“The first person Jax loved more than me on this earth was Miriam,” Bird said. “Then when Joanie came, then My—he’d call to tell me about their eyelashes, their little fat bellies, the way it sounded when they giggled. How he was pushing himself hard in the Corps, so those little girls would never see the stuff we did growing up. He called me crying once, when he’d gotten home late and found the girls sleeping together nose to nose, looking like two wolf cubs nestled together.” Bird blinked and stole a quick glance at August. “I’ve never heard him more in love,” he said. It sounded like a plea.
August stood back and observed her art. She had made him look handsome. His hair now faded into the soft milk chocolate of him. She was proud of herself, thankful she’d gotten out of bed and followed that sound of music.
Bird beheld himself in the mirror. “Your reputation precedes you, ma’am.” He threw out a hand from underneath his cape, but August slapped it away.
“Ain’t done yet,” she said, and she laid a hot towel across Bird’s face.
He groaned underneath it. “I needed this.” He sighed.
Maybe that’s what did it. Something about hearing the moan of a man under her made August hurry to her shop door and lock it from the inside. Made her undo the beet-purple man’s necktie that held her cream kimono together. Made her climb on top of Bird in that chair, cup his hands around her dark, waiting breasts, and ask him what else exactly he needed.
CHAPTER 28
Hazel
1968
Hazel loved that throughout the many years, Stanley’s had remained the same. Small changes were acceptable to keep up with the times. The Victrola was replaced by a coin-operated jukebox. A television—a luxury—was mounted above the door. And in 1964, Stanley, finally, was able to pry off the colored signs. But other things were imprinted in memory. The fresh cuts of prime meats, the Southern delicacies found in jars—pickled beets, hot chow chow, hot pepper sauce—still lined the cedar shelves. And every Friday afternoon, Hazel would stop in and order three butter pecan ice creams and hand one each to Miriam and August. Then the three’d walk to the home Myron had built.
Hazel pulled her blond mink coat tighter around her as she made the short walk to Stanley’s. It was freezing for April. But she needed a few groceries in preparation for the fish fry she was set to host on Friday. It would be partly to honor Dr. King, who had been killed a week ago now, and partly a planning session for what steps to take next.
Since Myron’s death, Hazel’s house had become a mecca for young anti-segregationists. Preachers and college students stayed in the quilting room en route to register voters farther south in Mississippi or Alabama or Georgia. The house was packed whenever there was a wave of sit-in protests. April was always a busy month—protestors came to the house intent on supporting the first Black students enrolled at various institutions throughout the South. Hazel opened her home to the hopeful, to the idealists of the world. She loved it all and hoped, prayed every night on worn knees, that Myron would be proud of her.
Myron. Hazel grew to know grief as well as a sister. The first year after Myron died, she had refused to speak to God. Whenever she passed by the spot near the large sleigh bed where she had usually bent knee and spoken to her Father, she would spit at it instead. The second year after Myron’s death, when Miriam caught whooping cough, Hazel finally broke down and spoke to God. Demanded He save her child. Said she would come there herself, come to those pearly gates and shake them down with her own two hands, if He dared, dared, take another human being from her. She vowed she’d haunt God. Stalk the Son of a Bitch throughout the decades, if He dared take her daughter. When Miriam pulled through, after nights of Miss Dawn chanting over the toddler and burning frankincense, Hazel dropped to her knees and recited her favorite psalm: “I will tell the world of all thy marvelous works.”
No matter how many years had passed since Myron’s murder, Hazel’s conversations with her dead husband never ceased. She spoke to him often. As if he were still alive, just hovering over her shoulder as she made dinner.