“This here North’s wife,” Casey said.
Eugene paused. He took in the full form of Hazel then, her nine-month belly, her hair done up in a neat bun. “Well, I’ll be. What’s a girl like you doing with North? Dorothy Dandridge herself come to see us,” Eugene said.
“I came to bring my husband some lunch,” Hazel said. She held up the brown sack as evidence.
“I bet you cook as fine as you look, girl,” Eugene said.
Hazel tried to hide the repulsion on her face by biting her lip. “Why don’t you fetch him from the back, will you?” she asked as politely as she could manage.
Eugene did not move. He rested his stained forearm on the counter. “How on earth North get a pretty little girl like you?”
Hazel pursed her lips. Considered replying, but thought better of it.
“And got a pretty little girl inside you, likely,” Eugene continued.
“Oh hell, Eugene. Go fetch him. Let this lady be.”
“I’m just being friendly, is all,” Eugene said, turning toward the redheaded Casey. “Ain’t we supposed to be friendly to them now? Ain’t that what the new captain say?” He swiveled back to Hazel. Then, hand outstretched, started walking toward her.
Hazel realized, the horror almost overtaking her, that this white man wanted to touch her belly. Was walking toward her to do just that.
At that moment, Myron appeared in his black-and-white Memphis Police uniform, and Eugene pulled his hand away, inches from Hazel. He backed up, though not without letting an ugly smirk twist his face.
Hazel let out a deep breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. The sight of Myron in any uniform—his Pullman porter’s, his Marine Corps dress blues on their wedding day, and now his police officer’s uniform—had always made Hazel feel safe, calm, and proud.
Myron was a tall willow compared to Eugene. His thick-rimmed glasses reflected the indigo of his skin. Alarm was etched on his face. He walked quickly to Hazel and pulled her to him and asked quietly but firmly what in the entire hell she was doing there. She held up the paper bag.
“Lunch,” she said.
Myron lowered his head and kissed Hazel softly on the cheek.
“Y’all know this is the jailhouse and not the courthouse, right?” Eugene said to them.
Hazel heard Barnes flap his newspaper, burying his head in it. Still, Hazel could feel his eyes sear through the paper.
Eugene watched them with his arms folded across his chest.
Hazel thought of her mother. What would Della have done here in this police station? Two white men harassing her daughter. She figured her mother would’ve set fire to the damn place. With the white men inside it. It was all Hazel could do not to spit on the floor as Myron steered her out of the station, his grip on her tight.
“You can’t come here anymore,” Myron said sharply once they were outside. It was sweltering on Beale. There was no breeze off the Mississippi, and the sound of cicadas, even at midday, was overwhelming. Myron led Hazel to a storefront with a wide awning, so she could rest in the shade. “Here,” he motioned. Then added, “Never again.”
“I understand,” she said.
“This…this isn’t the kind of place I want my wife in,” he said, his voice softening. He took the brown sack from Hazel’s hands with a tenderness meant as an apology. “What do we have in here?” he asked.
“Catfish po’boy. Some slaw.”
“You’re too good to me,” he said.
“I know.”
“I got a warrior for a wife.” He shook his head and smiled.
“You do,” she said, beaming.
“Never again, though,” he repeated. He placed his hand on her abdomen, swollen with life, and gave a weak smile. “But we don’t have to talk about this now, Hazel. Thank you for the lunch. How’s my firstborn son?”
“She,” Hazel said, “is just fine today, husband.” Myron’s hand stroked her belly as she spoke.
“It’s a boy,” he said. “I’m not sure how I could bring forth women into this world.” He planted a tender kiss atop Hazel’s forehead. One of the myriad tender gestures Myron made, and Hazel’s favorite. “I got you,” he said. “But never again, you hear me?”
“Myron, you’re worrying me. What are you talking about? I’ve been telling anyone who’ll listen my husband is Memphis’s first Negro detective. I—we are so proud of you, love.”
Myron tilted his head back and closed his eyes. “They won’t let me arrest white folk.”
Hazel stepped out of their embrace. “What?”
“They won’t let me. I’m hot on a case. I can’t talk about it too much, baby, while I’m here.” Myron checked over his shoulder and continued. “But I know who it is. I know. Some white college kid enrolled at Memphis. Staked him out and caught him in the act. They won’t let me arrest him. Told me to check my evidence again. They figure any john raping women in a colored neighborhood better be Black, too. Found some poor fella to pin the thing on. That’s the way of it.”
The heat was getting to Hazel. She felt faint. And hungry again. With all her effort, she pushed herself up on her toes to kiss her husband. The love of her life. They had survived a great flood and a great war. They would survive this, too. She leaned in close and adjusted his tie. “Come home to me,” she said.
* * *
—
Evenings in Memphis were setting time. The heat finally breaking. Folk in Douglass were able to venture outside on their wide front porches, sit, and enjoy themselves. Men coming home from work at the Cotton Exchange or Memphis Sanitation or a cotton field called out to their neighbors, their brown arms waving in tired salute, children already glued to their ankles. Women the shape of peaches and pears and apples and in every hue of brown would be at the door, hands on hips, shaking heads at the scene. This was the time suitors were allowed to call. Young folk would be draped around each other, their legs intertwining in a tapestry, asking each other, Do you love me? Somebody usually brought out a guitar. Somebody usually sang the blues. There was talk of everybody pitching in for a jukebox, but the older folk would laugh that idea away, wheel out a Victrola, align needle to groove, and play Ma Rainey. Stray cats would appear at back doors, moaning for scraps, hardly heard over the gossip and the music. Cigar and barbecue smoke combined into a frankincense that had always hypnotized Hazel. But pregnancy had made the aroma nauseating. She couldn’t stand it. So she sat at the window in her parlor instead, fitted with a cushion seat so she could quilt, look out the window, and wait for Myron.
She placed the tiny tomato cushion that held her pins and needles atop her belly, but the baby inside her was restless and kept kicking it off.
“We gon argue over the smallest of stuff. If you don’t let me put this here,” Hazel spoke to her womb, laughter in her voice.
She had reached the final stages of her quilt. When she found out she was pregnant, she had begun to work on the project immediately. She threw herself into it. Collected scraps around the house, went door to door to the women who used to be her mother’s clients and asked if they had anything green. Even though she used the tiny gold thimble Myron had brought back from a shop in Germany, the tips of her fingers were still calloused from the thousands of tiny pricks she had taken. But she had waited her entire life to make this quilt. Her favorite kind: a Tree of Life.