“What you mean, a seeker?” Doll peered over at her mother. She’d never heard her use that word before. She wondered if it was a “word of the day” from Miss Fannie’s newspaper.
Queenie jabbed the knife in Doll’s direction. “A seeker, baby, a seeker. You looking for something you ain’t never gone find.”
“I ain’t no seeker, Mama. You just ain’t been paying attention to the world around you. Things are changing.”
“Uh-huh. Ain’t you heard nothing I just said? People going to jail, getting killed. That much ain’t changed. Now you set on down here and help me shuck them oysters.”
“I’m almost twenty-three years old. About time you quit telling me what to do.”
“I’m your mama. I don’t care how old you are. You’re my daughter, and I’m gonna keep you out of trouble the best way I know how.”
“Like how you kept Ewell out of trouble?” Doll said.
Queenie put her hand to her chest and let her eyes fall to the floor. Doll’s brother Ewell had died from a gunshot wound to the chest several years ago in a senseless shooting that left four young black men dead and the neighborhood paralyzed with fear.
“I’m sorry, Mama. I shouldn’t have said that.” Doll touched her mother’s shoulder, knowing she’d gone too far, had brought up the one thing that could bring her mother down—the fear she carried inside, wondering which one of her children might be next. The only reason Doll hadn’t been hauled off to jail or been beaten like her other friends at the last sit-in was because Lieutenant Kennedy, a longtime police officer friend of Miss Fannie’s, recognized her and sent her on home before all the trouble started. She might not be so lucky the next time. That’s what all the fussing was about. But Doll couldn’t help the way she felt, like a seed buried in the wrong kind of soil. Maybe her mother was right. But that seed inside her was ripe, and it was ready to burst open any minute, no matter what her mother said.
Queenie raised her eyes. “I see you over there thinking, like I don’t know what I’m talking about. But you’re wrong, baby. I’m just trying to save you all the trouble. Now go on and fetch that sack of oysters Mr. Pierce left out on the back porch.”
Doll came back in and plunked the sack of oysters down on the kitchen table. “Your arthritis acting up again?” she asked when she saw her mother rubbing mustard powder on her elbows.
Queenie nodded. “Shucking oysters do a number on me.”
“Why’d you get oysters anyhow?” Doll slit the small sack open with a knife. “You know oysters best only in months with an r in them. They gone be mighty puny this time a year.”
“Thought Miss Ibby might like to get her first taste of an oyster while she here,” Queenie said. “Can’t help that she’s here in the middle of summer.”
Queenie stuck the tip of the knife in the joint in the back of the oyster. With a few twists, the shell popped open. She held the oyster up with the tip and examined it before tossing it into the bowl she’d set on the table.
“Let me tell you something else I noticed,” she went on. “You acting like you scared a that little girl.”
“What you mean scared? Why would I be scared a Miss Ibby?” Doll balked.
“I hear the way you been talking to that child. You afraid Miss Ibby gone march right in and take Miss Fannie’s attention for herself.”
Doll threw a shucked oyster into the bowl and pointed her knife at her mother. “What you mean, the way I been talking? I talk to Miss Ibby just the same way I talk to you.”
“That’s what I mean. Don’t go shooting your mouth off like you do with Miss Fannie. You can’t talk to Miss Ibby that way. She ain’t used to it.”
Doll sat back, exasperated. “Mama, why you pounding on me like I’m some of your bread dough?”
“Don’t mean to, baby. It’s just . . . I can’t ever seem to make you understand how lucky you are, to be here in this house.” She twisted the knife into another oyster shell, then looked over at Doll. “How many times I got to tell you, baby? You can’t change the way things are. It were God’s choice you here. And ain’t nobody or nothing can change that.”
That was her mother’s answer to everything. Doll tightened her mouth but said nothing. What her mother didn’t understand was that no matter how much she tried to douse Doll with common sense, her unrest just kept smoldering.
They sat quietly for a few minutes, each in her own thoughts, until Queenie shook her head and said, “I shouldn’t have told that child the truth about her mama. She too young.”
“You didn’t say nothing that weren’t true.”