The Healing

Chapter 13





The 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.”