The Darkest Child (8 page)

When Sam finished speaking, it was so quiet in the yard it seemed the others had left, but then Junior said, “All right, Sam. Let’s start with the water fountain.”

eleven

I
t was the first Thursday in February, and I had lit the kerosene lamp and settled in an armchair to read a novel when I should have been doing my chores. I was no more than five pages into my reading when the sound of pounding against the exterior wall of our house startled me. The sound came again—an object striking rapidly against wood.

The boys were not home, and Tarabelle was asleep in Mama’s room. I tipped out to the kitchen. I got Martha Jean’s attention, and signed to her that someone was outside.

Keeping Laura and Edna close to her, Martha Jean followed me to the front door. I opened it slowly and peered out.The first thing I saw was an old, banged-up, brown car parked down on the dirt road. There was a man sitting behind the steering wheel, but I could not make out who he was.

As I turned my head to the left, I came face to face with a dark, stocky man who had a bushy beard and mustache surrounding thick, pink lips. He was about three steps away from the door, and I jumped back before I realized it was Harlell Nixon who owned the barbershop in the flats. Behind him, at the foot of the steps, was my mother. She did not look like a woman coming home from the hospital. She looked younger and healthier than she had appeared in months. In her arms, wrapped in a white blanket, was the newest addition to the Quinn family.

“Where’s the dummy?”Mama yelled up to me.“Tell her to come out here and get this baby, and tell Tarabelle to get on out here, too.”

Tarabelle ignored me when I tried to wake her. But when I told her Mama was home, she sprang from the bed, turning circles, and nearly tripped over her own feet. She was sleepy and confused, but alert enough to know that she was camping out in forbidden territory. She raked her fingers through her hair as she surveyed the room, then quickly straightened the bedcovers and stepped into her shoes.

I paused long enough to slide my book beneath the chair, and extinguish the kerosene lamp, then I went down to the yard.

Martha Jean was already holding the baby in her arms and a bottle in her hand. Harlell Nixon stood beside Mama, blatantly appraising Tarabelle, gripping a bag in his fat fist.

“Give that stuff to Tangy Mae,” Mama said, and Harlell extended the bag in my direction. I took it, and stood there waiting for instructions until it became apparent that my mother had no words for me.

The man in the car rolled the window down.“Hey, Harley, y’all coming?” he asked.

“In a minute,” Harlell called back, exposing large, tobacco-stained teeth.“You ready, Rosie?”

Mama nodded, and when she spoke her voice sounded weary.

“C’mon, Tarabelle. I need you to go wit’ me.”

Tarabelle, who was still standing on the bottom step, shook her head slowly.“Mama, I can’t go,” she said.“Don’t make me go.”

“You got to,” Mama said, in a tone that sounded apologetic.

“But, Mama, I done worked all day. Miss Arlisa say I’m doing good. I waxed the floors today, and I . . .”Tarabelle paused.“Mama, please . . .”

“Rosie!” Harlell barked when it seemed Mama was about to succumb to Tarabelle’s plea.“You done had me running all ’round town today picking up thangs for you and that baby. I done lost customers ’cause of you. I come out to that hospital and brought you home just like you asked. Don’t you go starting no stuff wit’ me.”

“Nah, Harley,” Mama said, a forced smile on her lips, “we going.”

She moved toward the car, and the man on the front seat got out and opened the door for her. Harlell stepped around the car and slid onto the front passenger seat.Tarabelle stood on the step and watched them until, without glancing back, Mama said, “Tarabelle, get in the car.”

“Mama, please . . .”

“Get yo’ goddamn ass in this car, now!” Mama ordered, and Tarabelle jerked from the force of the command. Her body seemed to convulse in a series of twitching motions before she stiffened her back and walked down to the car, her head high, her eyes staring straight ahead, and her face resembling chiseled stone.

The car pulled away in the direction of the outlying farmland, and I wondered where they were going.As I watched, the car suddenly braked and reversed along the road until it reached its original starting point. Mama lowered a window and stuck her head out.

“Her name is Judy,” she said, as the driver shifted gears and the car sped off.

The bag Harlell had given me contained a blanket, four diapers, a card with two safety pins attached and two missing, two cans of Carnation milk, and a bottle of Karo syrup. I gave the bag to Laura and, without a coat or a clue, went in search of my brothers to warn them that our mother had been home, but I couldn’t find them.

Less than an hour later, Tarabelle and Mama came home and undressed without a light.Tarabelle, after three weeks of sleeping on a bed, was back to her old spot on the floor; I had already prepared her pallet. She settled down, and I listened as her soft breathing changed to muffled sobs. In the distance, over on Fife or Canyon Street, someone’s dog grieved with my sister.

When it seemed she would never stop, I tossed my blanket aside and stretched a hand across the inches that separated us.Tarabelle’s back shuddered beneath my palm, but she did not pull away. I moved closer until I was sitting next to her. She raised her head and settled it on my lap, and I stroked her hair as tears rolled down my cheeks.

From the straw basket beside Martha Jean, little Judy pledged her solidarity by issuing a cry of her own, and in midnight darkness, I swam the stream of tears that connected me to my sisters, my ears ringing from the first cry I had ever heard from either.

twelve

P
ots, pans, and bowls had been arranged throughout the house to catch the flow of a cold, steady rainfall. The rain had brought Sam and Harvey home early, just behind me and Wallace. Tarabelle was already in, her white dress soaked and her hair plastered to her head.

Someone, Martha Jean I assumed, had placed the three kitchen chairs and four of the milk-crate seats in the front room, making it almost impossible for us to stand by the stove to warm and dry ourselves.

Our mother, in a faded pink housedress, sat in an armchair, her feet bare and her legs crossed, a startling contrast from the day before. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and her lipstick was smeared across her left cheek. She held the wind-up clock that usually stood on a shelf in her room. She wound it and placed it on the round table beside the kerosene lamp, then she told us to be quiet and to sit down.

“Satan’s in here,” she said in a hollow voice, her gaze darting about the room. “While I was gone, one of y’all let Satan in my house.Who was it?”

No one spoke.

“Don’t sit there like idiots. I wanna know who did it. Ask the dummy if she let him in here.”

Harvey, who was sitting closest to Martha Jean, moved his fingers before her face, and she shook her head in fear and denial.

Mama rose from the chair, walked over to the wall of coats, and took down the one Velman Cooper had bought for Martha Jean. She flung it through the air and it landed on the floor in front of the armchair where Martha Jean sat holding Judy. Martha Jean curled over, shielding the baby with her upper torso.

“Satan’s in here,” Mama repeated with mounting fear in her voice.

Edna started to cry, and Mama spun around to face her. “Shut up.You want him to hear you?” she whispered, easing back to her armchair, glancing over one shoulder, and then the other.

She sat on the edge of the chair, poised to move quickly, and we followed her gaze to the leaking ceiling, to the corners of the room, and to the doorway that led into the hall.

“Mama, you awright?” Harvey asked.

“Shut up,” she whispered, tilting an ear toward the hall. “Y’all done let Satan in here. I can’t trust none of y’all.” Her back stiffened, and she stared around the room at each of us. “What the Bible say, Harvey?”

“Honor thy mother.” Automatically, Harvey gave the correct response. It had been instilled in him.

“What it say, Edna Pearl?” Mama asked.

“Honor thy mother,” Edna whimpered.

“That’s right, and y’all don’t honor me.Y’all done brought Satan in my house just as sho’ as I’m sitting here, and we gotta get rid of ’im.” Her voice became conspiratorial.“We gon’ sit here real quiet so he’ll think there ain’t no bodies to get into.”

And the silence began.

And the sound of silence was frightening. Rain pounded the tin roof like a thousand demons marching for their master, and the roof yielded. Liquid curses splashed down upon our heads and into the waiting vessels. In the gray shadows of a rainy dusk, the clock on the table ticked rhythmically, but the hands never moved.They were stuck.

The angel Gabriel called to me, “Tangy, Tangy.” His voice rattled the windowpanes. It whispered above and below the doorframes and through cracks in the walls. I could not answer him aloud but I thought,
Satan is not going to leave.The only way to get him out is to
invite God in, and God is not welcome in my mother’s house. I am going
to die sitting on this milk crate in wet socks and slushy shoes.

We shifted slightly and silently on our seats, we sighed, we sat. Darkness filled the room until I could no longer see Sam or Tarabelle sitting on their chairs. It fell heavily over Wallace, Laura, and Edna.

Tick . . . tick.

My fingertips vanished.

The coal stove belched to the grumble of my empty belly and digested the last of its evening meal, then from the darkness came an angry voice that I recognized as Sam’s.“Look here, Mama . . .”

There followed the sound of an object sailing through the air. It crashed against the back wall and shattered. And the sound of silence was missing a tick.

For hours we sat, until the beam of headlights rounded the bend down on the road. Judy began to cry, and suddenly the kerosene lamp illuminated the room. I blinked and saw my mother, milky-wet stains encircling her breast, glaring at the baby with pure hatred.

“Satan,” Mama hissed.“He done crawled in that baby. Gotta get ’im out my house.”

It was then that the front door opened and closed. Footsteps sounded in the hallway, and the angel of mercy appeared, wearing a wet, beige halo on her head, and carrying a dripping suitcase in her hand. She dropped the suitcase and leaned against the door frame, then shook her head, making no attempt to conceal her disappointment.

“Mama, you ain’t dead yet?” Mushy asked.

M
ushy removed her coat and searched along the wall for a place to hang it. She was wearing a light brown, tight-fitting skirt with a matching sweater, and a beige scarf tied around her neck. Her sandy-brown hair was tucked beneath a beige tam, and she wore small, white earrings clipped to her ears.

“What’s going on here?” she asked, raising her arms and leaning back. “I don’t expect all y’all to come running at the same time, but where’s my hugs and kisses? I know y’all ain’t forgot who I am in four years. Come on, Tan, give yo’ big sister a hug.”

At that moment I wanted to touch Mushy more than I wanted to breathe, but Mama gave no sign to release me from my crate. She sat back, grunted, and stared at her long lost daughter.

Mushy laughed nervously.“What
is
going on here?” she asked. “We waiting on the devil to leave,” Sam answered.

“Honey, the devil just got here,” Mushy joked, winking at Sam. “Here I am in the flesh.” She snapped her fingers and twirled around in the small space of the doorway.

“He ain’t joking, Mushy,” Harvey said. “We glad to see you, though.”

“Oh, Mama,” Mushy groaned, “you still up to that ol’ stuff?”

Mama cupped a hand over her nose and let the tips of her fingers slide down across her lips and chin. She threw her head back and worked her fingers along the smooth skin of her neck, then she swallowed hard, and I knew that the devil was gone.My mother had swallowed him whole.

“It’s a darkie, Mushy, darker than Edna, as dark as Tangy,” she said sadly. “They say I can’t have no mo’. It broke something inside me they can’t fix. Had to take it out.Took everything out, said I couldn’t have no mo’, and all I got was a darkie.”

For a moment, Mushy seemed lost in confusion, then her expression of bewilderment changed to one of amusement. She stepped from the doorway and into the crowded room, around pots and pans, until she stood over Martha Jean. She stooped down and picked up the coat that Mama had tossed there hours ago, then she reached out and touched Judy.

“So, she’s dark, Mama,” Mushy said, smiling down at the baby. “So what? You oughta kiss her little, black ass and be glad you can’t have no mo’.”

“You’re drunk,” Mama said angrily, and the spell was broken.We all knew it.We could feel recognizable anger replace incomprehensible insanity, and we began to move tentatively on our seats.

“I ain’t too drunk to know you need to feed this baby,” Mushy said. “This a hunger cry if I ever heard one.”

“You so smart, you feed her,” Mama shot back.

“I’ll get her bottle, ”Wallace said, leaping from his crate before my mind or feet had a chance to respond to freedom.

We began to stand, stretching arms, rubbing rear ends, and waggling fingers.We crowded in on Mushy until she had touched us all.When we finally released her, she opened her suitcase and took out a white, silk blouse. She knelt beside our mother’s chair.

“Look, Mama,” she said, “I brought you something.”

Mama examined the fabric, trailing her fingers along the small, pearl-shaped buttons, then she stared into Mushy’s eyes.“Yeah, you brought me something,” she said solemnly.“Did you mean to bury me in it?” She balled the blouse in her fist and walked stiffly toward her room, leaving Mushy to stare after her.After a moment, Mushy slumped into the chair Mama had vacated, and reached her arms out for Judy.

“She ain’t nursing this baby?” Mushy asked.

“Wit’ Carnation evaporated,” Sam answered, stretching his arms and yawning.

“Mama don’t touch her, ”Tarabelle said. “I ain’t seen her touch her since she brought her home.That’s Martha Jean’s baby.”

“I can’t believe it,” Mushy said, cradling Judy in her arm to feed her.“Mama always been big on saving things.Y’all mean to tell me she wasting all them gallons of free milk and buying milk from the store? It don’t make no sense.”

“Lotta things don’t make sense,” Harvey said. “Mushy, you let Tangy Mae feed the baby.You need to go in there and talk to Mama. Can’t none of us do it.We didn’t know ’til now that she can’t have no mo’ babies.You go on in there and talk to her.”

“Okay,” Mushy agreed reluctantly, “but when I come back, I want something to eat, and I wanna sit someplace where water ain’t dripping on my head.”

I gave Judy her bottle, and Mushy went in to talk with Mama, while the others moved crates and chairs from the front room, mopped rainwater from the floor, picked up the pieces of the broken clock, and prepared a late supper of sausage and rice.