The Darkest Child (11 page)

“You know what I want, Frank,” she said, “but you just like that ol’ dog of yours.You oughta try to be mo’ friendly.Where’s Pearl?”

“In the house resting up for work tomorrow. Something you don’t know nothing about.”

“I work,” Mama said lightly. “You just done forgot how hard I work.You so busy trying to be mean that you done forgot.”

The muscles in his face twitched. His bushy eyebrows and mustache seemed to target then surround his short, thick nose as his eyes narrowed and grew dark under the shadows of his brows. He turned away from Mama, stepped down from the porch, and marched across the yard to stoop beside Squat.

“Nah, you don’t like cats, do you boy?” he said, placing a hand on Squat’s head.

Mama was smiling when she turned to face us.“My babies,” she said. “My beautiful babies.” She hugged Sam, then took Edna by the hand. As she led us around to the front of the house, I stared down at her heels and saw them break the mud with each step she took. I could never have walked so far on wet earth in high-heeled shoes. I would never have tried. That was one of the differences between me and my mother.

Miss Pearl was sitting in the living room on three-fourths of her sofa. Her feet were propped on a footstool, and she stared at a small television screen. “Hey, y’all leave that mud out there!” she shouted, after Mama had pushed the door open.We removed our shoes. Mama did not.

“Pearl, do you know yo’ husband sitting out there in the mud wit’ that ol’ dog of his?” Mama asked.“I’m gon’ yell out the kitchen door and tell ’im to come on in here wit’ the rest of us.”

We parted our huddle and allowed her to saunter by, her heels clicking across the hardwood floor, and her hips swaying.We could hear her opening the back door and calling to Mr. Frank.

Sam, his anger abated, apologized.“I’m sorry, Miss Pearl. I don’t know what’s wrong wit’ Mama.We knew it was too late to be coming out here, but she wouldn’t hear nothing we had to say. Made us all come.”

“Hush, boy.” Miss Pearl waved a hand to silence him.“You ain’t gotta explain nothing to me. I been knowing Rosie since befo’ you was born. I know how she is.”

“I wish you’d tell me, ”Tarabelle said. “I don’t ever know what Mama gon’ do. I’m so sick of her, Miss Pearl, I could just scream.”

“Now, girl, you watch what you saying,” Miss Pearl warned.

“I know what I’m saying, ”Tarabelle snapped. “I’m sick of her. We all sick of her. She won’t touch Judy. I ain’t never seen a mother won’t touch her own child.”

“Maybe that’s ’cause y’all don’t give her a chance,” Miss Pearl said, getting to her feet. She went out to her kitchen and left us to stare at each other and ponder her remark.

I lowered myself to the footstool and changed Judy’s diaper, then I turned her on my lap where her head was resting against my knees so that I could gaze at her face. Sometimes I would gently squeeze the tip of her nose, trying to shape a point out of flatness. Miss Pearl had said that a baby’s head and nose could be shaped if it was done early enough, before the bones formed. She had also said that the color of the baby’s ears determined the color of the child. Judy was going to be black, maybe even a darker shade of black than I was.

“I got a big pot of pinto beans in here,” Miss Pearl called out to us. “Y’all welcome if you want some.”

We did not.

When she came back into the room, she was followed by Mama and Mr. Frank. She had a red package tucked beneath her arm, and a bowl of beans in her hand. She stood over me for a minute, looking down over my shoulder at Judy.

“Y’all hold that baby too much,” she said, her mouth filled with beans. “After while y’all ain’t gon’ be able to put her down. I like babies, but you ruin ’em if you hold ’em too much.”

“I try to tell ’em, Pearl,” Mama agreed, “but you can’t tell ’em nothing.They think that child a doll.”

“She is a doll,” Mushy said. She was sitting on the floor beside the coffee table, sweating corn whiskey and looking thoroughly miserable.

“You awright, Mushy?” Miss Pearl asked, reclaiming her seat on the sofa and handing the red package to me.

“I’m fine, Miss Pearl,” Mushy answered, attempting to hold her head up and to smile, and failing at both attempts.

“It’s the weather,” Miss Pearl said. “It’s done rained just about every day since you got here.You gotta eat if you gon’ stay healthy in this weather. Here.” She dipped her spoon into the bowl of beans and offered it to Mushy.“Beans warm you up from the inside out.This just what you need.”

Mushy closed her eyes, then tried to get to her feet.“Open the door, Wallace,” she managed to say before bumping the table and crawling for the front door.

“Um huh.”Mama nodded her head.“That’s what happen when they think they grown.”

“Good Lord!” Miss Pearl exclaimed. She leaned forward, her spoon poised in the air, as she watched Mushy crawl through the doorway.“What’s wrong wit’ her, Rosie?”

“Ask Harvey.”

Harvey, who had been keeping his distance from Mama all evening, leaned his head toward Mr. Frank’s chair. He was sitting on the floor with his knees up and his hands cupped over them. He tried to speak, stammering over one word and slurring the next, “We . . . we . . . I, it was just . . .Mama, it was just . . .”

Miss Pearl dropped her spoon into the bowl and shoved the bowl toward Laura. “She’s drunk?” Miss Pearl asked. “Rosie, we gon’ have to give her some cast’oil and turpentine.Work that poison out befo’ she get back on the train.”

Mama chuckled.“Pearl, Mushy ain’t no child. She probably got half it out already.” Mama kicked off her shoes.“Tarabelle, go out there and make sho’ Mushy awright,” she said as she picked up one of the shoes.

Harvey’s debilitated reflexes held him immobile as the shoe flipped, heel over toe, the distance of the room. Drunken sobs of relief escaped him as the shoe sailed past its target and struck Sam, who was sitting against the wall behind Harvey. Sam touched his fingers to his head.

“Stupid!” Mama accused. “Sam, you mean to tell me you ain’t got sense enough to move when something flying at yo’ head? I shoulda threw the damn thing at you.”

“Rozelle, you gon’ hurt one of these children one day, you keeping acting like that,” Mr. Frank admonished. “And don’t be throwing stuff in my house.You coulda hit that baby.”

“Tangy Mae, go on and open yo’ present,” Mama said, ignoring Mr. Frank.

I handed Judy to Martha Jean, and ripped the red paper from my gift.

“How you like ’em?” Miss Pearl asked.

Every year, for birthdays and Christmas, Miss Pearl gave us the same thing—a pair of white socks wrapped in red crepe paper— and we always appreciated them. I had a suspicion that someone on Meadow Hill gave them to her, and she held on to them for these special occasions.

“I like them,” I answered, as I did every time she asked that question.

“Like what?” Mushy asked. She stepped through the doorway looking disheveled, but walking upright. She took a seat on the arm of the sofa while I held my socks up in answer to her question.

“That’s the one thing we could always count on, Miss Pearl,” Mushy said affectionately. “No matter what the day was like, we always knew you’d have us a present. I miss that.”

Miss Pearl reached out and touched Mushy’s hand. “You awright, girl?” she asked.“I thought we was gon’ have to give you cast’oil.”

“Come on now, Miss Pearl,” Mushy said, glancing over at Mama. “I’m my mama’s child. If I can’t hold a little liquor, I ain’t got no business calling myself a Quinn.”

“What’s that s’pose to mean?” Mama asked.

“Means you a good teacher, Mama,” Tarabelle said from her stance in front of the door.

Up came the other shoe but too slowly to catch Tarabelle as she side-stepped. It smacked the door, then fell to the floor with a light thump. Harvey belched something resembling a laugh, and Laura giggled. Mama eased to the edge of her seat. She was preparing to strike but in which direction I could not tell.

“Mama,” Mushy said, moving over to kneel beside our mother’s chair, “when I was outside, I was thinking ’bout that winter when everything froze up.You remember? We couldn’t get down the steps ’cause they was covered wit’ ice.”

“Get away from me, Mushy,” Mama snapped, then she turned toward me, but spoke to Miss Pearl.“Pearl, did you know our quiet, little birthday girl can sang. I hear she sangs the blues like an angel.” Her voice became harsh. “Stand up and sang for us, Tangy Mae!”

“Cut it out, Rozelle,” Mr. Frank pleaded, but Mama ignored him again.

“Tangy Mae, I hear you sang right pretty for a bottle of gin. Is that right? Did you go out and shame me for a bottle of gin?” Her head appeared disembodied, floating toward me until I could see the dark circular outline of her throat. “Get yo’ black ass up and sang. Now!” she barked.

I stood, my mouth so dry I could not swallow the lump in my throat that was threatening to choke me. I opened my mouth and began to sing the first song that came to mind. It was a Clovers’ tune that I butchered unmercifully, but Mama had no shoe left to throw and I was safe for the moment.

When I finished, Miss Pearl was the only one in the room looking at me. “Y’all shoulda tol’ me if y’all wanted to hear some music,” she said. “We coulda put on some records ’cause that sho’ ain’t how that song s’pose to go.”

sixteen

“I
t’s a shame,” Mama said, as she stood in the doorway and watched Richard Mackey drive off with Mushy.“That boy got a wife. Ain’t no telling what people gon’ say.”

I couldn’t see how it mattered since Mushy would be on her way back to Cleveland by this time tomorrow. But I respectfully listened to my mother rant, finished my homework, then stretched out on my pallet and fell asleep feeling depressed and already missing my sister.

At some time during the night, rain fell from the sky and awakened me with a constant and annoying drip against my face. I sat upright and heard a muffled giggle from the center of the room. “Mushy?” I questioned.

“It’s me, Tan,” she answered. “I was just sitting here wondering who was gon’ wake up first. I had my money on Edna.That rain’s giving her a bath over there, and she sleeping right through it.”

I couldn’t see Edna or Mushy, but I stretched my arm over to where I knew Edna slept, and felt rain splash against my wrist in heavy drops.“What time is it?” I asked.

“It ain’t no time, Tan. It’s just almost time,” Mushy answered.

“You ever notice that—how it’s always just
almost
time? It’s almost time for Harvey and Sam to get ready for work, only they can’t work in the rain, can they? It’s almost time for you and Wallace to get ready for school. It’s almost time for Tarabelle to go to work, and it’s almost time for me to leave, but not quite.” She laughed. “To tell the truth, Tan, I don’t know what time it is. It’s just morning and that’s enough.”

Mushy was talking in riddles, which made me wonder if she had spent the night drinking with Richard, and if they had gone out to Stillwaters. I scooted forward to escape the drops of rain that pelted me. Laura stirred, then yanked at the blanket I was dragging away from her. Mushy laughed again.

“I’m not going to school today,” I said.“I want to be here when you leave.”

“What’s Mama gon’ say?”

It was my turn to laugh. “Mama doesn’t care whether I go or not. She thinks I’m too old to go to school.”

Mushy was silent for a moment, then, in a dispirited voice, she said, “Tan, we need some light. I’m gon’ scream if I don’t get outta the dark. I can’t stand it. Listen to that rain. I used to like that sound, but I can’t stand it now. Rain and darkness. I need some light, Tan.”

There was a quiet desperation in her request that saddened me. I could not stop the rain, but I crawled over to the table and felt around, then with the flick of my wrist and the lift of a glass cylinder, I brought light into the darkness.

Tarabelle’s head rose from folded arms. “Go back to sleep,” she mumbled angrily.“What time is it anyway?”

“It ain’t no time, Tara,” I answered. “Mama broke the time last week, don’t you remember?”

“Silly,” she said, and pulled the blanket over her head.

Mushy covered her mouth and laughed. I slipped out of my wet gown and into a dress, then together we went out to the kitchen carrying the kerosene lamp.

While I pulled out pots and pans to place under leaks, Mushy made herself comfortable on the floor between Harvey and Sam. She was still wearing her red dress, but her makeup was gone, and she looked younger and more innocent than the night before.

“Bring Judy in here,” she said.“She can’t move outta the rain by herself.”

With Judy and her basket in my arms, I returned to the kitchen to find Harvey up and building a fire in the stove, and Mushy in his spot between the blankets.

“When it rains in Cleveland,” she said, “I find myself somebody to sleep wit’. I don’t like being by myself.”

“We know that,” Sam teased.“Mushy, you’d talk to a rattlesnake if you thought he’d talk back.”

She ignored him.“There’s this boy in Cleveland wants to marry me. He been asking for two years, but I keep telling him to wait.”

“Now, Mushy, you know that’s a lie,” Sam said with a chuckle. “Ain’t no man gon’ chase after the same woman for two years.”

“His name is Curtis,” she went on.“He works at the hospital, too. I like him, but sometimes I feel like I want somebody different.”

“I know what you mean,” Harvey said.

“You tired of Carol Sue?” Sam asked.“She’s a pretty girl, but I can see how you’d get tired of her. She don’t want you to do nothing.”

“I ain’t tired of her,” Harvey said.“It’s her daddy that bothers me. Sometimes I wanna see her, but I don’t wanna go up to that house ’cause I know her daddy gon’ be there asking me what I’m gon’ do wit’ my life—like I’m s’pose to know—like I got some choices in this world.”

Mushy sat up. “Tell him to go to Hell.You ain’t courting him. You courting Carol Sue.”

“Same difference,” Sam said, and winked at Mushy.

“You know what,” Mushy said.“If I had twenty dollars to spare, I’d buy Sam some sense, and I’d buy you a backbone, Harvey.That ain’t to say you won’t stand up to a man, ’cause I know you will, but you let women run all over you.Take Mama for instance.You ain’t never been able to stand up to her.”

“What would you buy me, Mushy?”Wallace asked.

Mushy leaned across Sam’s outstretched form and kissed Wallace on the tip of his nose. “I wouldn’t buy you nothing, Wallace.You perfect just like you are. Maybe you can talk to these brothers of yours.”

“They won’t listen to me.”

“Harvey, think about this,” Mushy said. “If Mr. Dobson didn’t want you seeing Carol Sue, then you wouldn’t be seeing her.All he gotta do is say the word, and she’d roll over and do whatever he say. That’s the kinda girl she always been.You marry Carol Sue and you gon’ screw on Tuesday nights wit’ the lights out, around the crotch of cotton bloomers, and you’ll know ain’t nothing else coming for a week.”

“Hell, that’d be a treat for Harvey,” Sam laughed.

“Mr. Dobson see something in you he likes,” Mushy rushed on. “It ain’t money and it ain’t smarts. Maybe he like yo’ looks and think you can make pretty grandchildren for ’im. Maybe he like that you already trained. Don’t get mad, Harvey, but you know what I mean.You already henpecked.You the type of man would bring yo’ money home and give it straight to Carol Sue.That’s all you know.”

Harvey wiped a hand across his forehead, leaving a thin line of coal dust on his skin.“They want me to come work at that funeral home,” he said.“That’s what her daddy wants, but Archie wants me to work wit’ him. He say the government making ’em build a new school for Negroes.He wants me to work wit’ him when it’s built. He says they’re gonna need two janitors, and he can get me on.”

“Nah, Harvey,” Mushy whined. “I want you to come to Cleveland. I want all y’all to come. I’m gon’ send for Tara first, then the rest of y’all. Archie Preston ain’t nothing but a cigar-smoking, pot-bellied, old fart. I know he s’pose to be yo’ daddy, but he ain’t never done nothing for you.”

“Mushy right. How you gon’ trust somebody who just walk up to you and say he yo’ daddy. Hell of a thang,” Sam said with amusement.“What else he been telling you.”

“Not much,” Harvey answered. “Every time I mention Mama, Archie gets this puckered look like he got something real sour in his mouth. He don’t never say nothing bad about her, he just don’t say much of nothing at all.”

“Screw him,” Mushy said.

“Yeah,” Harvey agreed half-heartedly. “He ain’t nobody. Ain’t got nothing to offer me, not even a name.”

“He offering you a job, boy,” Sam reminded him.

“Maybe,” Harvey said, “but I ain’t seen no school going up nowhere. Could be just talk.”

“No, it’s true,” I said.“Mr. Pace told our class that we’re getting a new school. They’re going to build it on that land behind the church.”

“Hambone mentioned something about it, too,” Sam said.“He said they either got to build one or let the Negroes go to school wit’ the whites.Wit’ a choice like that, what you think they gon’ do?”

“So that’s settled, ”Mushy said dejectedly.“Harvey gon’ spend his life in Pakersfield being a janitor, working wit’ his daddy and living wit’ his mama and trying to keep the two from meeting. Hell of a life if you ask me.”

“I don’t know what I’m gon’ do, Mushy,” Harvey said. “I don’t know that I can sit around here waiting for somebody to build a school.That might take a long time.”

“So you gon’ marry Carol Sue?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know what I’m gon’ do.”

The conversation died on that note, and Wallace rose from his pallet, stepped into a pair of blue jeans, and went out to the front hall.Tears sprang to my eyes.

Mushy sat up and pulled Judy’s basket closer to her, and I closed my eyes and visualized the routine of our household, one step ahead of reality.

In less than a minute, Wallace would return to the kitchen with the
night bucket in his hand, Martha Jean following behind him. He would
pick up the water bucket, and Martha Jean would open the back door.

“I know something about the midwife, ”Wallace baited. “Y’all wanna know?”

I opened my eyes and saw him standing there with the two buckets. No one took the bait, and I could not because I was on a higher plane, but low enough to sense we were missing something significant. I closed my eyes again.

Martha Jean would take the only two pots that were not collecting raindrops.
She would wait for Wallace, then she would start grits in one pot and
water for coffee in the other. After the coffee water was ready, she would
warm a bottle for Judy.

My eyes and the back door opened simultaneously, and Wallace was back with the water. I closed my eyes again.

Where’s my coffee?

“Where’s my coffee?” Mama shouted from the comfort of her palace, and our day had officially begun.

O
ur mother’s presence in the kitchen had an unnerving effect on us. It sent my brothers out early into a pouring rain to loiter at the train depot where they would wait to say their farewells to Mushy. Tarabelle, before she left for work, sailed an urgent plea over Mama’s head to Mushy, to which Mushy nodded, ever so slightly, a promise.

“Put that baby down,” Mama said to Mushy over the rim of a chipped coffee cup.

The tension in the kitchen was smothering. Edna, Laura, and Martha Jean ate their grits in silence and with synchronized movements— spoon up, spoon down, chew, chew, swallow. I couldn’t eat.

The blankets had been rolled, and Mushy sat on one bundle with Judy’s basket at her feet. She kept fussing over the baby and would not meet Mama’s stare.

“You know that boy’s married,” Mama said flatly.“You ain’t got no business staying out all night wit’ no married man.”

Mushy said nothing.

“I heard you sneaking in here this morning. I didn’t raise my girls for people to be talking ’bout ’em. Ain’t you got no shame, Mushy?”

“Mama, I just wanted to sleep on a bed. I ain’t used to sleeping on the floor no more,” Mushy said.“It makes my shoulders hurt.”

“Humph,” Mama snorted.“So you just waltz into town and find yo’self somebody’s husband to sleep on?”

Mushy glared at Mama, then she balled her hands into fists and pressed them against the roll of blankets.“Richard Mackey is a big, dumb, slow-talking man that I ain’t got no need for. If I wanted him, he’d be packing a bag by now. But I don’t want him, so let’s just drop it, Mama.”

“He’s a handsome man wit’ a good job,” Mama said.“You just a slut, Mushy, and a cheap one at that.”

Mushy lowered her head, pressing her chin against her chest, then her eyes rolled upward and she said, “How you gon’ sit there trying to judge me when I’m the one person know just how lowdown and dirty you are? Don’t you dare talk to me about sleeping wit’ nobody’s husband.You know something, Mama? If you was anybody else, I’d get up from here and kick yo’ ass.”

Mama took another sip of coffee.“Pretend I’m somebody else,” she said as she tossed the remainder of the coffee at Mushy’s face.

On a crate, as far away from my mother as I could get, I saw the hot, brown liquid depart the cup, linger indecisively in midair, then accelerate in a lopsided flight. It landed in a soundless crash against Mushy’s startled face.

I rose to see if coffee had splashed on Judy, and Martha Jean moved frantically toward the basket, but Judy was safe.

Mushy gave a loud gasp, followed by a short scream, then she began to rub at her face with both hands. She rose from the blankets and stormed out of the kitchen, as Martha Jean and I followed.

Mushy snatched her coat from a nail, grabbed her suitcase from the floor, and fled our mother’s house with coffee dripping from her hair. I stood on the front porch beside Martha Jean and watched Mushy trudge up the muddy road with her suitcase banging against her leg.

From that moment, and for the next two days, we were forced to listen to our mother’s ambivalent sobs as she wept for a child she truly loved—and hated.