“Now?” Juna says. “Can you see me now?”
A few more sobs turn into a bout of coughing. Juna keeps whispering and stroking Daddy’s head. She’s telling him to quiet himself. She will make things better now. She has bound him to a promise in exchange for his sight.
Every day, before the last drink takes him, Daddy tells us don’t forget my light. Don’t you forget. He’s feared it all his life, waking up in the dark and never seeing light again. The whiskey, it’ll do that to a man. He’s feared it all his life.
Daddy’s coughing and crying and carrying on slow and fade until he’s altogether quiet. The lantern throws as big a light as it’ll throw. Juna keeps stroking Daddy’s head, and in no more than a few minutes’ time, his breathing turns deep and slow. He’s gone on back to sleep. I take my hand off the door and step back in the bedroom, lift up on my toes again, and without once taking my eyes off the closed door, I crawl into bed.
Daddy says it’s because we’re nothing more than animals that we find ourselves shying away from a thing and not wanting to turn our backs on it without knowing why. He’s always saying this is the thing that’ll save God-fearing folks. Instinct, he’s all the time saying. Nothing more than animals. And I think Daddy is right because something in my animal nature is warning me not to turn my back.
20
1952—ANNIE
WRAPPING HER TWO hands around the deck of cards so Mama won’t see it, Annie walks back to the car, leaving Ellis Baine alone to fill the hole. Mama slips into the front seat and is staring straight ahead at the folks in the café when Annie opens the back door and climbs in. Mama waits until Annie has pulled her door closed and Caroline has rolled up her window before saying anything.
“What was that?” Mama says.
“Being kind,” Annie says.
Mama swings around in such a fashion that Annie pulls back like she might get slapped even though Mama has never, not once in her life, slapped either of her girls.
“Do not talk smart to me.”
“Wasn’t doing nothing, Mama,” Annie says. She rests both hands in her lap much the way Caroline is all the time doing, except Annie isn’t thinking of fine manners. She’s hiding the cards in her lap.
Grandma said there would be days Annie’s insides would near to spill over. She said yearning and wondering and yearning again would fill her up so full she might want to scream out. But don’t scream, Grandma had said. Take it all in until it reaches the very top of you, and you’ll make room for more.
“I thought I’d help him,” Annie says, not able to still the quiver in her voice. “Asked could I help cover his brother over. He said it was kind. Said I was kind like my mama, kind like you.”
Mama stares at Annie, stares her straight in the eyes. Annie’s black eyes don’t ever give Mama pause. After a long moment, she reaches out as if to touch Annie on the cheek, but she can’t reach, so she drops her hand and pats Annie’s knee instead. Then she turns to Caroline and says, “Let’s get on home.”
As they pass Ellis Baine, he props his shovel at his side. Mama gives him the same polite bow of her head she might give the preacher. They drive home the rest of the way in silence, and whatever is keeping Mama closemouthed, it’s keeping her thoughts otherwise occupied and she doesn’t think to wonder why Caroline, who usually chats nonstop no matter how long the trip, has not said a single word.
It started the day Mrs. Baine was found dead. Something settled on Mama’s shoulders, and it’s been weighing her down ever since. The arrival of Ellis Baine made that load all the heavier. Normally Daddy would be the one to hug Mama, kiss her, stroke her face. He’d insist she let him fix whatever troubled her. Mama would do the same for Daddy. She’d do the same by letting Daddy do the fixing. It makes him happy to be the fixer of things. But Daddy isn’t inclined to fix whatever this is, and without Daddy to help, it is getting the better of Mama. When she pulls into the drive and the sheriff’s car is parked outside their front door, the weight on Mama grows so heavy she can’t, won’t, get out of the car.
“Annie,” Mama says, staring at the back door leading into the kitchen.
She’s going to ask Annie to go inside. Mama’s afraid of what’s in there, and she’s going to send Annie instead. Not Caroline. She knows Caroline would never, could never, do it. But Mama is mistaken. Annie can’t go either. She’s no stronger than Caroline. Mama is mistaken.
The back door opens before Annie can tell Mama no. Grandma walks onto the porch and begins pacing back and forth. Her hair has pulled loose, and strands of it hang down alongside her face. Her apron, normally tied carefully at her waist, is draped over her shoulder, and when it slips off, Grandma takes no notice.