Perfect Peace (53 page)

Paul nodded. “I know it was hard.”

“You have no idea.”

“Well, Momma was definitely glad to see you today. I could tell.”

Sol chuckled. “Yeah. I guess she was.”

“It must be painful for her, lookin’ at how you done done so good, even after what she did to you.”

“Ha! I’ma tell you a secret, little brother: God has a way of making sure you reach your destiny, regardless of what others do to you.”

“You think so?”

“Trust me. It’s true. Sometimes, when people think they’re putting obstacles in your path, they’re actually laying your stepping-stones. You just gotta recognize them as one and the same.”

Paul chewed his left thumbnail as he listened to Sol’s wisdom.

“It’s funny, you know. When I saw Momma today, I wasn’t sure what I felt at first. The only thing I knew for sure was that I wasn’t going to start hating her all over again. It took me too long to drop that burden. I’ve never forgotten what she did. I just decided that she couldn’t have my
whole
life. I wanted to move forward, so I had to stop looking back.”

“I wish I knew how to do that.” Paul thought of the assault.

“There’s no trick to it. You just put your energy into what you want to be, and you try to let the past go. You don’t ever forget though.”

“Well, if you don’t forget, how you stop lookin’ back?”

“By figuring out how the experience can help you move forward. That’s the point of why it happened to you in the first place. There’s something you’re suppose to get from the moment that’ll get you closer to your mission if you can see it. Most people can’t.”

“But what if the experience wasn’t for you?”

“It was. It always is. Sometimes it’s hard to see, and sometimes we don’t want to believe it, but every experience you have is for you. You just gotta figure out how.”

“Ump. That’s hard to believe.”

“I know.”

“You’re even smarter now than you used to be!”

Sol placed his arm around Paul’s shoulder. “I don’t know about that!”

“I do! That’s why you’re my hero.”

“You’re mine, too, sir.”

Paul blushed.

“So what’s next for you?”

“I don’t know.”

“What about farming?”

“No way!”

They giggled.

“Can’t say I blame you for that.”

“Daddy and Authorly love it, but I don’t.”

“You ever thought about college?”

“Yeah, that’s what Momma wants me to do, but I don’t like school. Not that much. Is college hard?”

“Hell, yes! It’s a lot of reading and writing.”

“Then it’s not for me.”

“You’d probably better leave it alone. If you don’t love knowledge, and I mean
love
it, going to college is a waste of time.”

“Then I don’t know what to do.”

“Anybody you thinking about marrying?”

“Nope.”

“No? There must be someone around here you’ve been looking at.”

Of course there was
someone
, but Paul couldn’t name
him
.

Sol leaned onto Paul’s shoulder and whispered, “What’s his name?”

“Oh my God!” Paul covered his face. “How’d you know?”

“It wasn’t hard to figure out.”

“You think Daddy knows?”

“I don’t know, but I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Why not!”

“Because you’re grown now. And, anyway, people ain’t God. Whatever they think they know, God already knows, and if He hasn’t troubled you about it, you can pretty much ignore other folks.”

Paul thought a moment. “I guess you right.”

“Don’t ever give others the power to destroy you, little brother, because they’ll take it. Your fear is their invitation.”

“Wow. Then I’ve given a lot of power away over the years.”

“Haven’t we all? Now it’s time to take it back. Folks’ll kill you and enjoy doing it if you let them.”

“That’s true. I could name a few people standing in line right now!”

Sol laughed.

“I got the fever a few years ago, and everybody thought I was gon’ die, but I didn’t. I lived.”

“Well, good for you. Now you have to live
well
.”

Paul studied a squirrel, scampering from one tree to another.

“If you do find someone you like, just be careful. The heart’ll trick you, man, if you let it. It’ll make you think you’ll give up everything and everyone you know for someone you don’t.”

“Ain’t that the truth!”

“Everyone gets the chance to love, but we don’t all get to love who we want. Take your time. Your day’ll come.”

Paul thought of the dried, brittle four-leaf clover nestled between the pages of his Bible.

“You have to get clear about the kind of life you can live
here
. Life can be lived anywhere, but not every life can be lived everywhere.”

“I ain’t never thought about it like that.”

“Keep on livin’, and you’ll start thinking about a lot of things.”

“I guess I gotta figure out somethin’, huh?”

“Yeah, you do. Maybe you’re too scared to know.”

“Maybe I am, ’cause there is somethin’ I like that I ain’t never told nobody.”

“What is it?”

Paul laughed at himself. “Clothes. I know it sounds crazy, but when Momma made me that suit and I put it on, I felt somethin’ I ain’t never felt before.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I wondered what it would be like to make one myself.”

“Okay.”

“I’m real creative. Eva Mae says so all the time. But I don’t know nothin’ ’bout makin’ no clothes.”

“Well, what about Miss Henrietta? Does she still sew?”

“Does she! Man, she got a shop in town that’s sellin’ out fast as she can make the stuff.”

“Then I’m sure she could use some help. She’d probably be glad to teach you what she knows. You can make a lotta money doing it, too. It might be what you was sent to do.”

“Hmmm.”
Sent?
He thought of Sugar Baby. “It just might be.”

“Of course folks ’round here don’t think much about a man making clothes, but that doesn’t matter. Not if you want it bad enough.”

“You right.”

“Just make sure you can handle the pressure. People’ll talk about you, but who cares? When you’re a famous designer, they’ll praise you as a son of Swamp Creek.”

“I hate when people do that.”

“Yeah, but we all do it. We talk about people we don’t like until they become famous. Then we love ’em.”

Paul sighed.

“You’d make an incredible designer, man. You’ve had enough experiences to bring a whole new perspective to fashion. Plus, you’re strong. You gotta be. Who could’ve endured what you have? Now, take those experiences and create something the world has never seen.”

Paul’s excitement shone in his eyes.

“But remember this: you’re strong
because of
your people—not
in spite of
them. You come from resilient folks, man. Don’t ever forget that. I know what Momma did to you, and I know it wasn’t right, but that’s a price she’ll have to pay—not you.
She
was crazy, but that doesn’t mean you have to be. Peace men are strong, Paul, and you’re one of us. Take the best from us and add to it. But whatsoever you do, don’t ever forget that you’re a Peace.”

“I won’t.”

“And remember this, too: sometimes you have to grow up before you appreciate how you grew up. I’m still learning that one.”

Paul promised he wouldn’t forget.

At dusk, Gus and the boys went searching for Emma Jean. Sol said he’d wait at the house, just in case she returned, but of course she didn’t. By dawn, half of Swamp Creek was combing the woods and knocking on doors, inquiring about Emma Jean’s strange disappearance. Most knew something bad had happened, but they went along with the search for Gus’s sake.

Sugar Baby found her downstream a few days later, faceup and bloated. Holes punctured her face as if piranhas had tried to consume her, and her eyes were bulged like one in mid-fright. The only thing familiar to Sugar Baby was the moon-shaped scar, which seemed more pronounced now. He didn’t remember it being quite so rounded, but maybe the swelling had stretched it, he thought. He never dreamed he’d see Emma Jean Peace like this. He would’ve carried the body to the house, but the stench was unbearable, so he ran and told Gus what he’d found.

On a cloudy Friday morning in late May of 1959, they buried Emma Jean in Bartimaeus’s sealed casket. The funeral was beautiful, people said. Folks everywhere and food galore. Miss Mamie sat behind the family, marveling at how handsome the Peace boys had turned out—all except Woody—and Gus thanked God that Emma Jean had lived long enough to see Paul survive. His sobbing was the saddest part of the service. All he could think about was the pretty lemon cake Emma Jean had made for his birthday and the fun he and other kids had had eating it with homemade ice cream. That’s why he wept—because no one other than Emma Jean understood how precious and beautiful those days had been. She’d tried to love him—Paul knew that in his heart—but she just hadn’t done it right. Now she was gone forever, and no one else in the family cared to remember who or what he’d once been. Burying Emma Jean was tantamount to burying Perfect, and Paul simply wasn’t prepared to let either of them go. Yet he had no choice. Sitting on the front pew in the suit that had cost Emma Jean everything, he sighed as they buried the woman who insisted on having what God wouldn’t allow.

Woody gave the eulogy, talking about things that had absolutely nothing to do with Emma Jean, and, at the end, Authorly rose and asked Sol to render a selection. He almost sang “All of My Help,” for Paul’s sake, but then, for his own, he belted, “When peace, like a river, attendeth my way! When sorrows like sea billows roll!” Tears poured as Sol gave thanks that his hurt hadn’t consumed him. “Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, it is well, it is well, with my soul!”

Paul escaped the repast and found himself at the Jordan. He hadn’t meant to go there. His aim had been to gather wildflowers for Emma Jean’s grave, then return to the church, but the rumble of the river drew him until, unwittingly, he stood upon the rock where his mother had recently stood.

“I’m all right, Momma. The world didn’t kill me.”

He thought he heard Emma Jean’s laughter amid the rushing waves.

“I’m a man now. Can you belive that? A man.”

He didn’t need anyone’s confirmation. He’d discovered that, like the Jordan, he simply had to be who he was. That was the secret of life, right? That’s what Sol had been trying to tell him, wasn’t it? To be himself regardless of what others thought? Wow.
Death has a way of breeding clarity,
he thought. As sad as he was about Emma Jean, he gave thanks for finally understanding.

“You did the best you could. I know that. And I thank you for my life—all of it.”

Sugar Baby watched from the woods, unable to hear Paul’s words, but discerning his actions clearly.

“Take care, Momma. I’ll be fine now.”

And with that, Paul knelt and splashed his face with the healing powers of the Jordan. The water was cold and sharp, but it was also refreshing and satisfying. He couldn’t imagine how fish dwelt in the frigid flow, much less how his father and brother waded in it. But there was something magical there. He felt it now and he needed it, so he splashed his face repeatedly until he felt renewed.