The Healing (14 page)

The master opened his mouth to speak but not a sound emerged.

“Yes, I knew it. You think I’m not told things? You think I don’t know about the pretty little love nest you’ve created for the two of you out in the swamps? How she works in the fields by day and whores for you by—”

The master found his voice. “That’s enough, Amanda!”

“No, it’s not enough! Our Becky played dolls with Rubina. They were raised up together. My God, Benjamin, that girl’s got Satterfield blood in her veins.” She was shouting now, loud enough for everyone in the yard to hear. When Granada looked again through the window, Lizzie’s expression had changed to one murderous with hate.

“Tell me this,” the mistress screamed, “if you can stand a Negro lying in your bed, why can’t you abide one standing at your table?”

“Be quiet!” he shouted. “We’re done with this nonsense.”

“Benjamin Lord Satterfield!” She laughed hysterically. “
Lord!
How ridiculous! The fact that it’s merely your middle name says it all. You’re pathetic. My father was right. You don’t deserve me or his money.”

When he lunged, Mistress Amanda shrieked, “Don’t you dare touch me!”

But it wasn’t the mistress he was after. Before Granada could react, he had reached around the skirts and had her by the arm. He began dragging her toward the steps that led out to the yard.

The mistress found her legs and fled inside the house, shouting for all the outside world to hear. “You’re a murderer and a thief, Benjamin Satterfield. And you’re not going to get away with it.”

A crowd had gathered below, looking up from the yard at the spectacle on the gallery.

Master Ben had not yet made it to the steps when the mistress returned. As she sneaked up behind her husband, Granada fought him like a wild panther, screaming, scratching his hands, and kicking at his legs. Each time he tried loosening a hand to slap her, she would
nearly break his hold and he would have to regain his two-fisted purchase.

Both Little Lord and the monkey had joined Lizzie at the window. The monkey and child stood quiet and wide-eyed, looking on with twin expressions of astonishment.

Then Little Lord shouted, “Look out, Daddy!”

Master Ben jerked his head to the side, just in time for the iron poker to clear his ear on the way to crashing into his shoulder. He yelped in pain, bringing the rest of the house servants to the doors and windows. The master released Granada and clutched his injured shoulder.

Granada took advantage of the moment and raced for the gallery steps.

Daniel Webster began leaping up and down enthusiastically, holding his hands clutched over his head in the victor’s pose Chester had taught him.

“I’ll kill you yet,” the mistress screamed. She took a sideways swipe at his head, this time missing him altogether but losing her balance and falling to the floor in a rustling heap of crinoline.

Halfway down the steps, Granada met Aunt Sylvie coming up. She grabbed the girl by the arm and dragged her back up to the gallery, and before Mistress Amanda could get to her feet for another swing at her husband, Sylvie had wrapped her other beefy arm around the mistress’s waist.

“I’ll find where you hid my daddy’s gun and this time I won’t miss!” the mistress shrieked, struggling to break the hold of the brawny cook, who now had Granada by the scruff of the neck.

The master was breathing heavy and had the look of panicked bewilderment. His hand was still trying to soothe his shoulder. Ignoring his wife, he grabbed Granada from Aunt Sylvie and hoisted her under one arm like a cypress log.

On the way down the stairs, over the threats of his wife, the wailing of his human cargo, the crying of his son, and the shrieks of Daniel
Webster, he shouted for all of the plantation to hear: “Polly chose Granada and that’s the way it’s going to be. Go ahead and tell your daddy I took away your play toy. You can always find yourself another Negro girl to shame me with.”

When he made it safely into the yard, he turned to glare up at his wife, who was still being restrained by Aunt Sylvie.

“Pick one as black as midnight if you want,” he shouted, as Granada furiously paddled the air with her feet, “but this one goes to Polly. And if I ever see her back in this house again, I’ll shoot you both.”

V
iolet gaped at Gran Gran in unblinking amazement, still holding tightly to Polly’s clay mask.

The old woman laughed. “I ought not be telling you tales about monkeys and witches just before you go to bed. You might never get to sleep.” Gran Gran carefully took the mask from Violet and set it on the shelf by the bed. Then she tucked the quilt tightly around the girl.

“The truth of it is, Violet, this is the first time I’ve been able to tell if you’ve been listening to my words. Leave it to Polly Shine to raise the hairs on a person’s head.”

As she did each night, Gran Gran sat with Violet until the girl finally nodded off and the old woman could be certain that the sleep that had taken the girl was a peaceful one.

Gran Gran stood up and then leaned down to kiss Violet on the forehead, careful not to touch the girl’s hand that lay open by her pillow. For the first time in ages, Gran Gran felt necessary.

In her own sleep, the velvety fabric of darkness began to part. The current of her dreaming carried her back to the time before remembering. She found herself living the stories she had been told, beginning when she was a newborn in her mother’s arms. She reached up for her mother’s face and felt the break of that heart when her mother’s arms were emptied of her child.

And then she was Violet’s age. The kitchen where she had grown up was warm and safe and she was known. The faces around the table returned vivid and distinct. Their voices sounded out once more, each carrying broken strands of memory. Aunt Sylvie and Chester and Little Lord and even the mistress. They whispered into the ear of her memory.

“Granada, want to hear a riddle?”

“The mistress going to be down here any minute with them clothes.”

“Granada, let’s go outside and play marbles!”

The next day, upon awaking, the past was fresh and moist and as real as the morning dew. She breathed deeply and noticed the unmistakable smell of biscuits in her nostrils.

T
he raucous laughter from the children down in Shinetown carried sharp and clear through the crisp winter air. Gran Gran was at the water shelf doing the breakfast dishes, trying her best to ignore the commotion. Violet stood no more than an arm’s reach away, watching the woman’s every move, hands tucked behind her back.

She was done with them, Gran Gran thought to herself, every man, woman, and child of them!

She furiously rubbed the cake of soap between her hands to build a lather in the metal bucket. They preferred the white man’s medicine. That’s the way it was with this kind. To them the white man’s ice is always colder. And because of their meddling she could no longer midwife. Couldn’t bring another child into the world, the very thing she was put here on this earth to do, without them turning her in to the sheriff.

They said she was too ignorant and dirty to be touching their babies. Said she needed a license declaring her fit. The thousands of healthy children she had brought safely into this world didn’t hold as much water as a piece of paper signed by a white man. Who had the right to tell her she couldn’t do the thing that came as natural to her as the winds came to March? Indeed, when they took that away from her, they might as well have taken away her breath.

The sounds seemed to be growing louder, as if on the march to
her kitchen. This sent Gran Gran hurrying to her window, wiping the dishwater from her hands on her apron as she went. Violet scurried after Gran Gran, following in her wake like a baby chick.

When the old woman pulled back the curtain, she saw what the commotion was about. “Get back, Violet,” the woman said sharply.

It was too late. Violet was already raising herself on her toes to get a look. Gran Gran heard the girl’s quick intake of breath. She had seen the wagon—the same wagon and the same black-clad Choctaws who had carted her mother away. Only this time, they were ferrying their tarp-covered burden toward the mansion.

The wagon’s approach was achingly slow, traveling in the frozen ruts, while a dozen boys and girls galloped alongside.

Gran Gran reached down and carefully laid her hand on the girl’s thin shoulder, to calm whatever memories the buckboard stirred up. The head was already seeking out the secret rhythm.

At some unseen boundary, the chasing children pulled back but the driver continued to urge the mules toward the back of the house and up to the yard gate. One twin held the reins while the other jumped down and strode to the rear and unhitched the endgate, loosened the knot, and whipped off the tarp.

Gran Gran couldn’t make out what it was he struggled with until he came around the wagon and headed for the porch. In each hand he carried a suitcase.

Then she remembered. The white man had kept his promise. He said when he returned he would send Lucy’s things, and all those pretty dresses she had bought for Violet.

Long after the wagon had departed, Gran Gran and Violet remained standing on the porch, looking down on the two leather suitcases. At last Violet moved. She took a step back.

Gran Gran nodded. “Then that settles it. We’ll just put these somewhere we can get to them later, when we both ready.”

It must have been the right thing to say, because the rocking of Violet’s head diminished.

“For now we’ll stick to telling my stories,” Gran Gran said, easing
into her rocker. “The dishes can wait, too. Let’s sit down and have ourselves a chat. We’ll cluck away like two old hens with nothing but time and gossip on their hands.”

Gran Gran gazed up into the rafters and thought for a moment. Then she looked at the girl, who now sat straight-backed in a kitchen chair, waiting.

“I been meaning to tell you, Violet,” Gran Gran began, “after you got me talking about Aunt Sylvie, what do you think? I woke up this morning smelling biscuits! I could have sworn this was Sylvie’s kitchen again. You ever have a smell do that to you? I guess at nearly ninety, my smell seems to be waking up again. Just one whiff of biscuits, and there I am, twelve years old and hungry as a hog! Ain’t that something?” She chuckled. “No wonder a ninety-year-old stoops so bad. He got a lifetime of memories riding his back! Why, I believe if you give me a smell from any time in my life, I’d be that age again. Such silly things to bind a life together, ain’t it? Biscuits and roast lamb and such?

“Why, I can remember like this morning them two biscuits Sylvie give me the day I got tossed out of the kitchen. I sure hated to leave that place. Only family I ever knew. Chester and Sylvie and Lizzie—even Lizzie—and that haughty old Pomp.”

Gran Gran closed her eyes and breathed deeply. “And ain’t it funny? After all that happened, it’s still the biscuits I can bring back the best.”

G
ranada clutched to her chest the only thing she was allowed to take from the great house—a spare dress, the checked gingham of a house slave. Everything else, even the marble as white as Lizzie’s blind eye, the one she had won fair and square from Little Lord, she was told to leave behind. Aunt Sylvie said she was sorry, but it didn’t belong to Granada. Never had. And she didn’t belong there. Not anymore.