She picked up her books unapologetically, waved goodbye to the teacher, and followed me through the door.
“What?” she said disdainfully.
“I need to—ask you something.”
“Well?”
I knew there was no time for small talk, so I just blurted out. “I think I’m having a baby, and I don’t know what to do.”
“What?” she shrieked. “You?”
I looked at the floor.
“Well, goddamn, Ninah—that’s your name, isn’t it?”
I nodded.
“Well, shit!” she said. “We can’t talk about it here. Come on.”
“Where are we going?” I asked her, but I was already behind, and she led me out the side door, out into the bus parking lot. She kept looking back at me, breaking into a shocked laugh that made her dimples sink.
“Didn’t your boyfriend
die?”
she asked loudly. “I mean, I’m sorry about it and all. But isn’t he
dead?”
“Yeah,” I said, and bit my lip.
“Well, is it his? Was it his?”
“I guess so,” I muttered.
“You
guess
so? Holy shit. Do your parents know?”
“No,” I said. “And they’re gonna kill me—if it’s true.”
“Goddamn, I guess they
might
kill you for that at Fire and Brimstone.”
I hadn’t meant it. I’d never really thought they might kill me until she said it that way.
“Have you taken the test?” she asked.
“What test?”
“The pregnancy test, dope,” she chided, then added, “I’m sorry,” because I was crying, and then “It’s okay,” because I was on her shoulder when she probably didn’t even expect it.
She smelled like perfume, sprayed on hard, and I thought she must have squirted it all in one place for it to be so strong. It made me feel like I might throw up, so I backed away.
“Do you have any money?” Corinthian asked me.
“Uh-uh,” I said.
“That’s okay. We’ll figure something out. Come on.”
I followed her out to the highway, looking back every few seconds to see if any teachers were chasing us, but I guess they had better things to do. Up ahead, Corinthian was calling out to the air, “Whee, Jesus!” and laughing like I was the biggest joke she’d ever heard.
“You ever cut school before?” she yelled back.
“No,” I said.
“Whee, Jesus,” she said again.
We didn’t have to wait long before a man in a pickup stopped. The first couple of cars had driven by, so Corinthian had yanked the elastic out the bottom of my braid and undone it. All that hair flying loose beside the highway—it was a strange feeling, and pretty soon, I was laughing a little too.
“Take us to Kmart please,” Corinthian said to the driver. “If you’re going that far.”
He smirked and drove along quietly, which was probably a good thing.
Right before he let us out, he said, “You gals want to smoke some?” but Corinthian told him we didn’t have time and thanked him.
She knew just where to go in the store. It was so big, with so many things for buying, and I didn’t want her to know I’d never been there before.
“I don’t have any money,” I reminded her.
“You don’t need any,” she said. “Come on.” And she picked up a pregnancy test off the shelf, plucked it away from so many others just like it, and she led me straight into the bathroom where she locked the door.
“You just have to pee on that little stick,” she said.
But I’d never even peed in front of another person before—except maybe Pammy at the edge of a tobacco row when nobody else was looking—and even then Pammy looked away.
Corinthian Lovell stared right at me.
“Go ahead,” she said. “Pee on it.”
But I couldn’t.
“Ah, Jesus,” she moaned. “You’re one of those shy bladder people, ain’t you? Just bite your little fingernail. It’ll come.”
So I did it, blushing, trying not to pee on my hand but doing it anyway.
“Now we’ll just leave the little plastic thing in here beside the commode and pretend to shop. We’ll come back and check it in fifteen minutes.”
But we didn’t have to wait. Before I’d even finished washing my hands, the little sign was turning red.
“Oh, girl,” she said. “You’re pregnant all right.”
I couldn’t figure out what I was doing in there with her, in the bathroom of Kmart with a stolen pregnancy test. I already knew I was having a baby. I’d known for two months.
S
ince the day that James died, Olin hadn’t been the same.
Bethany couldn’t let the mourning hold her down too long—because she had Pammy and Mustard to take care of. But Olin kept sinking deeper and deeper. He wouldn’t go into the church after James’ funeral. Grandpa Herman said prayers out loud for him, saying he’d slipped into the quick-sand of despair, the quagmire of doubts.
I knew that it worried Grandpa Herman for one of his strongest supporters to stop attending church. I couldn’t figure out why Grandpa was so understanding, and then I remembered that he’d lost a son himself. Grandpa kept saying that he hurt for Olin, but that he wouldn’t find peace until he reached back out to Jesus. They talked a lot, Grandpa and Olin, but even Grandpa’s presence wasn’t enough to penetrate whatever Olin was walking through.
It must have been the thorns. I secretly thought that Olin must be lamenting the way he’d turned James’ bed into a briar patch that time he’d soiled it.
I wondered what
his
bed looked like.
Church was totally different without James or Olin or even Ben Harback. Nobody received the gift of tongues. Mamma still held her hands up to God, but I could tell by the way she walked, slow, like an old lady down the church steps, that he hadn’t filled them with his love.
I was almost sure that the rapture had come and gone, and with it, God’s love had exited Fire and Brimstone for good. It seemed so ironic to me that our tight-knit community, where everybody ate together and prayed together and slept so close we might as well have been in the same bed, hurt so independently. It was the one thing we couldn’t do as a group. Everybody felt it differently, and nobody talked.
Except Nanna.
“How long you planning on keeping that secret under your shirt?” she said to me one day while we were canning the last of the tomatoes. It was nearly time for the frost. Wanda and Laura had taken the rest of the mason jars into the kitchen to wash, but I was outside with Nanna, cooking down the red paste.
I didn’t even answer her.
“I been thinking about it a lot, Baby, and I swear to you, I don’t know what will happen when your blind mamma finds out—or Herman either one. Liston shouldn’t be so much of a problem, but your mamma ... Lord, child.”
“How did you know?” I whispered.
“I’ve known for a time. I been waiting for you to tell me, but you’re getting as tight-lipped as the rest of them.”
“Nanna,” I said. “It’s not what you think.”
“No?” Nanna said. “What you reckon it is then? You swallowed a watermelon seed?”
I knew what I should be feeling was tears, the same tears I’d been coughing down for nearly three months. And the guilt—of breaking the law and letting everybody down and causing James to take his own life. But all I wanted to do was laugh. Not the happy kind of laughing. The kind that comes out sounding like thunder, or a shotgun blast, breaking the day with a big ear-crunching kind of jolt.
Right out loud, I said, “It’s Jesus’ baby. I’m having Jesus’ baby,” and then I turned to Laura and Wanda, who were standing on the doorsteps with their mouths dropped open, clean jars in their hands, and I said, “I’m having the child of God.”
I
don’t know what they took me in the church for. I guess they
thought I wouldn’t lie if I was in the church. But they had it all wrong. I didn’t set out to lie or anything, but by that time, it didn’t matter where I was. Church or no church, truth and lies all looked the same to me by then. It didn’t matter where they took me. There was no telling what would come out of my mouth.
Everybody but Olin was there though. Grandpa Herman held me by the arm up at the front while the entire community filled in the first few rows of seats. Everybody sat so close, shoulder to shoulder, with Pammy between Bethany and Wanda, and Mustard between Wanda and Everett, and Nanna between Everett and Mamma and so on. From the front where I stood, it looked like they were blocking me in, like they were using their bodies to keep me from running away.
Grandpa Herman didn’t bother with the fornication sermon. He jumped right in with the questions.
“Does your condition have anything to do with James’ untimely death?” he asked me.
Mamma wailed out so loudly that Grandpa said, “Maree, honey, we need to be able to hear the girl’s answer.”
“No,” I said.
“What’d you say?” he scolded.
“No, sir,” I corrected.
“Was James the father of this baby growing in your womb?” Grandpa’s thumb was trying to break my arm.
“No, sir.”
“Are you telling me that you and James were not guilty of fornication?” he bellowed, and I knew that no matter what I said, he wouldn’t believe me.
I could see Daddy doubled over, his head on his own knees. Nanna kept her gaze straight ahead, but she didn’t look like she was listening. David and Laura both looked into their laps while Everett watched Grandpa and Wanda watched me. But poor Pammy was the one I was worried about most. She had her head buried in Bethany’s jacket.
Mamma kept crying and snuffling, but she looked like she had a candle in her head, burning, and I could see it flickering wild behind her eyes.
“No, sir,” I answered. “Me and James never fornicated.”
“Well, who in God’s name have you fornicated with, Ninah?”
I thought it must have been Jesus giving me courage because I had enough courage for two people—or maybe three.
“I’ve never fornicated with nobody,” I claimed.
“And I reckon you’re going to tell us next that you ain’t with child either,” Grandpa Herman proposed. As he talked, he ground his hand harder into my arm.
“I’m with child,” I said. “It’s Jesus’ baby.”
“Blasphemy,” he shouted, and he slapped me down. “In the Lord’s own house!”
Pammy screamed and didn’t stop. I was on the floor, and at first all I could see were the boards, little brown rectangles, fitting neatly into each other. I thought I’d like to be just one little wooden rectangle fitted so neatly into the floor. Then Daddy was there, offering me his hand, helping me up, and I could hear Mamma wailing out, joined by Wanda, I think.
There was blood on my face, maybe from my nose. I wasn’t sure.
“Sit down, Liston,” Grandpa said.
“You will not strike my child again,” Daddy spewed. “No leader threatens his people that way.”
I looked down, dizzy. Drops of blood fell between pauses, splatting one wooden rectangle of floor. I watched a drop trickle along the board’s outline, wishing I could pour myself into the spaces between boards.
“Everett,” Grandpa Herman said. “Get your daddy, son.” And Everett staggered over to where Daddy was standing beside me.
“Come on, Daddy,” Everett tried, and he put his hand on Daddy’s shoulder, but Daddy shook it off.
“She has to be punished, Liston,” Grandpa Herman shouted. “The girl is standing up here pregnant, telling us that this unborn child belongs to
Jesus.
”
“I will not leave her,” Daddy said. “I ain’t opposed to punishments, but I am opposed to violence. Ninah ain’t safe up here without me, and I ain’t sitting down.”
Then Mustard jumped up and said, “I ain’t sitting down either!” but before he could get to the front of the church, Everett had caught him and held him off.
“Noooo,” Mustard cried, tossing his head like a caged-up horse, “Noooooo,” and I thought he was going wild, punching at Everett like it was his fault.
I looked to Nanna, trying to will her to do something, but only her body was there. Her eyes were gone far away. Back to Virginia, I thought. Back to the house where her daddy died.
“Tomorrow morning at eight A.M.,” Grandpa Herman said, “Ninah Huff will be dunked for blasphemy. Tonight, there will be no supper.”
Daddy held me close to him, walking me back to the house. Mamma didn’t come with us. I don’t know where she went.
When we got to the house, Olin was there, standing on the doorsteps. He didn’t say a thing, but he held the door and kissed me on the head before I went inside.
I
guess all the madness made me stubborn. It might have dazed
my thinking a little bit too because I didn’t even notice that there was dried blood on my face until much later when I was sitting in bed and some flecks scabbed onto my blanket.
I figured Grandpa Herman was planning on starving me to death. That’d be one way of getting rid of a baby. If I died from not eating before the baby was born, then the baby’d die too and everything would be settled.
And if that didn’t work, maybe he was counting on me catching pneumonia from being dunked and dying that way. Either way, he was planning on killing me.
But I knew I wouldn’t die.
I prayed that night. I told God I knew that the child was his and that if he was planning on seeing it grow up and make something of its life, he’d better help me out.
I read in the Bible about Mary and wished there was more to know.
I knew my baby would be born with an invisible ring on its finger, one like I’d given to James. I knew he’d be a special leader for us—one strong enough to tear down Fire and Brimstone and start again—even if nobody could see the ring.
And I fell asleep the way I reckon people fall in love, without even knowing it’s happening.
E
arly that next morning, I woke to the sound of bells ringing.
At first they were far away, and then they were right in my ear, Mamma standing there dressed all in black and ringing a bell so close that the sound seeped into my pillow and clanged under my neck. Bethany on the other side of the bed, dressed in gray, moved her wrist like a machine so that the bell hit opposite Mamma’s, uneven and terrible instead of beautiful, the way a bell should be.