I used to think the same thing about her paintings. Their attraction lay in something just off-center. She often went through phases—some years everything was all bright and bold, other years the colors more muted or sheer. She would use three-inch-wide brushes to create swaths of color in the middle of a solid canvas. The works rarely left you cold. Even the smallest ones drew the eye.
Daddy said the only reason she hadn’t become famous in the 1960s was that it was a time when Black artists were claiming representational art as a form of political expression. How could anybody read protest into brushstrokes and color? A lot of people could not understand the freedom in that, he would say.
Mama had exhibited a few times in the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts. The museum director hosted her as a means of reaching out to Black folks in Montgomery, a halfhearted effort since the white patrons of the museum never came to her exhibits. But Mama’s friends came. They streamed in, wearing bright outfits they considered appropriate for art, carrying cakes for the reception. Though only a few of them actually bought a painting over the years, they filled the room with love and support. Mama gave away more paintings than she sold. There was even one hanging in City Hall, though we suspected most white folks did not know it was painted by one of the city’s colored residents. After the exhibit ended, Daddy and I would carefully wrap the paintings and load them in the back of someone’s pickup truck to take to our house.
“Ros, what are you doing here?” Mama raised her head.
“It’s me, Mama. Civil.” She had mistaken me for Rosalind, her sister who lived in Memphis. Aunt Ros was a psychologist and had always complained Mama wasted her talent by staying in Montgomery. She believed Mama belonged in New York and never understood why Mama had not chosen to pursue her passion. If you aren’t going to paint, then at least get a job, Aunt Ros would say. Daddy supported Mama’s art, but he considered it a hobby. He enjoyed having an artist for a wife. It elevated the family to a sophistication that even his medical degree could not confer.
“Mama, you okay?”
We never named it. We did not urge her to go see someone. I think it was because there was stigma in that admission, so we just propped her up and helped her through. Surely we could handle her ourselves. I believe Daddy built that studio as an antidote. He bought her paints and planned her shows and cooked for us on days she could not get out of bed. And it seemed to work. Most of the time.
She blinked her eyes rapidly. “I just called you Ros, didn’t I?”
“Yeah.”
“Sorry about that, baby. I think I was dreaming.”
“What were you dreaming about?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Let me help you wash your brushes,” I suggested.
I led her over to the worktable. Together we squeezed solvent onto our rags, then fingered the bristles, gently working out the paint. I kept an eye on her, as I had for most of my life. My and Daddy’s job was to keep Mama from sinking too deep. And we knew the answer—painting. It was her medicine.
“What day is today?”
“Monday,” I said.
“No, I mean the date.”
“August 6.”
“Good morning.”
I had not heard Daddy open the door. Mama dropped two brushes into a cup beside the sink.
“I got fresh coffee in the kitchen,” he said.
The faint crow of a rooster rose from a nearby backyard. I knew that bird. He was always late. The sun had already risen.
“Mama was sleeping on the floor, Daddy. Why didn’t you come get her last night?”
“I like sleeping out here,” she said.
“What are you working on?” He walked over to a canvas.
“A series.”
“I didn’t know that, Mama. How many do you have so far?” I peeked beneath a cloth covering a painting that rested against the wall.
“Just one,” she said. “I got a long way to go.”
Inside the house, Daddy made me and Mama sit at the kitchen table. I watched his hands, elegant and soft, lift the coffeepot and pour. They could have been surgeon’s hands. When I was younger, he had been one of those unusual daddies who liked to do my hair, carefully making the parts with the pointed end of a rattail comb and greasing my scalp with just the right amount of pressure. Once, I’d told my teacher that my daddy did my hair every morning and she’d whispered to me, “The devil love a lie.”
He poured cream until the coffee turned beige. Two spoonfuls of sugar in each. Ever since mama had let me try coffee at fifteen years old, I liked my coffee exactly the same as hers: sweet and milky.
“You see the paper?” Daddy touched a finger to the newspaper sitting on the counter.
“No,” I said. “But I know they’re filing the lawsuit today.”
“I see you’re not dressed for work.”
“I can’t.”
Mama put her hand over mine. “That’s alright, baby. What about the girls? You think Erica will hear? Maybe not. Summer school classes are usually small. There’s a chance she might be able to escape the brunt of it.”
“I’m picking the girls up today. Getting them out of town.”
“Where y’all going?”
“I’m taking the whole family out to Rockford near Talladega. They got some cousins out there they haven’t seen in a while.”
“Who’s driving? You need to be careful, Civil.” Daddy folded his arms.
“My car is running good again. It’ll be fine, Daddy.”
“What happened to Williams’s truck? Didn’t you say he had a truck?”
“Daddy, stop.”
“He’s got two girls to raise, a mama to take care of, and he can’t even piece together a truck?”
“Daddy.” The truck was fixed now, but I didn’t say that. We couldn’t all fit inside, but I didn’t say that, either.
He sipped his coffee and studied me.
“I’ll see y’all later tonight.” I kissed Mama on the cheek. Her skin was soft and smelled faintly of turpentine.
* * *
? ? ?
BANKS OF OAK trees broke open to reveal wide patches of land. We drove through a few lazy towns—Wetumpka, Titus, and even a little place that called itself Equality. I kept an easy speed. The girls’ faces opened up once we were on the road. I’d forgotten they were country people at heart. In the apartment on Dixie Court or wearing the Whitfield uniform, Mace shrank. Out here, his chin jutted and the ruddy tone of his skin came to light. In the rearview mirror, I could see Mrs. Williams had finally let go of her purse. “You see that there?” Mace said, pointing. “That right there is a crepe myrtle. Ooh, prettiest tree you ever did see. My daddy loved crepe myrtles. And you see those red mulberry trees? We used to eat the berries right off the tree when I was little.”
The road curved and I turned off the highway. When we got to the T-stop, Mace hollered out for me to hook a left. Suddenly he seemed to know exactly where he was going. When I said as much, he responded, “Girl, I know this here part of Alabama well as I know the hair on my head.”
“Is the land disappearing, too?” I joked. There was no sign of thinning hair on his head, but he touched a hand to the top as if I’d spotted something.