JEWEL (6 page)

CHAPTER 4.

MY BABY ANNIE TODDLED INTO THE KITCHEN A LITTLE AFTER LESTON and the men had finished breakfast, Wilman and Burton just starting in to theirs.

The niggers, who ate outside, had already finished, too, and’d stacked their plates beneath the steps down from the back porch, the same place they’d find them when they headed for home tonight.

Annie held on tight to the scrap rag that’d once been a blanket, what now she called her nye-nye. She had the blanket over one shoulder, her red hair tangled with sleep, a hand to one eye and rubbing it.

Wilman and Burton, the two of them shoveling in grits and biscuits with syrup and fried eggs as quick as I could turn it out, sang together, “Annie, fannie, baby with a blankie.” They looked at each other, laughed, started back in with the food.

Annie turned to them, and from where I stood at the stove I could see her eyes squinch down to nothing, then she swung out at empty air with the hand she’d had to her eye. Burton imitated her, Wilman doing the same as soon as he’d seen what his older brother’d done. They laughed even more.

From where I stood, too, I could see out the kitchen window to Leston, Toxie, Garland and JE, the four of them standing outside with hands in their jacket pockets, shoulders up against the cold morning, each with a cigarette to his lips. Beyond them, back near the trees, were the niggers, the ten of them forming a jumbled circle. The sun still wasn’t up, and I could see the bright red spark of a cigarette tip pass from nigger to nigger, each taking one small pull, then passing it to his neighbor.

Then Leston raised a hand in the air, gave a quick wave, and they were all of them off, led by my husband. He was first to disappear from my view, followed by JE and Garland and all the niggers except Sepulcher, a tall, thin boy whose pantlegs stopped a good four inches above his ankles. He and Toxie went off in the opposite direction, to my left, back to where one of the trucks had been parked since they’d towed it from the woods last Thursday.

Annie was hitting Burton’s leg with her free hand, the other still holding on to the blanket. The boys were leaning over, poking a finger in her hair, another in her ribs, another under her chin, them laughing at each twist away their baby sister made, her giving only halfhearted squeals, enjoying the attention. It’s what children did together, I’d realized only after James and Billie Jean’d been at each other’s throat their first five years or so. A game, see who could poke who the most until one or the other cried, got Momma mad.

But I wasn’t going that way this morning, not even after the age I’d seen in Leston’s shoulders earlier, not even after knowing there’d be another whole stretch of time in my life when another child would fall party to this game of attention and tears.

Annie, as always, broke first, finally gave up slapping at Burton’s leg.

She backed up a foot or so from the boys, and sat down on the floor.

Her eyes were closed, tears spouting out now, her mouth open in a loud cry.

In walked Billie Jean, still in her nightshirt and socks, one hand scratching at her head, a creased and wrinkled Photoplay in the other hand. She stopped in the middle of the kitchen, yawned, then opened her eyes, and said just loud enough to where she knew I’d have to make remark, “Why can’t a woman get enough sleep in this place? ” She put her hands on her hips, gave a look as grown-up and hard as she could muster at her brothers and sister.

“Momma, we didn’t make her cry, ” Burton hollered, and Wilman put in, “Momma, she did it herself.”

Annie still cried.

But all I could see my way to doing was to stand there at the stove cross my arms, and smile. The bellyaching and crying still went on, even Billie Jean looking up at me, saying, “Well? Why can’t a woman?

” They all wanted me to break, I knew, they all wanted in their own way nothing more than what they’d lost when the next child had been born, just a hug and a soft word from me. My full and undivided attention, what I knew I would never be able to give any of them again. That was the sorrowful part of being a mother, each of your children had to move up a notch toward some end of childhood with the birth of the next child. And so I wouldn’t get mad at any of them, wouldn’t holler and carry on about getting a switch or holding back the quarter for a movie and popcorn in town Saturday if they didn’t straighten up, all of them.

No, this morning, I would only love them. Soon enough they would know what was coming.

That evening, supper spread across the table in steaming bowls and plates of hot food, we gave thanks, Leston at the head of the table, me next to him. The children, starting with Anne next to me, were seated around the table by age, so that James was sitting next to Leston, all of us holding hands. “Dear Lord, ” Leston said, his voice as low and even and empty of fear as every other night, “hear our prayer, we give You thanks for the many blessings You bestow on us each and every day, and ask that You bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies.

Amen.”

The children let go each other’s hands quick as they could, but Leston still held mine. I looked up at him, saw him smiling at me.

“Almost forgot, ” he said. He closed his eyes, still smiling, and held his empty hand out to James, who looked at me. His face was his father’s, the same spray of freckles Wilman had gotten, the broad forehead and giving eyes the same green as my husband’s. I smiled at him, but it didn’t change the puzzled look he’d taken on, mouth slightly open. He said, “Momma? ” and slowly moved to take his daddy’s hand. My eyes fell to his hand as he placed it in Leston’s, and I saw the calluses and cuts, evidence of the hard work he’d been doing for over a year now at the lumber mill. But even those scars were only pale imitations of the ones Leston’d had for years, his big, red hand now swallowing up James’. And I remembered for a moment James’ soft, white hands when he was a child, remembered my firstborn at my breast, suckling to keep himself alive, drawing deep my milk with the same mighty purpose each one after that’d had.

James’d dropped out of the high school last January when the first men left for the armed services, back when Roosevelt was making the big pleas for all able-bodied men to join up, and many a job needed doing around here went begging. He was only fifteen, but neither Leston nor I minded much his quitting, he’d learned to read and write and figure quicker than any of my children so far, had enough common sense about him to pick his way through whatever this life would give him.

But he and Leston hadn’t spoke much to each other since then, and I knew it was because James’d chosen to take on at Crampton’s, and not follow his father out to the woods, not bore holes into tree stumps with a hand auger, then shove in pieces of dynamite and light fuses, scatter like scared bats. A piece of me was glad for that, too, Toxie’d already lost three fingers on one hand and the hearing in his right ear, this the result of a fuse too short and too fast. James’d chosen instead to head out each morning to the mill, to walk the two and a half miles there and tend saw, shove in boards at one end all day long.

I knew the reason they didn’t speak other than to ask for the salt or comment upon the weather, though, had more to do with Leston than James.

Something in Leston made him want the family with him, wanted his sons to be there to take up what he’d grown to consider a firm income, an honest trade. Many’s the night we would . lie awake and dream out loud for what we wanted, and though my own desires had more to do with seeing my children grow up with their parents alive and well, loving brothers and sisters surrounding them just those things I never had Leston’s was always about his own company, run by him and his boys. He imagined them all in old age, marching into the woods each morning, a battalion of niggers behind them, until every stubborn stump of heart pine’d been boiled down in Pascagoula. To him, James’d already abandoned the family, though I knew that for James, Crampton’s was only his first chance at trying out himself on the world. “Momma? ” James said, still looking at me. “What’s this about? ” At least the two of them were still holding hands, I thought, this time of prayer what we had left to unite us. I whispered, “Just let’s pray.”

I smiled at him, gave a small shrug. Leston’s head was already bowed, waiting for us all.

The children were looking at me, and I reached to Annie’s hand, took it in mine, her hand bigger than even this morning, her growing up with every second that went through us all. I bowed my head, knew the children would follow.

Leston said, “Dear Lord, please make certain to take care of the new life in Momma. Amen.”

When I opened my eyes, every one of my family was watching me, all except Annie, who reached a hand to her plate for a piece of honey cornbread.

Now it was over. They all knew, and we’d begin the accommodations each had to make from here on out. Annie would be the hardest hit, I knew, her not looking at me was sign enough she didn’t yet know what any of this meant.

Billie Jean was first to speak. “What will I tell all my friends at school? ” she said, on her face some kind of pure horror, eyebrows twisted into each other, mouth fallen open. Her hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail, and she had on one of Leston’s old shirts, the sleeves cuffed up to her elbows. She held a fork in one hand, her knife in the other, forearms resting on the table. “What am I supposed to say? Am I supposed to just say, Hey, y’all, my momma’s having yet another baby’? ” “Yes, you are, ” Leston said. “And you listen to how you’re talking to us. You listen.” He’d leveled his eyes at her.

That would be his last words to her about the whole matter, I knew.

Billie Jean closed her eyes, nodded. “Yes sir, ” she managed to get out.

She held them closed longer than need be, just to make to us some kind of point, one lost on Leston, who looked down to his plate, forked up collards.

“A baby? ” Annie said, looking up at me. She’d already eaten half the slab of cornbread she’d been given, the crumbs dusting her chin and hands. Nye-nye, like at every meal, was draped across the back of her chair, a thin and forlorn comfort, though Annie couldn’t see it unless she turned all the way around in her seat.

“Another baby, ” Burton said. “A baby, a baby. There’s too many of them here already, ” and he turned to Wilman, gave a push at his shoulder.

Wilman said, “You’re the only baby, the only burrhead pickaninny around here I know of, ” and pushed Burton just as hard, the two of them suddenly arms and hands.

“Wilman, ” Leston said. “Burton.” They stopped quick as they’d started, and seemed to draw down on themselves, the threat of Leston’s belt across their bottoms unspoken in this household, but always present.

He’d done it enough, just stood up from the table and carted them out the house to behind the repair shed, where off would come his belt. A few minutes later there they’d march, the three of them in a line headed back toward the house, Wilman first, Burton next, the two of them with red eyes and wet cheeks and not making a sound, Leston behind them and rebuckling the belt.

My heart broke each time that went on, but there wasn’t much I could do.

Once, a little over a year ago, he’d taken Billie Jean back there for painting on thick, red lipstick she’d been given by a friend at school.

I’d followed them out, certain I wouldn’t interfere. Leston was the daddy, the one whose job this was, but when I’d seen her bend over with her hands at her knees, Leston with his arm raised, belt in hand, I’d let out a small cry, sound enough to give him cause to stop, glance at me.

“Go on inside, ” he’d said, his mouth barely opening with the words.

I’d had to turn, give up to him my child, my first girl, and head back to the house. I’d never struck any of them, always in my head the clear and polished picture of Missy Cook slapping my momma for no reason at all. The punishment was up to Leston, and I was glad for it.

The boys started in on dinner as though nothing happened, the moment of Leston’s silent warning and the news they’d have another child to terrorize either lost on them or of no matter. I wasn’t sure how hard Burton and Wilman’d fall when the next one finally came on. They were too close together, but maybe that was better for them, they had each other, and if they chose to kill each other or to be best friends both of which they were willing to do at any moment of a day at least they’d have their own company.

No, it was Annie, my baby Annie, I was worried most about. She was still looking up at me, only nibbled at the cornbread now, more crumbs than bread into her mouth. She held the bread with both hands, then let go with one, slowly reached above her shoulder and behind her, took hold of the blanket on the back of the chair, her eyes still on me.

She blinked.

I leaned toward her, brought my face down close to hers. I whispered, “Now don’t you go to worrying, Annie. You’re my baby girl. You know that.” I swallowed, the hurt of the possible lie I was about to tell her thick in my throat, the memory of my momma dying pushed too close to me so that I thought I might never breathe again, not after giving to her the same comfort I’d had to give each child when they found out they wouldn’t be the ceriter of my world anymore, “Momma will always be here, ” I said. “Just you don’t worry about me not ever taking care of you.” I reached a hand to her face, traced the perfect curve of her cheek, touched a finger to her thin eyebrow. “Momma will be here to take good care of you.”

She smiled, slowly pushed a corner of the cornbread in her mouth, took a bite too big to handle. She let go the blanket, and brought that hand to her mouth, covered it while she chewed, her eyes on me the whole time.

I sat back up, a hand still to her shoulder, and saw James staring at me, a smile on his face, too. His hands were flat on the table. He hadn’t touched the ham on his plate, nor the collards or cornbread.

“James? ” I said, and Leston looked at me, then to James. Their eyes met for a long moment before Leston said, “Son? ” “Today is a fine day, ” he said, and looked down at his hands. He closed his eyes, shook his head. Then he looked at me again. “It’s a good day because you’re having a baby.” He paused. “It’s a good day because there’s a new one on the way to take the place of this old one heading out.”