Nowhere Is a Place (11 page)

The sun starting to dip, starting to change from yellow to orange right before my eyes. The road feel like a rocking chair. I try to keep my eyes open but can’t, see the first signs of night slipping across the sky. My eyes flutter and I fall asleep.

* * *

I dream I’m on a rowboat, stretched out on my back, my eyes in love with the sky above me. I hear Lou’s voice calling to me, I feel the water lapping over the side of the boat, it falls on my face, my arms, and I laugh ’cause I don’t even feel afraid being out in that big blue sea all by myself.

I sit up and stare over the side of the boat, and there are a million fish swimming alongside it, a million fish in all the colors of the rainbow! Jesus mercy! What a sight!

One fish jump in, then another and another, until I’m up to my knees in squirming fish. I still ain’t scared, trying my best to toss them out as fast as they jump in, but they too quick for me and too heavy for the boat and the boat begins to tilt . . .

My eyes fly open and I pop right up in the seat.

What happen?

The car is half on the road and half off, dirt settling around us, and Sherry’s eyes wide, both hands gripping the steering wheel, knuckles white.

My heart beating in my chest. What happen? I say again.

She can’t even speak, just keep gripping the steering wheel tighter and shaking her head in disbelief.

The night is heavy; can’t see nothing beyond the reach of the headlights.

You doze off?

Sherry don’t respond.

See something in the road?

Sherry just stare and then she throw the car in park, jump out, and puke.

After she done, she climb back in her seat, wipe her mouth with the back of her hand, wipe the tears from her eyes, and clear her throat like she going to make a speech, but don’t say nothing.

You okay?

She nod her head yes.

We can sleep right here, you know, I say. Just pull a little more off the road.

Her eyes fill up with water again.

It’s okay, we all right, just a little shook up, I say, and pat her hand.

Her flesh feel good beneath mine; feel strange, though. I don’t know when last I touched my middle child. I stop patting and start rubbing. Stop rubbing and just let my hand rest on hers. She don’t push it off; I guess it feel good to both of us.

No, no, we can’t stay here. I’m okay. We’re just a few miles away from a motel.

You sure, now? I say.

She nods her head and jerk the SUV back onto the highway.

You better believe my eyes don’t close again until I’m laid out flat on my back in a bed.

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

The Westin Hotel.

A man in uniform greets us when we pull up. He young, good-looking, smiling. I nudge Sherry in her side, say, He a looker, ain’t he?

Sherry look at him, shrug her shoulders, hand him the key to the SUV.He give her a ticket, then snap his fingers and another nice young man come a-runnin’. He say, Evenin’, ladies. Welcome. And then he remove our bags.

How long are you going to be with us? he asks, looking at me.

Well, I ain’t the one running things, so I tilt my head toward Sherry.

Just one night, she say, and I let out a sigh so heavy Sherry spin around and look at me. What? she say

My legs swelling, they old like me, you forgot?

Sherry look down at my legs.

I say, Can’t we stay here a spell? More than overnight, maybe?

Sherry a woman always wanna be on time. I guess she pride herself in never having kept someone waiting. She look at me and then down at her wristwatch and then up at the sky.

Well, she say, and bite down on her lip, I guess we can spend two nights here, but make sure this the place you wanna stay, because this ain’t gonna happen a second time.

The man say, Wonderful! Glad to have you and your sister with us!

I blush and say, She my daughter!

Sherry just roll her eyes.

A pulled-pork sandwich for me, salad and salmon for Sherry, and then we both out like lights. No fountain, chanting, or meditating—just sleep!

* * *

I stop myself from singing out, “Ooooooklaaaaaaahoma!” in the morning when I wake up.

Glad to be alive for one, happy that I’m sleeping on something called a featherbed, thrilled that we in a part of Oklahoma City called Bricktown that beat like my heart.

I ease out of my bed and move to the window, which is really a terrace. I slide the door open and step outside and inhale the Oklahoma air. It’s fresh, sharp, and wet. There’s a canal right off the street; I ain’t never in my life seen such a thing. Taxis that run on water! Have you ever?

Sherry say it remind her of Venice.

I say, Where’s that?

Italy.

You been there?

Yes.

I feel bad that I can’t remember everywhere she’s been. She don’t say nothing ’bout me not remembering, but I think inside she saying what she said before: I was hearing but not listening.

* * *

Folks seem nice. They speak to you when you walk down the streets. Say “Evenin’” and “Noon” and all. Reminds me of Sandersville somewhat,’cept the square bigger than the one I remember, and of course we ain’t never had none of the fancy shops they got here. No outdoor cafés and such. Maybe they got ’em now, but not when I was living there.

Sherry and I stroll the streets, pop in and out of shops. I buy the grandkids some T-shirts, a magnet for Madeline’s fridge, a baseball cap for Sonny Boy.

Let’s stop at this café, she say. Rest our feet, take a load off and have some iced tea, something to eat?

Sure, I say, and plop down in the chair

This nice. Small round wrought-iron tables. Little vase with white flowers. Market umbrellas to keep the sun off, cool breeze coming off the canal. Nice.

A young woman comes toward us.

She smiling, give us two menus, set a pitcher of water down, asks if we need something to drink besides water while we look at the menu.

I say I’d like some sweet tea. Me too, Sherry say, but without the sweet.

The woman just look at her and then say, Pardon me?

Just iced tea, no sugar. Just a wedge of lime, if you have it.

Lemon’ll do you? the woman say.

Sure, Sherry say, and pull her shades down from her head and over her eyes.

What about your organic tea? I say, and snicker.

Sherry cock one eyebrow. Well, just this once won’t hurt, she say.

* * *

I’m sippin’ away when the phone call come. Sherry pull out her cell-u-lar and smile down at the numbers,

Who’s that? I ask.

The smile gone as quick as it came.

Wrong number, she say, and drop the phone into her backpack.

You ain’t gonna answer it?

She don’t even shake her head no, just look out across the square at the people who walk by.

Madeline call next.

It’s to the point that Sherry don’t even say hello, she just hit the Answer button and pass the phone to me.

It’s not that she don’t want to talk to you, I say, but she busy right now . . .

Oh, we just fine. Making a lot of headway, seen a lot of things. We here in Oklahoma now, sitting out having some sweet tea, looking at the canal.

Uh-huh, canal, like the one they got in Venice . . .

What I know ’bout Venice? A few things. I laugh and wink at Sherry.

How the kids? Your husband? Have you heard from Sonny Boy? No? Oh, me neither . . .

No, I ain’t worried about what he doing. He a grown man, why you always trying to mother everybody in the world? You got three kids of your own to mother, I say, and then suddenly the conversation is over.

She’ll call back before our food is even cooked, I tell Sherry.

Sherry nod, lean back in her chair, and then lean forward again and say, Tell me some more.

Two months. Just as Lou was getting the baby to take her nipple without a fuss.

Just as she was getting used to saying her name and not crying behind the memories it evoked. Nayeli.

Comfortable with Nayeli sleeping between Buena and herself. Liking the feel of squirming fingers in her mouth, the taste of them, sweet like muskmelon. Getting used to that new laugh Buena had—a soft chuckle, like an old man.

Secure and confident in sunup and sundown and everything that fell between, but not at all prepared for Henry Vicey stepping through the door, sheepish grin in place, a flick of the hand sending the other slaves shuffling outside. Except Buena. He jumps up, grins, says, “Afternoon, Massa.”

Henry ignores him, walks right past him and straight to Lou.

“How you doing there, Lou?” he says, heavy boots walking across the floor, tiny cabin shaking, cold chill where hot air had been hanging.

“Fine,” Lou says, and moves the baby from one arm to the other. She wants him to see her, see that she ain’t his.

Two other men come in, heavy boots; dirty, caked mud falls off their heels as they step in.

“How do,” Buena says, voice uneven and then surprised when he recognizes one of the faces. “Mr. Oswald?” Face breaking into pieces of confusion, throat bulging with questions he ain’t allowed to ask.

“Buena,” Oswald says without looking at him. The other man eye him, though, sums him up slowly, deliberately.

“She sure is a fine baby,” Henry says, stepping a little closer, making sure he can’t see any of himself in the child Lou holds.

“Yassa, thank you.”

“Uhm,” Henry moans, looking over his shoulder at Oswald and the stranger before looking back at Lou and asking, “Can I hold her?”

Lou can’t see Buena, can’t find his eyes to know if this is right or even real. “Sir?” She feigns hard of hearing.

Henry took a breath and reached out to Lou. “Hand her over, Lou,” he said, and his face went red.

“Massa . . . Mr. Oswald, sir, what’s going on here?” Buena’s voice was full of fear now, so full that it lapped against the walls like water.

The stranger pushed his jacket aside and turned to Buena so that he could see quite clearly the leather and the gun it held.

“Give her here, Lou,” Henry said again, and then his hands were on the baby tugging her from Lou’s gripping fingers. Lou never said no, not out loud, but her head shook back and forth as she tried to hang on to Nayeli—it shook back and forth until the baby cried out in pain and Lou let go.

“Massa, what you think you doing?” Buena screamed. Then a stool tumbled over and the tiny shack shook so hard Lou thought the walls would fall in on them, and there was the sound of the stranger’s gun being cocked and Oswald saying, “This here completes your sale, Buena.” Then they all turned and walked out.

Buena hollered, right there on the floor where the stranger had knocked him down and brandished a gun in his face. He curled himself into a ball and screamed like they were pulling Nayeli out of him instead of just carrying her away from him.

Lou just sat there staring down at her empty hands. She had nothing left to let go of.

She’d left quite a bit of herself in the valley, and another chunk on the floor in the pantry, and now the rest of her was gurgling and squirming in the arms of a white man.

She had nothing to let go of, but something new to hold on to.

The “
This
”—Oswald had spoken.

“
This
?”

Inanimate, without life, no mother, no father—wood, maybe, a stone, a cow chip. Those things were a
this
, a
that
, and an
it
. Not her daughter, not her sweet Nayeli.

She closed her empty hands, and a hollow laugh escaped her. Lou foolishly thought that the first cut was the deepest, the most damaging—losing her parents, her brothers—but this, her child ripped from her as she suckled . . .

Lou knew then the first cut is
not
the deepest; it’s just a sample of the deeper ones yet to come.

* * *

Buena is not the same.

He withers into something that is bent and shuffling with eyes that hardly ever reach for the sky.

Nothing can ever be the same again, not even their love for each other.

Lou says nothing, but her eyes accuse him.
Maybe if her name was different. Maybe if you’d never come on that wagon and caught sight of me. Maybe if we both were never born.

She says nothing, but her body pulls back when he climbs on top of her and presses his flesh against hers. It pulls back but something stick and, less than a year later, Lou is standing in the slow flow of the stream at the point where it is the clearest, where the sun seems to swim, and thinking for the umpteenth time about killing herself and her twin boys.

One strapped to her back, the other cradled in her arms. Identical twins dug in deep after the tears dried up and her body began to yield to his again and they were all the other had left to cling to.

A mother again, Lou watches the road for wagons, though Henry had assured her, “You don’t have to worry; nobody taking these two from you. They yours and here to stay.”

They weren’t hers and she knew they weren’t here to stay. They could be gone with a blink of an eye.