” She left it at that.

“
Wanna walk some more?” Millie asked and June decided it was best to move and not think or feel. This time next Saturday Minnelsa would be Mrs. Peter Jenkins. June didn’t want to think about it.

They walked into a wooded area along a path wide enough for a wagon to get through. The sky was fairly covered from sight by the tall trees. June felt as if she was walking in a fairy tale, every now and then a patch of sun light landed on the path. Ever so often she could look up and find a bit of bright blue.

“
We don’t go here at night,” Millie told her.

“
I can see why. It’s so dark.”

“
Bad things happen here.” Millie walked faster. “Especially for ladies alone, mama told me. Even Michael don’t come through here at night. And he goes everywhere.”

“
What about your father? Does he come through here alone?”

Millie kept walking. “We ain’t got no daddy no more.”

June remained silent, not sure what to say.

Even though the path was short June could understand why it was dangerous to go through there for more than one reason. On the other side of the trees was Fannie and Ella’s town. But here on the hill you could see everything, the train station and the stores. “This is where the white people live. We don’t go there much but you had to see it. They said to show you everything. We can go back now.”

Millie led her back up the path quietly skipping and singing songs that June never heard in her childhood. Once she turned to June and asked: “How did your husband die?”

June stopped. Millie thought she was going to cry. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

But the truth was June wasn’t sure how she was supposed to explain the death of an imaginary man who “died suddenly” other than the lie her father proposed. What if no one believed her? The panic that covered her was mistaken for sadness. Millie ran to her and hugged her tightly saying: “Oh please, please, Miss June, don’t cry. I didn’t mean no harm. I’m sorry he’s dead and you alone and gonna have a baby. I didn’t mean no harm.”

June hugged the girl back and got down on her knees before her. “It’s all right, Millie. I understand why you asked that question. Nobody bothered to tell you, did they?”

Millie sighed yes.

“
I can understand that you wanted to know and had some questions to ask me. It’s okay. It was just a bit of a shock.” She sighed and spoke again mincing her words carefully for now she was really lying.

“
My husband and I ran away and got married but we didn’t have any money. So he got a job in a saw mill and there was an accident.” June didn’t know what a saw mill was. She knew trees and logs went there but she wasn’t sure what her mother was telling people so she said no more. Millie hugged her back. She patted the girl’s head.

“
Millie, can you show me where you live?”

The girl wiped her eyes and skipped off. They were at the pond again and walking to the other side of the big house. Here the trees weren’t so thick and the path was full and open. They walked for a short distance before they came to a cluster of a dozen or more houses, some no bigger than cabins, each sat up nicely in little yards on a paved street.

“
Fields are down there,” the girl pointed. “And the general store’s over there.” She pointed in the opposite direction to a large building with a sign that read the same on the front. “Ain’t nobody in my house,” but she walked towards a fenced yard with some chickens wandering about. She shooed them away as she took June inside the gate. The yard showed broom marks where it had been swept clean. The light wooden door was not locked.

The first thought that came to June as she walked into this house was: this is what poor is. This is what a woman with no husband and no money, a woman who cleans house for other colored folks has to live in.

There were no big sofas here. There was a large room with a fireplace and a stove near it, an old wood table with four mismatched chairs and a bed in the corner. There were two more tiny rooms each with a tiny bed and no closets but huge chests and cabinets that seemed to overpower the rooms. The rooms faced each other in a tiny hall that led out to the back porch and to the outhouse. The whole place felt smaller than their parlor in Atlanta.

Millie sat down on the front room bed. There were two battered dolls on it, so June knew this was where she slept. “Michael almost a man. When he gets a wife and moves out of here I’m gonna have my own room.”

June nodded speechless. Millie seemed so pleased with the situation. Hadn’t the child ever wanted to live in the big house with Miss Fannie and Aunt Ella or didn’t she think she was supposed to live in this hovel forever?

Exhausted, both physically and mentally, June sat down on the bed next to her. It was far too soft, probably a million years old.

“
I wish I had hair like yours.” Millie touched the silky strands. There was nothing wrong with Millie’s hair. It was just thick and coarse. Wasn’t there something her mother could buy to put on it? Then again did her mother have enough money to buy food let alone something for a little girl’s hair? Feeling sadness that she couldn’t name she turned to Millie and asked: “What’s wrong with your head of hair? It looks healthy and clean.”

“
It’s so nappy I cry whenever mama combs it.” Millie crossed to a dresser and brought back a well used comb. “See, most of the teeth are missing.”

“
You got to brush it first, then.” Millie said she didn’t have a brush but her mother did and went to get it. Then without asking she plopped on the floor in front of June and said: “So make it like yours.”

“
Millie, brushing your hair won’t make it like mine. Your hair is nice.” A saddened Millie turned to her. “But brushing it will help.”

It seemed to take forever but in the heat of the small house June managed to untangle the mess that was Millie’s hair. The girl yelled every now and then, but suddenly the brush was getting through with ease. When June used the comb it slid through without stopping. Millie’s hair was almost shoulder length so June parted it in the middle and braided it like a crown around the sides letting two fat pigtails touch her shoulders. At the ends she tied ribbons before escorting the girl to the aging mirror over the dresser.

“
You look wonderful, Millie. I told you there was nothing wrong with your hair.” It didn’t matter that her head ached and June’s hands were sore. It was such a pleasure to see the girl smile.

“
Thanks, Miss June,” she grinned at the mirror.

“
Please, just call me June, I’m not that old and. . .”

The door swung open so fast it shocked both of them. The man that stood there could not have been more than sixteen. He was a big, dark-skinned farm boy in overalls like her father wore, like the Piano Man had never touched in his life.

The boy spoke his voice deep and melodic. “They looking for you at the house. Thought you was lost. Better get back there. Millie, you in trouble. You know you not supposed to come home without mama.”

“
But I was with a grown up. I’m with Miss. . .” She stopped and turned to her new friend. “I’m with June. She was fixing my hair.”

“
Ought to cut that mess off, if you ask me.”

Millie screamed no and ran out ducking under his arm leaving June alone with him.

They looked at each other for a moment, sizing each other up. She could smell the sweat from his work in the fields where she stood. But she could also see the tenderness in his eyes, the fullness of his lips and the whiteness of strong teeth when he spoke.

To him, she was a tiny imposter of a white woman, the long hair the beautiful skin and the deep eyes. She had to be colored. He had never looked a white woman in the face that long without feeling that he would get killed.

“
You must be Michael. Cora’s son.” There were no boys like him where she came from.

“
Yes’m. It’s about dinner time. We best get back.”

He held the door and waited until she was out. When Millie saw him coming, she ran away towards the path to the house screaming: “Michael, you leave my hair alone!”

June walked with Michael in silence. Most men usually tried to converse with her; they asked about the weather, they asked about her trip. They said anything that came to mind. Michael was quiet and Millie was skipping. Halfway up the path, her stomach turned as she smelled the pig being roasted. “Oh God,” she gasped and before she knew she was off the road and retching into a clump of bushes.

When she finished, when her stomach went back where it belonged and she could stand the air filled with the scent of cooking food, she turned to find Michael and Millie staring at her. She straightened her clothes and wiped her mouth with her handkerchief.

“
You sure you okay, ma’am?” Michael asked innocently. “You look like a ghost.” He turned to Millie and added in a whisper: “She looks like a white lady.”

Millie wrinkled her pretty brown nose at her brother’s stupidity. “That’s how ladies what’s gonna have a baby look when they throw up, dummy.”

Michael shrugged and walked off, hands quickly stuffed into his overalls.

Millie looked with concern at her new friend. “You feeling better?” June nodded and Millie grabbed her hand. “Come on, let’s hurry. I’m starved.”

* * *

She was hungry. No, she was starving. By the time the smells had settled in her nose and made their way down to her stomach, June was ready to eat whatever they put before her.

They ate outside under the still, bright sky on a long table that seemed endless and full of people that she had not yet met. Ella pointed for her to sit next to her mother while she talked to a bald headed black man who was turning the pig over a huge fire. Cora asked her if she was hungry and what she wanted.

“
Everything,” June said looking at the spread of breads and meats and vegetables. There was a wash tub full of hammock cooked collard greens swimming in pungent pot liquor. There were yams that had roasted near the pig, potatoes mashed and boiled and a potato salad, next to corn pudding and sweet breads. She had some of everything, and then some more. For the first time since she realized she was pregnant the smell of food excited her not nauseated her.

Throughout the meal June and her mother were introduced to neighbors of Aunt Ella and Miss Fannie, people who worked the fields for them and for the white men, people who were sharecroppers. There were also people who lived on her father’s property, the property that he might give the Piano Man when he married Minnelsa.

Millie forced herself into a seat next to June, Michael sat at the opposite end of the table with the menfolk, most of them staring at the fair June and wondering what man in his right mind would up and die leaving a beautiful woman like that lonely.