The Darkest Child Read online

  Sometimes some of Mama’s male friends would drive out to the house and blow their horns for her to come out. She would send Tarabelle with them, or tell one of us to make them go away.

  It was Hambone who finally got Mama out of bed.What he had to say was so important that he would not be put off. Despite our protests, he went into Mama’s room, stood over her bed, and said, “Miss Rosie, I think you better go down to that jail. Becky went to take Sam some cookies Miss Shirley baked for him. She says Sam’s been beaten, and somebody laid his head open. Dr. Mathis had sewed his head up before she got there, but she says it looks bad.”

  “Have you seen him?” Mama asked.

  “No, ma’am. If I walk in that jail, they might not let me walk back out.”

  Mama got out of bed and went straight to the front room wall for her coat. She was still wearing her gown.“Take me over there to see ’bout him,” she said to Hambone.

  “Miss Rosie, you want me to step outside while you wash up or something?”

  Mama twisted her lips and shook her head. “I just want you to take me over there.”

  Hambone took her, but he was back at our house a few hours later without her.“She’s been arrested,” he told us.“Sam’s not at the jail, and he wasn’t at the hospital, either. Nobody will tell Miss Rosie where he is. She went berserk over at the hospital. She was screaming and running in and out of all the rooms.The people at the hospital held her down until the police got there.”

  I stared at him.“And you did nothing to help her?” I asked.

  “What could I do?” he asked resignedly.

  “Nothing,” I answered sarcastically. “That’s why nobody in Pakersfield listens to you.You can’t do anything, except run around getting other people in trouble.You get people in trouble, then you run and hide. Get out, Hambone! Get out of our house!”

  Hambone left, and it was the next day before the sheriff brought our mother home. She came into the front room, sat on an armchair, and began to snatch bugs from her body.

  The sheriff stood over her and stared down at her. “He’s not dead, Rozelle.”

  I could tell from the tone of his voice that he had been trying to convince her of that on the entire ride home. Finally, he gave up talking to her and turned to me.

  “When she decides to listen, tell her that I moved the boy to a jail in Caloona County. He’ll be all right there, and it’ll give me a chance to find out what the hell happened.Tell her that I’ve always tried to be fair, and I’ll get her boy back to her as soon as I can.”

  “Will he be dead or alive?” Mama mumbled.

  The sheriff did not answer. He looked at her, ran a hand through his hair, then started for the door. I followed behind him on my way out to get the tub, because it was past time for my mother to bathe.

  “Sheriff,” I said, when we were near the bottom of the steps, “do you still believe that Sam killed Junior?”

  “I believe that somebody has been making a fool out of me, and I don’t like it,” he said. He was facing west, toward the country, staring out as though he could see Krandike Pond through the trees. He couldn’t see it from our steps, but I had seen Sam stare in much the same way, like he was trying to see exactly what had happened at the pond on the night Junior was murdered.

  “The boy is angry, tough, and stubborn, but I don’t know if that makes him a killer. I can’t come up with a motive, and yet he’s the only suspect I have,” the sheriff said, more to himself than to me. When he was halfway across the yard, he turned back and said, “Tell Rozelle that I’ve always tried to be fair.”

  I prepared a bath for my mother, but I didn’t tell her what the sheriff had said. She wouldn’t have listened anyway. She bathed, ate bologna and drank a glass of water, then returned to her bed and slept the day and the night away.

  I was glad when the holidays were over and we were back in school where I felt secure in my surroundings, where Mr.Pace chal- lenged me, gave me hope, and made me dream, but I also wanted to tell him not to expect too much or he might be disappointed.

  One day, after the last bell, he stood outside his classroom and beckoned to me as I crossed the lobby. He told me to take a seat, then he sat across from me at his desk.There he studied pamphlets and papers while I studied him. He was a tall, dark, serious man who seldom smiled, but when he did, it was a wide, open smile. His forehead had a slight protrusion that forced his dark brown eyes deep into his face.They were eyes that could silence a classroom with their piercing effect, and cause a disobedient student to break down and weep with shame.They had only shown me kindness and concern.

  He pushed the papers aside and glanced up. He seemed uneasy, which was unlike him, and I braced myself for bad news. I was sure he had been delegated to inform me that I was being suspended from Plymouth School for excessive absenteeism.

  “I’ve been looking over college material, trying to decide what to give you,” he said.“I think I’ll give it all to you and let you make the decision as to where you’d like to go.”

  I sighed audibly as relief washed over me.Then I considered his statement. It should have been clear to him that I would not be attending college. It was doubtful that I would even finish high school, so why was he enticing me with such unobtainable prospects? I watched as he stacked the papers together, then pushed them to the edge of the desk, within my reach.

  “I appreciate this, Mr. Pace, but . . .” I started.

  “You will go,” he said with conviction.“You’ll go on a scholarship because you’re earning it. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve already earned it. I’m aware of the sacrifices you make to come to school, and still you outshine every student here. I’ve seen your sisters and brothers drop out long before they’ve even reached my class, but you’re determined, whether you know it or not.Tell me, Tangy, where do you see yourself five years from now?”

  I closed my eyes, and although Mr. Pace had said five years, I saw myself at my mother’s age, working for Miss Veatrice, stumbling over clay pots packed with mud, and living in desolation on Penyon Road. I shuddered.

  “What do you see?” he asked.

  “I can’t see that far, Mr. Pace,” I lied.

  “I think you can, and you don’t like what you see. Go to college, Tangy.”

  “But what if I don’t get a scholarship?”

  He laughed as if genuinely amused. “Then I guess we would have to move mountains,” he said. “Do you think we’re strong enough?”

  I looked deep into his eyes, then nodded and reached for the papers on his desk.

  “There’s one more thing we need to discuss,” he said. “And in this, you have an option. When school begins in the fall, a select group of students from Plymouth will integrate Pakersfield High. You, of course, were the first chosen. Mr.Hewitt and I, along with the principal and staff of Pakersfield High, have been in talks with the superintendent of schools.We’d like to make this as smooth a transition as possible. Now, it’s not mandatory that you attend. I think you need to give it a great deal of thought. If you attend Pakersfield High, the color of your skin will probably prevent you from being valedictorian, regardless of how deserving you are.You will be harassed, maybe even subjected to physical abuses, but that school will challenge you, Tangy, and you need the challenge.Also, it will increase your chances for winning a full scholarship.”

  I stirred uneasily, staring down.“My mother will never allow it,” I said.

  “Nothing is certain, yet,” Mr. Pace said. “When and if it happens, we will tell your mother. In fact, I’d rather you not mention it to anyone until we’re sure.”

  I left school that day in a state of anxiety. It was hard to imagine myself inside a building that had never allowed Negroes. In more ways than one I knew I would never fit in, and yet I wanted to go. It would not matter what the white students did or said to me, I would endure. If there was one thing certain about my mother’s children, it was our resilience.

  thirty - nine

  One Wednes
day afternoon, I arrived home from work to find my mother curled on her bed and Wallace standing in the kitchen frying bologna for Edna. I was so happy to see my brother that I hugged him as tight as I could. I hugged Wallace until I embarrassed him, and he had to warn me that his bologna was going to burn before I would turn him loose.

  “Where have you been?” I asked.“I’ve been through town every day looking for you.”

  “I know,” he said with a grin.“I seen you, but I hid. I didn’t want you trying to talk me into coming back home, but you oughta been able to guess where I was.”

  The three of us sat at the table and snacked.Wallace informed me that Mama had been to see Sam again. I supposed her depression would hold her in bed for another week.

  Laura came in from school and joined us at the table. She was quiet, as usual, and did not seem surprised to see Wallace. For about a minute or two, she nibbled on bologna, then dropped it to the table and looked over at me.

  “I forgot,” she said.“Tara’s outside. She say she can’t make it up the steps.”

  Wallace and I found Tarabelle sitting partially on the bottom step and partially on the ground.We helped her into the house but she barely made it to the front room before slumping to the floor.

  “Tan,” she moaned, “I think Miss Pearl done killed me this time. It hurts so bad. I think I’m gon’ die.” She shuddered and rolled over.That was when I saw the blood on her dress.

  “Mama!” I shouted. “Mama, you need to come out here. Something is wrong with Tarabelle. Mama!”

  It seemed to me that my mother was crawling, like she would never make it to the front room, and I was tempted to step in behind her and shove her along.

  “What’s wrong wit’ her?” Mama asked, staring down at Tara and her blood-soaked dress.“Wallace, you get on up there and wait for Pearl.The minute she gets home from work, you tell her to come straight on out here.”

  I wet a cloth and began to wash the blood from Tarabelle’s legs, but I couldn’t get it off. It seemed to be seeping from her skin.

  “Is she gonna die, Mama?” I asked.

  “Shut up!” Mama ordered, and continued to stand there doing nothing.

  “What are we gonna do?”

  “I told you to shut up,” she said, and this time she knelt and touched Tarabelle’s face. Her hand recoiled and she hastily rose to her feet. “Let’s get her in the car. I can’t wait for Pearl.” She called out to Laura, “You run and catch Wallace.Tell him I said to get back here.”

  I watched my mother go from inanimate to frantic in a matter of seconds. She grabbed a blanket, pushed me aside, and wrapped the blanket around Tarabelle’s legs. She began to drag my sister toward the door. I grabbed Tarabelle under her arms and helped Mama carry her.

  “I can’t let her die here like this,” Mama said, more to herself than to me.“That damn Pearl.”

  We struggled down the steps with Tarabelle between us and had reached the ground by the time Wallace and Laura returned. Wallace opened the car door and helped us get Tarabelle inside. Her head fell against the window and she did not open her eyes as Mama sped away from the house, leaving us to wait and wonder. Though probably unaware, Tarabelle was getting her first ride in Mama’s car.

  “What you think is wrong wit’ her?”Wallace asked.“You think I should go on and tell Miss Pearl?”

  “No,” I said, staring at the spot where the car had been. “Miss Pearl will know sooner or later. It’s probably her fault.” I turned toward the house. “Why did you come back here, Wallace? You were free.”

  He did not answer me until we were inside, warming ourselves by the stove.Then he said, “Mama came to get me. She found out where I was and she came over there. It was awful, Tan. Mama sat honking her horn in front of Grandma’s house.Mr. Grodin saw her from the window but Grandma told me not to go out ’cause she knew Mama wasn’t gonna come in. Mama got out the car, though, and started calling for me. She stood out there calling for ’bout an hour. Grandma said, ‘Wallace, get me my crystal bowl out the cabinet.’ She took the bowl and filled it wit’ water from the kitchen sink, then she went outside and I went wit’ her. Mama stopped yelling. She sorta backed up against her car like she wanted to run. Grandma kept on walking toward her.

  “Mama started screaming, ‘Get away from me! You get away from me.’ But Grandma didn’t stop. She dipped her fingers in the water and sprinkled it on Mama.‘This here holy water, Rozelle, ’ Grandma said, and Mama fell to the ground, screaming, while Grandma sprinkled that water on her head.Tan, you shoulda seen how Mama was trying to get away, and it wasn’t nothing but water.”

  Wallace shook his head slowly as he stared down at the stove, then he continued.“Grandma said, ‘This here water can curse you or bless you, Rozelle.You a harlot. God knows. He can burn a hole in yo’ heart wit’ this here water. Now, you’d better get on away from here ’fo’ I dump the whole thang on you.’ Mama started crawling ’round the car trying to get away from Grandma. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to help Mama, but Grandma said, ‘Don’t touch her, Wallace. She’ll ruin you. The demons trying to get out.’ I was scared to touch Mama ’cause the demons might get on me. But it was just plain ol’ water that Grandma had.

  “I helped Mama up, and we got in the car, then she put her head on the steering wheel and started to cry. Grandma went back in the house, and I was worried that she was mad at me.When Mama stopped crying, she drove down to the filling station and bought us some dranks out the machine, then she brought me home and ain’t said nothing else about it.”

  I sighed.“Wallace, do you think the midwife is crazy?” I asked.

  “Nah, she ain’t crazy. She just mean to people she don’t like, and I don’t think she likes Mama.”

  “But Mama is her daughter.”

  “So what?”

  I didn’t know, so I stopped thinking about it and began to pray for Tarabelle.

  “She ain’t gon’ die.”

  That was the news our mother brought home. We did not believe her.We did not believe her because she had returned with a teary-eyed Miss Pearl and enough white lightning to intoxicate a third of Triacy County.

  “Tangy Mae, in the morning I want you to go see Miss Arlisa. Tell her you gon’ be taking Tarabelle’s place for a bit,” Mama said. “Just for a bit.”

  “But what about Wednesday?” I asked.“The Whitmans?”

  “I got a week to think on that one. I ain’t gon’ trouble wit’ it tonight. I got enough to worry about.”

  She sent us to the kitchen with our pallets. I lay with my legs stretched beneath the table as sleep eluded me. From the front room came the sounds of springs creaking in the chairs, the pouring of liquid, low voices, and finally a midnight accusation.

  “You almost killed her, Pearl. I thought you knew what you was doing.You ought not get drunk and mess wit’ people.”

  “Rosie, don’t you try to put this on me,” Miss Pearl shot back. “I wadn’t drunk. I told you that girl needed time to heal up ’fo’ you took her back out there, but you wouldn’t listen to me. It’s yo’ fault if it’s anybody’s.”

  Either I dozed off, or they were silent for a long while because the next thing I heard was Miss Pearl asking, “What’d you tell Dr. Mathis?”

  “I didn’t tell him nothing. Didn’t talk to ’im.”

  “Well, how you know she ain’t gon’ die?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Oh, Lord!” Miss Pearl cried. “Don’t let that child die. Lord, I’ll give my right arm if you see fit to let that child live. She just a child who ain’t never ask for none of this. Just a po’ innocent little child, Lord.”

  “Pearl, you stop that right now!” Mama warned.

  Miss Pearl tried. I could tell she was trying, but guilt seemed to overwhelm her.“I shouldna done it the first time,” she cried.“I tol’ you that first time, Rosie. Oh, Lord, have mercy!”

  “I done told you to stop it, Pearl,” Mama said. “Ain’t nobody held no gun to yo
’ head and made you do nothing.”

  “I was just trying to help her, Rosie.You the one brought her to me.”

  Wallace, whom I thought was asleep, whispered to me, “You was right, Tan.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “You think Miss Pearl gon’ sit in there and cry all night?”

  “She might. Did they wake you up?”

  “Something did.”

  “Me, too,” Laura whispered.“Why Miss Pearl crying like that? Did Tarabelle die?”

  “Go back to sleep, ”Wallace and I said together.

  “I can’t,” Laura said, forgetting to whisper.

  “Shut up in there!” Mama yelled.

  We obeyed, and I lay awake until the gray light of day seeped into the room. That night Laura wet her pallet for the first time since last September.

  forty

  My fifteenth birthday came and went unnoticed by anyone other than myself. For the first time that I could remember there were no white socks in red crepe paper and no sign of Miss Pearl. I did not see her until two days later when she and Mr. Frank brought Tarabelle home from the hospital.

  “You gon’ be awright?” Miss Pearl asked for the fourth time, as she made Tarabelle comfortable in an armchair.“You shoulda come home wit’ me and Frank.You ain’t got no business sleeping on no flo’. I done told you that.”

  “I’ll be awright, Miss Pearl, ”Tarabelle assured her.

  Miss Pearl was not convinced. She stood over the chair, patting Tarabelle’s hand, rubbing her back, and kissing her hair. “I’m gon’ come down here tomorrow after work and wash yo’ hair right good for you,” she said.

  Mr. Frank tugged at his wife’s arm.“C’mon, Pearl. She can’t get no rest with you carrying on like that.”

  Reluctantly, Miss Pearl followed him out, and we moved in to surround Tarabelle. She rested her head against the back of the chair and closed her eyes, and I took a blanket from the cedar chest to cover her, then I dropped to the floor at her feet where Wallace, Laura, and Edna were already seated.We stayed that way, saying nothing, until our mother’s footsteps sounded on the front porch, then Tarabelle opened her eyes and stared up at the ceiling.