Perfect Peace (14 page)

“Yeah. But I guess it wasn’t so crazy to her momma.”

Inside, Emma Jean and Margaret cut old clothes into quilt blocks. Perfect lay in the bassinet between them.

“Well, you got yo’self a li’l girl now, Emma Jean. I guess you through havin’ babies.”

“You better believe it, chile! After all these boys, I got me a daughter, so I don’t never intend to be pregnant again!”

They cackled like adolescent girls in a schoolyard.

“I know what chu mean, honey. I
know
I ain’t havin’ no mo’. I’d shoot myself befo’ I start
that
over again.”

They nodded.

“What’s her name?”

Emma Jean didn’t hesitate. “Perfect. I named her what she is.”

“What? Did you say ‘Perfect’?” Margaret burbled in shock.

“Yeah.”

“Wow. I ain’t neva heard o’ nobody named Perfect before.”

“Well, I think it’s pretty.”

“Well, it sure is
something
. That’s for sure!”

Emma Jean chewed the inside of her bottom lip. She dared not sass Margaret as she had done Mamie, for Margaret was known for being a bigger fool than Emma Jean.

“Gus like dat name?” Margaret risked.

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask him.”

She treaded further out on the limb. “Well, I know some real pretty girl names. Like Angel or Crystal or Stella . . .”

“Stella? Dat sound like a ole woman’s name. That ain’t no pretty name for a li’l baby girl.”

“Well, it depends on how you hold yo’ mouth when you say it. If you say”—she protruded her lips like one preparing for a kiss—“ ‘Stella,’ it do sound like you callin’ a old woman, but if you say”—she glanced heavenward, dreamily—“‘Stella,’ it got a nice ring to it.” Margaret nodded, agreeing with herself.

“Oh well, it don’t matter anyway.” Emma Jean shrugged. “She got de name she s’pose to have and dat’s what folks gon’ call her.”

“Fine wit’ me! All I know is, she sho look like Gustavus Peace. Lawd have mercy, she look jes’ like dat man!”

Emma Jean contemplated telling Margaret everything. A co-bearer of the truth would be nice, she thought, and that way, if anything ever happened to her, someone else could complete what she had begun. Margaret was about the best friend she had, if she had any, and surely she would understand. If she didn’t, she would keep the secret anyway, Emma Jean assumed, for anyone with a past like Margaret’s was morally obliged to keep her mouth closed.

But Emma Jean couldn’t tell it. Every time she tried, her lips clung together like magnets. In her mind, the confession began something like
Margaret, you a woman jes’ like me and I know you understand stuff a woman gotta do. And since I didn’t have no daughters, I had to make one
. . . but that was far too abrupt. She needed a smoother segue if the thing were going to make sense, and having never been a person of tact, she feared she’d confuse Margaret before she made an ally of her. Now she was glad Mae Helen had taught her to keep her business to herself.

“You can have Izella’s old clothes if you want ’em. Perfect’ll grow into ’em in no time.”

Emma Jean frowned. “No thank you.”

“Oh, they ain’t no rags! Don’t get me wrong! No, no. I bought good clothes for my baby girl. Some of ’em I made, but most of ’em I bought straight out de sto’!”

Still, Emma Jean said, “I thank ya right de same, but my Perfect gon’ have her own brand-new thangs.”

“Suit yo’self,” Margaret said, and changed the subject before she told
Emma Jean off. The women giggled until the old clock chimed eight times. Chester hollered, “Let’s go, woman.”

“You boys wash yo’ hands and feet and get ready for bed,” Gus instructed as the boys charged into the living room.

Chester and Margaret said good night, loaded their children onto the wagon, and made their way to the other side of the Jordan.

Emma Jean placed her sewing things in a brown paper bag and returned it to the corner, next to the upright radio Gracie had given them as a wedding gift. Emma Jean then lifted Perfect from the trough-shaped crib and met Gus in the bedroom.

“Maybe we could call her somethin’ else,” Gus said, unable to shake Chester’s ridiculing of Perfect’s name. “You know . . . a nickname or somethin’.” He disrobed with his back to Emma Jean.

“She already got a name!” Emma Jean screamed. “And it’s the name I like.”

“Okay, okay. But folks say it’s mighty strange.” He unrolled the pallet. “They laughin’ at it.”

“So what! Most folks ain’t got no sense noway.”

Gus reclined. “Maybe we could call her something else,” he repeated quickly, and rolled over.

“We ain’t gon’ call her nothin’ but what I named her. Other folks can kiss my behind if they don’t like it. That includes you.”

Gus rose, blew out the coal oil lamp, and resettled onto the floor. “I guess it don’t make no difference.”

Perfect lay peacefully where Gus once had. He resolved to drop the matter and shoulder the ridicule, while Emma Jean decided to slap anyone who mentioned the name issue again.

Slightly beyond midnight, Perfect whimpered irritably and Emma Jean shifted to feed her. Gnawing ravenously, Perfect suckled as though this meal were her last. Gus, who usually slept like a hibernating bear—and snored like one, too!—was awakened by the sound of Perfect’s lips smacking on Emma Jean’s nipple, and, for a brief moment, he wished the lips were his own. However, as he recalled the connection between sucking Emma Jean’s breasts and her subsequent pregnancies, his erection subsided and he returned to sleep. Emma Jean, on the other hand, battled insomnia most nights as she stared into the dark, imagining what her life might have been like under different circumstances. But that night, with Perfect nestled against her bosom, she couldn’t have been happier. “Hush li’l baby, don’t say a word,” she sang softly,
stroking Perfect’s hair, “Momma’s gonna buy you a mocking bird. If that mocking bird don’t sing, Momma’s gonna buy you a diamond ring.” Each time Perfect paused to breathe, Emma Jean kissed the crown of her head. Remembering only a few lines of the standard lullaby, Emma Jean composed verses of her own: “Sweet little Perfect, you’re real fine, Emma Jean’s baby, yes, you’re mine. And if these folks don’t love you right, I’m gonna love you with all my might,” and so on until Perfect stopped sucking and drifted back to sleep.

Christmas of 1944 was bitter cold. A raging fire warmed the boys in the living room while, in the master bedroom, Emma Jean shivered under a sheet and three heavy quilts. Gus was equally bound, lying on the frigid hardwood floor, but he felt content, especially since his actions guaranteed the end of little Peaces. Perfect lay in the other room, similarly burdened with layers of covering, longing to join her brothers and partake in the living room’s limited, precious heat, but the last thing she wanted on Christmas morning was another of Emma Jean’s spankings. She had been told, countless times, not to leave her room in the mornings until she heard her mother’s voice. The boys might not be decent, Emma Jean had explained, and a girl ain’t got no business seein’ a boy’s business. The first time Perfect disobeyed, Emma Jean whipped her with a thin sapling from the old peach tree in the front yard, and the last time, she left welts crisscrossing down Perfect’s thick legs. Perfect finally understood that what Emma Jean Peace said, she meant. And, anyway, it was Christmas morning and Perfect didn’t want anything to come between her and her presents.

Overnight, a storm had dumped two inches of snow in Swamp Creek, and residents declared the first blizzard of the season. Perfect rolled from beneath the quilts and tiptoed to the window. She loved snow. She loved watching it fall from the sky slowly, softly, gracefully, blanketing everything in pure white. She loved its silence, too, how it descended without making a sound and covered things gently. She loved its unmarred beauty, and its tendency to hide things normally unattractive. Like the old, rusted wagon. Emma Jean had begged Gus to get rid of the thing, especially after they got another one, but Gus insisted he could fix it and make a profit. He never did. Now, covered
in snow, it looked like a miniature mountain. Birds stood atop the mound, jerking their heads in every direction as though excited about their view of the world. Perfect wanted to grab her coat and join them, but she hadn’t yet heard Emma Jean’s voice. It was probably too cold outside anyway, she thought. And she hated being cold.

“Y’all gon’ sleep the day away?” Emma Jean bellowed, stepping into the living room at 5:45. “It’s Christmas morning! Children s’pose to get up and be glad about it!”

Perfect bolted from her room with two plaits sticking up like devil’s horns. She was stout now, like Emma Jean had been as a child, and her behind was beginning to take shape. By all standards, she was a pretty girl, with mildly slanted eyes and a smooth, cocoa brown complexion. Emma Jean had seen to it that nothing tarnished Perfect’s face. No scratches, no mosquito bites, no natural blemishes. Only her beaming smile jumped out at others, forcing them to smile in return. Even when her hair was a mess, as Emma Jean complained incessantly, it never hid her pretty brown eyes. She had Gus’s wide, flat nose, which normally wouldn’t have been attractive on a child, but her extra-long eyelashes and high cheekbones gave the nose context and made Swamp Creek women call her a “pretty li’l thang.” Her brothers knew she’d be a knockout one day, and that made them proud. “Good mornin’, Momma, good mornin’ everybody!” she called.

“Hi, honey. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, Daddy,” Perfect said as Gus scraped crust from the corners of his eyes.

“Merry Christmas, baby. Merry Christmas, boys.”

“Merry Christmas, Daddy,” they said in chorus. Authorly asked about breakfast.

“We gon’ eat in a minute,” Emma Jean said. “You must be the greediest child the Good Lawd ever made!”

Emma Jean sat the coffeepot on the stove and started a fire underneath. The children awaited her permission to open their gifts.

“Y’all go ’head,” she murmured after teasing them with her silence.

“Yay!!!!” they screamed, and scrambled for packages scattered beneath the tall Christmas tree that Gus had dragged in two weeks earlier.

“Everybody got they own present,” he said, “so ain’t no need in fussin’. It ain’t nothin’ much, but it’s the best me and yo’ momma could do. Children ’cross the water don’t have nothin’, so y’all betta be grateful.”

Authorly distributed the gifts, wrapped in newspaper, as though he were Santa Claus. Emma Jean had written each child’s name in large print across the packages, and now the children ripped them open with unbridled anticipation.

James Earl, Authorly, and Woody said thanks for new overalls. Bartimaeus, Sol, and Mister would now inherit their brothers’ old ones, so they smiled their appreciation for the new shirts they discovered beneath the newspaper wrappings. They were grateful. Of course, months earlier, they had mentioned things like choo-choo trains and baseball bats and gloves, but even then they knew Gus couldn’t afford such things. They were content with knowing that he
would’ve
bought them if he could’ve.

“What’d you get?” Mister asked Perfect, who seemed unable to open her gift. He volunteered to help.

“No! I can do it myself!”

“Leave her alone, boy,” Gus said. “She’s a big girl now.”

Mister recoiled and sat on the end of the sofa. He knew she’d get something different, something special. She always did.

“Ohhhhhhhh,” she cried as shreds of newspaper fell to the floor. “Oh, Momma! Look! My very own baby doll!”

“That’s right, honey, your very own baby doll. Now make sure you take care o’ her. Me and yo’ daddy spent good money for that.”

I didn’t spend nothin’
, Gus thought.

“Oh, I’ll take care of her, Momma! I promise! She’s so pretty!” Perfect studied the doll’s yellow hair and aqua blue eyes, cast against an off-white face. She wore a frilly pink dress that flared at the waist, and snow-white shoes. The doll’s legs were thick like table legs.

“How come she get a baby doll and we don’t get nothin’ but—”

“Close yo’ mouth, boy,” Gus warned. “You ain’t no girl. Dolls is for girls.”

“I know, but she got somethin’ to play with and I didn’t get nothin’ but a old—”

Slap!

“I said, shut up! Be grateful for what you got! Lotta boys would be happy to have a brand-new shirt.”

Mister touched his stinging face. He wanted to say more, to explain that he didn’t want a baby doll; he wanted a boy’s toy, something like a train or a baseball glove, but he dared not go on. Instead, he sucked his teeth and sulked.

“Keep on, boy, and you gon’ get a good whippin’ on Christmas mornin’.”

Perfect’s joy wasn’t diminished by the commotion. She clutched the doll to her chest and showed it to Authorly.

“Ain’t she pretty?”

“Yep,” he said casually. If Gus hadn’t known better, he would’ve thought Authorly was jealous, too.

Perfect scampered to Emma Jean in the kitchen. “Thank you, Momma. I like her a lot!”

“I’m glad you do, baby. She’s brand-new.”

“Wow.”

“And she’s yours all by yourself.”