The Darkest Child Read online

  Harvey stood and gave his chair to Mama, and Tarabelle eased from the arm and went to stand against the wall near the kitchen, which is probably why Mama sent her to boil water for coffee. I gave my chair to Miss Pearl.

  “I don’t want no coffee,” Miss Pearl said. “Bring me a drink of water. Coffee keep me up half the night.”

  “You know, Pearl, I was thinking we oughta go up to Stillwaters. You done rode wit’ me, now,” Mama said.“You know I’m a good driver.”

  “You kept it on the road, Rosie,” Miss Pearl teased.“That don’t make you no good driver. I gotta go to work tomorrow, though. I can’t be running up to that café.”

  Tarabelle came from the kitchen and gave Miss Pearl the water she had requested, then she reclaimed her spot against the wall. Mama stared at Tarabelle, as if she knew Tarabelle was up to something.

  “Pearl, you lucky you ain’t got no children,” Mama said. “You can’t get away from ’em. Look how they all standing ’round here staring in our mouths.”

  Miss Pearl laughed. “What you want ’em to do?” she asked “They ain’t got nowhere to go but to bed, and it’s too early for that.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Pearl.We oughta go up to Stillwaters and see what’s happening.”

  “Rosie, I done worked all day. My feet hurt, and I’m going home.”

  In the silence that followed, Tarabelle made her move.“Mama,” she said, “Miss Arlisa in the hospital. She done went and had herself a big, fat baby boy.When you gon’ have yours? Seems like I remember you saying you was expecting, back when Miss Arlisa said it.”

  There was no mistaking the malice in Tarabelle’s statement. She had said she was going to fix Mama, and she had, but she wasn’t done.

  “Mr.Munford—he just as happy as can be—done went out and bought everything in Pakersfield. He say his boy gon’ be handsome and strong. And, Mama, he treating Miss Arlisa just like a queen. He done bought her flowers, and candy, and the prettiest pink robe you ever wanna see. He want me to stay overnight when she come home—just for a week or two. Say he don’t want her to have to do nothing.”

  Mama’s lower lip protruded. She reached a hand up and pulled a bug from her face. She brought her feet together and shifted her weight on the chair, then she looked at me. “Get me some bath-water,” she said.

  “Now, Rosie, I know you ain’t fixin’ to take no bath ’fo’ you take me home,” Miss Pearl said. She claimed to have known our mother longer and better than anyone but any of us could have told her that Mama wasn’t going anywhere.Tarabelle had fixed her.

  Wallace went for the tub while I went for water.We returned to witness our mother snatching bugs so hard and fast that she was abrading the skin on her face and arms.

  “Rosie!” Miss Pearl shrieked.“What’s the matter wit’ you?”

  Tarabelle leaned against the wall and watched, and I could not tell if she was satisfied or sorry for the distress she had caused.Mama rushed toward her room, snatching and slinging bugs as she went.

  “What’s going on?” Miss Pearl wanted to know.

  “Bugs, Miss Pearl,” I answered.“Sometimes Mama acts like bugs are crawling on her.”

  “They ain’t bugs, ”Tarabelle said dryly, and I could have sworn her nose tilted about a tenth of an inch. “They ain’t bugs. They men.Them is men crawling all over Mama.And she can’t pull ’em off, and she can’t wash ’em off.There’s too many of ’em, and they been crawling on her for too many years. She ain’t never gon’ get ’em off.”

  “Tarabelle, why don’t you shut up?” Harvey snapped.

  “I ain’t gon’ shut up and you can’t make me. If you don’t wanna hear me talk, you oughta go home to yo’ wife.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m gon’ do,” Harvey said, pulling himself up from the floor.

  “That’s what you better do,” Tarabelle sang out. “You go on where you can beat somebody, they don’t shut up when you tell ’em to.‘Cause I ain’t Carol Sue, and I ain’t gon’ shut up.Her daddy gon’ kill you, you keep beating her like that, Harvey.”

  Harvey strode across the room, stood over Tarabelle with balled fists, and glared at her with burning rage.

  “Hit me!” she demanded. “Hit me, Harvey! ’Cause I wanna know what it feels like to kill somebody.”When he did not strike her, she said, “You ain’t shit.”

  “Tarabelle, you shut up out there!” Mama called from her room. “And bring me some bathwater.”

  Tarabelle stepped away from Harvey, and his angry gaze followed her movements.“You already got bathwater, Mama,” she said.

  “It’s cold . . . and dirty. Bring me some more.”

  “Rosie, you awright in there?” Miss Pearl asked. “I can’t keep sitting out here wit’ yo’ chilluns acting crazy. How ’bout you let Harvey drive me on home.”

  “Harvey ain’t driving my car,” Mama answered.

  “Damnedest place,” Miss Pearl mumbled. “Damnedest people. I knew I shoulda took my ass home, and after I done got y’all a turkey.” She gripped her pocketbook, and struggled to her feet.“Wallace, you come on and walk wit’ me. In case I can’t make it, you can run and get Frank.”

  Wallace obeyed without hesitation, placing a hand at Miss Pearl’s elbow, and helping her along as though she was an invalid. Harvey slumped down on the chair Miss Pearl had vacated and stared at the coal stove. His body trembled, and he used one hand to steady the other. Finally, he brought both hands together, placed them over his face, and choked out his frustrations. It started like a sneeze, then grew to ragged broken rales, like pneumonia.

  “Don’t cry, Harvey,” Laura soothed, coming to stand beside him, causing him to cry even harder.

  Tarabelle watched, then backed toward the kitchen. At the door, she stopped.“You can’t go back, can you, Harvey?” she asked.“Mattie said they had done put you out for beating on that girl. How you gon’ be hitting on her in her daddy’s house? That was stupid.”

  I felt neither sympathy nor contempt for my brother. He was just there, in the way, and out of control. I left him sobbing, and went to my mother’s room to empty her tub. She was sitting naked on the floor at the foot of her bed, a towel draped across her lap, pulling bugs from her arms and tossing them into the air.

  In a voice I had to strain to hear, she said, “Tangy Mae, you tell yo’ sister, a man got a right to keep his woman in line.”

  thirty - seven

  Velman stood beside a car that so closely resembled Mama’s it could have been hers. It was parked in the church lot on the Sunday evening following the Christmas Program. Velman and Martha Jean did not usually attend the Solid Rock Baptist Church, but they had come for the purpose of watching me sing and the girls recite their Christmas speeches.

  “Y’all want a ride home?”Velman asked.

  I circled the car, searching for evidence that it did not belong to my mother.

  Velman winked at me.“You gon’ ride or what?”

  I nodded.

  “This one ain’t mine,” he said.“I picked it out, though.This one is Skeeter’s. He’s not much on driving and I think he bought it for me, but he won’t give it to me. Might as well, though. I’m the only one who drives it, except Martha Jean goin’ up and down the street.” He laughed. “I think Skeeter is scared that if he gives it to me, I’m gon’ trade it off for something. He’s crazy about Martha Jean, but he says I went about getting her all wrong. I don’t even try to explain it to him no more, you know. I did what I had to do, and I’d do it all over again if I had to.”

  I climbed into the back of the car between Laura and Edna who both wanted a window seat. Martha Jean turned and passed an envelope back to me. I tore it open and began to read a letter from Mushy, saying she was getting married and would be home for New Year’s Day. I read the letter four times as the car moved along toward home, then I tucked it under the back seat.

  When Velman stopped below our house, I begged him to come inside.“I never get to see Martha Jea
n anymore,” I said.“We can sit in the kitchen and talk.”

  Reluctantly, he agreed.We went inside to find Mama and Harvey sitting quietly in the front room. Mama warmly greeted Martha Jean and Velman, and told me to get a chair from the kitchen.

  “Wouldn’t want these springs to rip that suit,” she said to Velman.“How’s Skeeter doing these days?”

  “He’s doing all right,” Velman answered. “He bought a car. Looks a lot like yours, Miss Rosie.”

  “Is that right? I always liked ol’ Skeeter.”

  Velman sat down, and Martha Jean removed her coat, hung it on a nail, and went to stand behind him. She looked lovely in a gray-and-white wool dress with white beads hanging from her neck. She seemed uncomfortable, though.

  “How you doing, Harvey?”Velman asked, after a lengthy silence.

  “I’m doing awright,” Harvey lied, and Velman nodded.

  I sent Laura and Edna out to the kitchen to change out of their Sunday dresses, then I crossed the room and sat on the arm of Harvey’s chair.“Mama, Mushy’s coming home for the new year,” I said, and signed the same to Martha Jean. “She’s going to marry that boy, Curtis, that she was talking about the last time she was home. He’s coming with her.”

  My mother ignored me and said to Velman, “How you come to be kin to Skeeter? On yo’ mama’s or daddy’s side?”

  “My mother is his sister, ”Velman answered.

  Mama nodded.“You don’t look nothing like Skeeter. I ain’t saying that’s good or bad, I’m just saying you don’t look nothing like him.”

  Considering the diversity of her offspring, I thought that statement was ironic.Velman must have thought so, too. He smiled and covered it by glancing over his shoulder at Martha Jean.

  “I guess yo’ mama came from around here then,” Mama said.“I don’t think I know her. I never knew Skeeter had no sister. People move in and out all the time. That’s what’s wrong wit’ the world. People can’t stay still long enough in one place.Me and Pearl been friends for years.We know each other real good, but you don’t find that no mo’. Now you take Sam, for instance. He was friends wit’ Hambone when they was little boys, then Hambone up and left, then he come back, and look what it got Sam.”

  “People don’t stay still too long. You right about that, Miss Rosie, ”Velman agreed.

  “Sho’ I am,” Mama said. “It gets to the place you can’t trust nobody. One minute you think you know ’em, and the next, you just have to wonder. Let me show you something.”

  She went to her room, and returned with an old brown belt with a heavy brass buckle—her favorite—which she held up for Velman to inspect.“Look here,” she said.“I got this off a man friend of mine some twelve years ago. It’s something when a piece of leather outlast a friendship, but that’s just what this did.” She held the belt higher. “I can trust this when I can’t trust nothing else.”

  Something in her tone jarred me and awakened my hibernating foresight. Slowly, I rose from the arm of the chair. I saw Harvey open and close his mouth, and Velman leap to his feet, and Mama dance across the floor at a side angle, between the chairs and the stove.

  The belt snapped, then struck and seemed to wrap around my head like a tourniquet. A bright orange, the color of pain, seared my eyeballs. Pain occluded my nostrils and I sucked air in through my mouth, noisy and panicky. The agony was almost unbearable. My hands went up to search my skull for an opening, for a way to let the torment out.“Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!” I cried, and each time I called His name, my mother struck my head again until I hushed and bowed to the power at hand.

  I could not see her, but I heard her voice close to me, asking, “How you know what Mushy gon’ do? There ain’t no letter came from Mushy, or I woulda been the first to know about it. You answer me, Tangy Mae!”

  “I gave it to her, ”Velman said.“It had her name on it, and I gave it to her.”

  “And just who gave you permission to meddle in my business?” Mama asked.

  “How many names yo’ business got, Miss Rosie?”Velman asked. His voice was loud and angry, and very close to my ears.

  I wished they would be quiet long enough for me to still the torment in my head and get my eyesight back. I heard the belt snap again, and I braced myself for another blow.

  “Damn!”Velman cried, as the leather connected with his flesh. “Harvey, man, you better see if you can’t unglue yo’self from that chair and do something with yo’ mama.”

  “That’s enough, Mama,” came Harvey’s, dull, apathetic voice.

  A hand touched me, and I jerked away from it. “You all right, little sister?”Velman asked.

  I could not speak or even shake my head in response. He lowered me to the floor, then I felt hands that I knew belonged to Martha Jean place a blanket beneath my head.

  “When she having that baby, boy?” my mother asked.

  No one answered her.

  “I’m talking to you, boy. I said when she having that baby?”

  “Who?”Velman shouted.

  Mama laughed. “Shit.You just as dumb as she is.You ain’t even got sense enough to know you done made a baby. Baby’ll probably be dumb, too, but that ain’t my worry.”

  No one spoke after that. There were only the sounds of shoes clicking and thumping against the floorboards, and the opening and closing of the front door.

  I must have lain on the floor for hours, dozing in and out of sleep.The pain in my head had eased to a dull throb. I could hear the voices of Laura and Edna in the kitchen, but I did not hear my mother’s voice. I tried to sit up and felt a wave of nausea rolling toward my throat. I eased my head back down to the blanket and covered my eyes with my hands. I was afraid to open my eyes, but I had to know if I was blind.

  My eyes opened, and I sat up. Sharp pain ricocheted through my head. My stomach flipped and spewed its contents out onto the rolled blanket. On hands and knees, I tried to stand, but found that I could not. Managing to push the soiled blanket out of the way, I gave in to my dizziness and fell back to the floor.

  ????“Tan! Tan!”

  I opened my eyes to see Wallace squatting beside me, and I remembered he hadn’t been there earlier. It was dark outside and the kerosene lamp illuminated the room. I was wringing wet with sweat and still wearing my Sunday dress.

  “Tan, they done made a mess in there, ”Wallace said.

  “Who?” I groaned. My mouth was dry and I wanted a drink of water.“Who made a mess?”

  “Laura and Edna.What’s wrong wit’ you, Tan?”

  “I’m sick, Wallace. Bring me some water.”

  ????“Tan! Tan!”

  I opened my eyes again to see Wallace squatting beside me again. I was wringing wet with sweat and shivering from the cold. I was still wearing my Sunday dress, but someone had rolled me onto a blanket and covered me.

  “You feeling any better, Tan?”Wallace asked.

  “I don’t know, Wallace.What time is it?”

  “It’s time for me to go to work, and Mama wants her coffee. Can you get up?”

  “It’s morning?”

  Wallace didn’t answer. He helped me to sit up, and I did so without pain or nausea. Laura and Edna stood beside the stove watching me, and I tried to smile at them. I unwrapped the blanket from my legs and rose to my feet.

  “I gotta go, Tan, ”Wallace said. “I put water on the stove for Mama’s coffee.You gon’ be awright?”

  I nodded, and it didn’t hurt, but when I took my first step, dizziness stopped me and sat me down again. I leaned forward, holding my head in my hands.The pain returned and jumped about, playing checkers behind my eyeballs.

  My mother called for her coffee, and I could not get it for her.

  Wallace said, “I’ll get the doggone coffee, but when I leave outta here today, I ain’t coming back. I’m tired of this.”

  I told Laura to get me a cold cloth for my head, and I allowed the cool dampness to soak my eyelids, then I tried once more to stand, and the world went dark.


  Once, when I was very young, I had a high fever and a chest that was tight with congestion. My mother had lifted me from the floor and carried me to her bed. For the duration of my infirmity, her delicate hands had dampened my fevered brow with a cool cloth, stroked my lips with ice chips, and wet my palate with the delicious juice of a peppermint-flavored orange. She had curled on her bed beside me, attentive to my every stir and groan. She had warmed me in the mingled scents of camphor and talcum powder, then holding my small hand in hers, she had said, “You gon’ be awright, baby. Mama’s here.”

  That was the mother that faded in and out of my memory as I reeled in and out of consciousness.The more I tried to hold onto her, the more my head throbbed. Finally, I had to let her go.

  thirty - eight

  By the time the new year rolled around, Harvey was out of Mama’s house and back with the Dobsons, Tarabelle had completed her overnight stint at the Munfords, and Wallace was out in the world somewhere.We had heard nothing more from Mushy, and Sam was still in jail. The weather was colder, the kerosene lamps burned longer, newspapers covered our windows, and soot covered everything else.

  Depressed by Sam’s many months behind bars, Mama had taken to her bed once more, where she alternated between sleeping and weeping.Things had gotten to the point where she would not eat or bathe. She would get up only to use the slop bucket, then return to her bed. Miss Pearl came over one night and tried her best to stimulate Mama into activity, even offered to accompany her to Stillwaters, but it did no good.

  “They coulda done sent Sam away by now,” she said to Mama. “There’s a hundred things they coulda done, but they ain’t. Rosie, you gotta stop worrying yo’self like this. They gon’ let him out sooner or later.”

  Mama said two words to her.“Get out!”They were the first two words we had heard in just as many days.

  She told us very little about Sam’s legal problems, and I wasn’t sure she understood all of it herself. I think in the beginning she had assumed she could use her charm to get him out, but that assumption had proved false. Nothing she did seemed to make a difference.