“Don’t tell me how to raise my sister’s children!” Octavia stood a hair’s breadth from Sister Walker. “That boy lay in bed near death thanks to you. You’re never getting near my family again, you hear me?” Octavia turned sharply to the boys. “Isaiah, Memphis—we are leaving.”
Like a scared jackrabbit, Isaiah scrambled down from his stool and, with a backward forlorn glance, said good-bye to Sister Walker before taking Blind Bill’s hand and leading him from the drugstore. The after-church crowd made a pretense of moving food around their plates, but they were still watching. Nothing in the preacher’s sermon carried the same fire as the scene they’d just witnessed.
Sister Walker laid a hand on Memphis’s arm as he walked past. “Please. It’s important.”
“Memphis John Campbell!” Octavia shouted from the door.
“I have to go,” he said.
“Memphis, you don’t believe I would harm Isaiah, do you?”
“To be honest, Sister… Miss Walker, I don’t know what I believe,” Memphis said and ran to catch up with his family.
While Octavia bustled about the kitchen, preparing Sunday supper, Memphis sat on the front stoop and read over his latest love letter to Theta one last time before mailing it. But his mind was on the earlier encounter with Sister Walker. What could be so important that she had to speak to him? And if it was that important, why hadn’t she brought it up before? Aunt Octavia said that Sister Walker had been in prison—for what, no one seemed to know for certain, though there’d been a rumor floating around church that it had been for sedition during the war. “Can’t trust a word that woman says,” Octavia declared, and Memphis wished he could be so sure.
“Memphis? You out here?” Bill tapped his way out the door.
“Over here, Mr. Johnson,” Memphis said, guiding the old man to a seat on the stoop.
“What you working on out here in the cold?” Bill asked.
Memphis stuffed the letter into his pocket. “Nothing.”
“Hmph. Sound like a woman to me,” Bill said and laughed.
Memphis grinned. “Might be.”
“Sound like a pretty woman.”
“Might be that, too,” Memphis said, embarrassed.
“Aww, now, I don’t mean to be in your business. Mostly, I got to wondering if that Walker woman upset you earlier.”
“No, sir,” Memphis lied.
Bill fished in his pocket and came out with two sticks of chewing gum and passed one to Memphis. “What she want with you, anyhow?”
“Just to talk,” Memphis said, brushing the lint off the gum. It was brittle and stale, so he stuffed it in his pocket.
“And did you?”
“No, sir.”
Bill nodded. “You did right, Memphis,” he said, like an older, wiser uncle. “You did right to look out for your brother thataway.”
Memphis bristled. He wasn’t sure that keeping Isaiah from using his gift was the right thing.
“Little man ever talk about what happened to him the day he got sick?” Bill asked, chewing his gum slowly.
“No. He doesn’t remember anything.”
Bill nodded. “Well, I ’spect that’s for the best. We shouldn’t bother him none about it. Prob’ly just upset him. Still”—Bill took in a sucking breath—“that sure was a miracle the way he pulled through. Yes, sir, a miracle.”
“You sound like Octavia,” Memphis said.
“Wasn’t you, then, that did the healing?” Bill said, lowering his voice.
Memphis’s tone went flat. “Told you, I can’t do that anymore.”