Auntie August held out a hand. Mya looked at me, then Mama, then me again, then took our aunt’s hand and began to follow her inside.
It seemed impossible to ever move again. I thought I would die right there. I even hoped to. Except…Mya.
“Come on, Joanie.” Mya had turned back. Mya. My baby sister. Seven years old and yet, unafraid. Something small sparked back to life within me. I might not be able to move an inch for myself, but for Mya…I forced myself to take one step and then another. I would not let her walk in there without me. I had to, at the very least, be a fortress for Mya.
I entered, Mama’s hands still on my shoulders.
Inside, the parlor was a continuation of the front porch. There was foliage everywhere. Black wallpaper with hand-painted pink peonies covered the tall walls and mounted to a high octagonal beam in the center of the room. The windows were the kind I’d seen in old Mafia movies set in Chicago, corners lined with stained glass that was flecked with intricate emerald vines and purple violets, casting the room in a gem-studded light. After adjusting to the melody of dark and light, the contrast of the black wallpaper with the brightness of the painted peonies, the morning sunlight hitting the stained-glass windows just right, so that the ivy vines danced upon the floor in a rainbow of light—my eyes took in the furniture. The room was filled with antiques: a pearl-handled rotary phone that rested atop a small Victorian-looking maid’s table; mason jars filled with stuffed yellow birds; the same blue butterflies I’d seen outside, but pinned on parchment and framed in glass; a Victrola; a piano.
“Wow,” Mya let out.
A worn-in Persian rug stretched out before us toward a brick fireplace. That’s where Derek stood.
Derek’s gaze moved in three quick motions: at me, down to my wet pants, and then down further to the floor, where they stayed. I saw now that he had the same deerlike eyes as the rest of us. Proof that he was our kin. I hated that fact. That he belonged to us—to me. Bile crept into my belly, and I swallowed hard to hold it in.
As Derek’s eyes turned toward me, I saw that he looked different and familiar at the same time. He wore his hair in a short fade that I hated to admit was becoming on him.
“Oh, look at all the old furniture!” Mya exclaimed and was gone. She ran into the dark recesses and crannies of the parlor and the adjoining hallway, off exploring. As brave as she was, she was still seven. She lived for hiding in a good cabinet.
Left to ourselves in the octagonal room, Mama stood behind me, and August stood behind her son. No one spoke for what seemed like an eon.
Silence settled into the room like a dense fog. I could feel my own hot blood burning and coursing through my veins. Felt the cold dampness of my pant leg.
“We should probably get cleaned up first,” Mama said and guided me, gently, to the bathroom.
It was strange, that I’d peed myself without realizing it. But more than the pee turning cold on my leg, more than the swelling dizziness and sickening twists of my stomach, more than any shame sensed, I felt an entirely new emotion. As my mother helped undress me with a gentleness that only increased my fear, I understood then why the first sin on this earth had been a murder. Among kin.
CHAPTER 2
Miriam
1995
Blue mist clung to the mountains like a lace shawl. She’d figured they’d be gray—the Smokies. The blue of everything astounded her. She held up her right arm. The usual caramel of it was muted. All colors were unable to compete with the blue glory of these Tennessee mountains. She was home, or close to it. That morning, she thought she could smell Memphis—a waft of familiar perfume in a crowded restaurant. We going make it, she thought, we going make it. She locked the ’92 Chevy Astro van with her two children and one husky bitch inside it.
“Wait here.”
Four brown eyes stared back, eyes that were hungry for an answer, for home. They reminded Miriam of lost soldiers.
She walked slowly toward the Exxon filling station. Hyper-aware of her surroundings. The only Black woman for miles, she knew. A mountain ridge crested like a tsunami before her. A blue that would put any ocean to shame, she thought. Almost home, Meer. Almost home.
When she pushed open the door of the Exxon, a wind chime sang above her.
“Morning, little lady.”
“Morning.”
“What can I help you with?”
He smiled. A good sign, she thought. No malice up front. He was round, meaty but short. A second good sign. She could outrun him if need be. Keys in her back pocket. She could reach the van, her children, in a good fifteen seconds, max. Then pray the fucking van would start. Pray. Throw it into first.
He wore his long silver hair swept back in a ponytail and stroked his peppered goatee when he cheerfully announced, “You’re my first customer this morning. Sure is early. Where you headed?”
“Memphis.”
He let out a whistle. “You know you got another ten hours solid? You reckon you up to it?”
“I will be. See, the AC keeps flickering. In and out. In and out. Wondered if you knew anything about cars.”
He let out another whistle. “Little lady, if it got four wheels, I ain’t even need a steering wheel to drive the thing. If washing machines came on wheels, I’d paint mine red and name her Long Tall Sally. The only thing I’m good at, my missus says. What kind of car?”
Miriam smiled. She couldn’t help herself. He had pronounced “washing” like there was an r somewhere in the middle. Almost home, she thought.
“A Chevy Astro. A ’92. Manual.”
“Little lady, you driving stick all the way to Memphis?”
She relaxed. This white man was all right. As far as white men can be all right. “Well, I prayed for wings, but the good Lord just laughed.”
“Well, no one’s here. Let’s go take a look at this testy girl. If you want.” He put his hands up, palms forward. “Can’t promise anything. But I’ll sure as hell try for a little lady like you.”
Miriam’s neck tensed, the nerves there expanding, contracting.
He eased off the stool he was perched atop, letting out small groans with every small shift of weight. He pointed a meaty index toward the door. “Ladies first.”
The mountains had turned into a silvery moonstone color that made Miriam pause as she turned.
“It’s a sight, ain’t it? And after all these years, I can’t get used to it. Mountains. How did they even come to be? Sometimes I sit in that shop all day wondering. Don’t make no sense to me how a fella can question the existence of God waking up to mountains like that every morning. All the proof I need. Got any kids?” He aimed his thick finger toward a curtain in the van suddenly fluttering closed. Those pairs of brown eyes, observing all.
Miriam nodded. “Husband, too. We’re meeting him in Memphis. There’s a naval base there.” The lie was a SweeTart in her mouth.
“Your man is military, then?”
“An officer and a gentleman.” She almost laughed at herself. Then almost raised her hand to her left brow, still tender, covered in cheap Maybelline foundation not her shade because no drugstore ever carried her shade. She nodded at the hood of the white van. So big her kids called it “the White House.” So irksome she’d christened it “the Reagans.”