The Healing

Chapter 43





The low black clouds brought night early and the rain was unyielding. Granada didn’t dare go back to the hospital, so she found herself sitting at the big pine table in the kitchen, watching the faces that had once been so familiar. Now she wondered who these people were after all.

Aunt Sylvie sulked about the kitchen grumbling to herself, every once in a while wiping a fugitive tear from her eye. Chester, who had made up clever songs about Polly before, now wore a hangdog look that said he hated himself for every mean rhyme.

Except for Bridger, nobody seemed to take any satisfaction in Polly’s fate. Even the master was foul. When he saw Granada standing in the yard after they had dragged Polly to the stable, he had shouted, “You goddamned better have been a fast learner and picked up some remedies. Five thousand dollars’ worth to be exact.”

The prospect of taking Polly’s place put Granada’s head into such a sickening swim she wasn’t able to offer a response, other than to lean against the big oak and retch into the black mud.

Lizzie had seen her there, walked out of the barn straight from Rubina’s cold body and, when Granada raised up her head to wipe her mouth, slapped Granada’s face. “You killed my girl,” she spat.

Silas hadn’t been seen since he finally abandoned his chair on the porch, where he had been rocking relentlessly for hours, shaking his head, and every now and then muttering Rubina’s name. Eventually he rose up from his chair and walked directly across the muddy yard through the pouring rain and disappeared into the stables where they were keeping Polly. As far as Granada knew, he still hadn’t come out.

When she thought things couldn’t get worse, Granada overheard Pomp saying the master was going to take Polly into Delphi when the court came in session and have her tried for destroying his property and hanged as an example to anyone with similar ideas. Pomp said Granada was going to be hauled to court and be the main witness against Polly.

At that moment in the kitchen, Chester was hunched over in his chair, a far-off expression on his face, his brass buttons tarnished.

Aunt Sylvie was now telling Granada not to get her hopes up for a new fancy dress anytime soon. The mistress had found a better way to geld the master and seemed to be enjoying every minute of it.

Pomp was quiet, keeping his eyes on his untouched coffee, cold in the cup. He never had any particular fondness for Polly, but tonight they all knew it could be any of them out there in the stable, tied up like a veal calf. It didn’t matter how light-skinned you happened to be, tonight there was only one shade of black and one shade of white.

“Wonder who it was that told,” Pomp muttered every so often. No one answered, but Granada could feel the creep of eyes.

But worse than their suspicions was Lizzie’s relentless sobbing from Aunt Sylvie’s room across the kitchen. The mistress had not allowed her near-hysterical maid to return to the stables to tend Rubina’s body, which still lay in one of the stalls where Bridger had pitched her. When it got to be too much for Lizzie, she went off to the kitchen to cry, curse, and mourn. Each outburst was like another condemning slap to Granada’s face.

Chester shifted in his seat and looked toward the room where Lizzie lay. “I heard that cottonwood where Rubina hung herself got struck by lightning,” he said in his lowest voice. “Split that tree through the middle. But didn’t take it down.”

The words had no sooner left Chester’s mouth than the door flung open and the howling wind rushed across the room. Old Silas, his preaching coat buttoned, stood with his back to the gale. The storm sounded like a mighty river roaring toward them.

Then it was quiet. Even the wind seemed to have subsided.

Silas began to speak. “I tell you in that night there shall be two men in one bed; and one shall be taken, and the other shall be left. Two women shall be grinding grain together; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but the Father only.”

Aunt Sylvie was the first to move. She poured her man a cup of coffee and sat it down at his eating place closest to the hearth. She closed the door behind him and retrieved a towel from a nail in the doorframe. She held it out to him, but he didn’t take it. She tried to unbutton his wet coat, but he only shrugged her away.

“Silas,” Aunt Sylvie said finally, “you all right? Why you so peculiar? Your dropsy acting up?”

Sylvie’s words seemed to have broken the spell. “Polly needs to be fed,” Silas said, his tone now gruff. “Fix her a plate of something hot.” Then Granada thought she saw the trace of a smile on his lips. “And pour her a cup of port wine.”

Sylvie laughed, but then seemed to realize he might be serious. “The master’s wine? He’ll—”

“To hell with the master,” Silas muttered. “He’s got plenty. Ain’t even his.”

Silas’s words again knocked the breath out of the room.

Only Aunt Sylvie dared move, nodding warily. “I’ll take it to Polly directly,” she said, “but you’re sopping wet—”

“It’s not you she’s wanting to see, Sylvie,” he said. “She’s asking for Granada. Just Granada.”

Every head in the room whipped to where the girl sat, trying her best to disappear, the dread pulling her lower and lower into the chair.

Silas never even addressed her directly. After he had delivered his message, he walked past his wife and up to her bedroom door. He knocked softly. “Lizzie, I got a message for you from Polly.”

When the door opened, there stood Lizzie, her good eye raw from grief, glaring hot at Granada, the white one as dead as her daughter.

“Sylvie, pour a cup for me and Lizzie, while you are at it. We’ll be in here talking.”

With that, the two disappeared into Sylvie’s room.

Granada tried to get to her feet but couldn’t manage it the first time, falling back into the chair. No one moved to help her. No one seemed to notice her at all.

• • •

When Granada entered the barn, there was no light. “Polly, I … I brung you something …” she managed, her throat choking off her words. “Aunt Sylvie sent me … something to eat, Polly.”

“Back here, girl,” the woman answered, her voice barely a whisper. “Best if you don’t light no lantern. Just follow my words.”

Thankful to be spared the sight of Rubina’s body, Granada stepped into the darkness on trembling legs.

“That’s right. Just keep coming. About halfway back. I’m in here. On your right hand.”

By the time Granada had come to the stall where they had tied Polly, the girl’s eyes had begun to adjust, but still Polly was only a shadow among darker shadows.

“I’m afraid you going to have to feed me like a baby, Granada. I ain’t got no hands to work with.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Granada mumbled. She could make out Polly’s head, but there was still too much dark between them to read her face. Granada lifted a wedge of corn bread to where she supposed the mouth to be, but her hand trembled so, she dropped the bread onto the loose straw floor.

“I’m sorry,” Granada stammered, setting the plate and cup down. “I’m sorry,” she said again, now frantically pawing the ground with both hands to retrieve the corn bread from the dark. “I’m sorry, Polly. It’s here … I’m sorry,” she said once more, her voice filling with tears. “Polly, I’m … I didn’t mean … I’m …”

Something inside gave loose. The girl threw her arms around Polly and wept, pressing her face against the cold iron collar that ringed the woman’s neck.

Polly said nothing, and when Granada at last pulled away, wiping her face with the back of her hand, her head light from crying so completely, Polly asked, and not harshly, “Granada, what is it you sorry for? Tell me.”

“I … Polly, I was bad to you. All you done for me and I hurt you.”

“Say it, Granada, what you done.”

“I told the mistress on you. I told about Rubina.”

“Was it the truth?”

The girl was silent for a moment. She knew what Polly was going to say, but Granada could not bear to hear it. “Yes, Polly, but—”

“Then I can live with that, Granada,” the old woman said. “Can you?”

“Polly, no!” the girl cried out. “It’s all my fault. I’m the one to blame!”

Polly took a rasping breath. From somewhere in the stable, the master’s stallion whinnied. Pigeons fluttered in the rafters.

“Granada, remember I told you my momma was a weaver?”

The girl nodded, sniffling. “Yes, ma’am. In Africa.”

“That’s right. All her people, the women, were weavers. The finest anywhere.” Polly paused for a moment to catch her breath. She was weaker than Granada had thought.

When Polly began again, her words were too low to be heard. Granada leaned in closer.

“She told me the secret … what made them so fine, mother after daughter after granddaughter, all the way down the line.”

“What was it, Polly?”

“She say, the difference in weavers is, some see the tangle and others see the weave. The ones that can’t take their eyes off the tangle, they never rise above it.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Granada said, knowing this was important, trying to understand.

“Granada, this here … what happened to me, to you, to Rubina … ain’t nothing but a tangle. It’s the weave you got to remember, Granada. It’s bigger than you and me. It went on before you and me got here. It’ll go on after you and me leave this place and go to wherever it is Rubina is waiting. Just a tangle, Granada.”

Her whisper became so small, the girl had to put an ear to Polly’s mouth. Granada felt the parched lips brush against skin.

“Yewande, lift your eyes and see!”