It seemed as if August took no note. She lifted her veil so that her eyes were exposed. Even from her seat, Miriam could see them: They were two dark holes. Looked like they contained the suffering of the entire world.
August began: “That boy’s father was Lucifer. I mean that. Kind of man make you believe in evil in this world. Know it in your bones. Feeling you get when you stare at an abyss and know in your heart that there, below, dragons roam.”
The courtroom fell silent. There were no more snickers.
“We met on Beale Street,” she said, her voice steadier now. “He was walking down Beale, cigarette in hand, and offered me one. I had never tried one before, and it tasted so good, like a freedom I didn’t know I needed. He had on this black leather jacket. Sideburns. He was the color of fall—golden brown. Stole my heart. Took it, beating, right out of me. Felt like I didn’t even have a say in the matter.
“He never hit me. Didn’t have to. I knew what a demon was, what it wanted, what angered it. Miss Dawn—she an old family friend—she once told me, ‘Djinnis are real.’ But I didn’t believe her until Derek was born.
“Derek was born in the middle of a thunderstorm in March. The power out. Six hours into labor, an elm had fallen on a power line. People drowned that night. Derek came out silent as a lamb through all of it. His father held him first. Can you imagine? Wouldn’t even let me be the first to hold my boy. He said, ‘He’ll be a Spartan.’ God, that man lived up to his promise. Brutally. Ruthlessly. Once, I found D—we call him D at home—in a closet, shivering. He had held a bucket of water in his hands. For hours. You hear me? Hours. He was ten years old. I was at home, but I had ten washes and sets that day—” She broke off, reached for a tissue from a box on the witness stand.
All the hairs on Miriam’s body were raised. She’d known Derek’s father was no good, but she’d never heard most of what August was telling this room. August had a secret side no one in the family had ever been able to penetrate. As a child, she’d always be pounding away at the piano keys, her face unreadable, lost in some reverie that Miriam, even Hazel, couldn’t understand. Or she was hiding up in some tree, listening in to the fireside political debates at the house, her thoughts her own. Yes, August had always been the mysterious one. So, when she got pregnant, far too early, no one had even asked who the father was. Miriam knew her sister would never tell.
“Sometimes, I’d come back from Stanley’s—Stanley’s is a deli by the house—and I’d find the house dark, the lights all turned off. D would be shaking, just shaking. Wouldn’t let me touch him. Wouldn’t say nothing. He’d hide in the cupboards sometimes. The closets. Like some scared, hurt animal. And his father. I don’t think I should even name the nigga. I’d find him sitting at the kitchen table. Drinking black, cold coffee. Asking me, ‘How long ’til dinner?’？”
A strange knocking thud had sounded in the courtroom. Miriam saw Derek was pounding his head against the defense table in slow, methodical thumps. His attorney went to him. He placed a hand on Derek’s back and, stroking it, nodded for August to continue.
But Miriam wasn’t sure she wanted August to. What she’d heard, and Derek’s reaction—it all terrified her. For the first time, and however unwanted, Miriam felt a connection to her nephew. She, too, knew fear. The anticipation of pain. Bruised and beaten on her Camp Lejeune kitchen floor, reaching for the phone to call her sister, Miriam had always reckoned moving back home to Memphis would be safer than staying in North Carolina. Jax was a large man. And trained by the greatest, the most elite branch of the armed services to kill, expertly, with his bare hands. Lying on that floor, in the haze and chaos of being punched in the face, Miriam calculated that Jax might one day kill her. Maybe not intentionally. But just the right blow to her head…She’d had to leave. And where else did she have to go but home? Her mother’s words on the evening before her wedding came to her on that floor: My lovely, beautiful daughters, both of you can always, always come home.
August cleared her throat. “He left one day. Without reason. Went out for a pack of Kools and never came back. The nigga died likely just how he came into this world: killing somebody. And then, I thought we were safe. He was gone. But even after his father left, D would hardly let me touch him.”