He stayed quiet for a time. He broke off twigs from his tree, but I didn’t say anything. I waited. I wanted him to know I had paid attention to his words about listening.
“One Sunday, I was sitting on the porch and my brother walked up and sat down. Tommy liked to come and visit Pearl on the Lord’s day. She always had a plate for him, and they would sit and rock on the glider. As he sat there, I listened to him talk. He was so sweet and friendly, and my sister and him got along like a house on fire. He was ten years older than her, old enough to be my father, and he thought he was a fair man, what we used to call ‘good white folks,’ even though every Negro family on his farm was barely scraping to get by. All the Negroes except my family, that is. But Tommy had lied to himself that he was an honorable man, and my sister was lying to him, and all the Negroes on the premises were lying, too. Acting like he was another breed from the other white men in town, but they never knew when he’d turn on them. Those turns were rare, but they had happened, and so the Negroes on Wood Place held their breath. Pearl wasn’t scared of him, but everybody else was. That was the truth, Ailey. And the truth can be both horrible and lovely at the same time. It seemed like I was the only one who would say that out loud. I was the only Negro that Tommy knew who would tell him what was what. And you’re like me, Ailey. You tell everybody the truth.”
“Not all of it, Uncle Root. There’re things I just can’t say out loud. Not now and maybe not ever. I’m tired sometimes. And I’m really, really sad.”
“I know you are, sugarfoot.”
“I was sad before Lydia died. Even before Daddy died. I didn’t want to admit that to myself. It seemed like I was just holding on, and now I just don’t know if I’ll ever not be sad.”
“But it’s good that you can say how you feel, Ailey. And you don’t have to tell all the truth if you don’t want to. But it’s important to know what the truth is, even if you only say it to yourself.”
I walked the few steps to where the old cat lay in a sunny spot. She probably had fleas or worse, but I leaned and stroked her head. She purred and rolled over on her back, exposing a belly that had bits and pieces of leaves stuck in the hair.
I spoke with my back turned. “Lydia is still gone, no matter what I say. Why couldn’t I save her, Uncle Root? I wanted to, so bad. I wanted to make her better.”
“I know. That’s the way I felt about my mother, Ailey. She died and left me when I was just a little boy, and for years, I blamed myself. If I could have taken her away from this farm, from my father, from all this racism and oppression, she might not have caught influenza. That frustration will probably be with me until the moment I leave this earth. But once she was gone, it took me years to see that I had to live for the both of us, because she loved me so much. Like Lydia loved you. Anybody could see that, Ailey. She was crazy about you. She probably loved you more than even I do, and I love you very, very much. And that’s why you have to carry on, Ailey. Wherever Lydia is, she’s asking that of you. She wants that for you.”
I kept scratching the cat’s tummy, and she wiggled around on her back. Purring, eyes closed into green slits.
Song
The Growth of a Family
Even in a place of sorrow, time passes. Even in a place of joy. Do not assume that either keeps life from continuing, for there are children everywhere. And children are life, for they keep their mothers’ beauty. Sometimes, even when their mothers are lost to death or distance, these women urge their young toward survival. This is what happened after the girl Mamie died in labor giving birth to Samuel Pinchard’s son, who had been named Nick. Even in death, Mamie looked after her child.
After Mamie’s death, the newborn Nick needed milk, and there were only two women in the Quarters who were nursing. These two women shared the bald, white baby between them. They walked between their cabins to exchange him. Yet while they were feeding Nick, they did not touch his face or make the sounds that babies crave. Neither woman wanted to raise the baby as their own; he looked like his father, whose transgressions had killed Mamie. Though Nick was blameless, it did not matter to these women. They had no affection for him.
After his nursing time, when Nick could tolerate mashed sweet potatoes and finely minced greens, and did not wake in the night, screaming for milk and absent love, the women approached Aggie. They asked her to take Nick for her own child. Ahead of time, the two women had worked out the argument, that they had five children between them and husbands and field work. One woman was holding Nick, and when she put him down, the child crawled to Aggie. She picked him up and he twined his arms around her neck. Her breasts began to ache, and she heard Mamie’s voice telling her, don’t abandon her baby. He could not help that he looked like a slave master. He was only a motherless child, and Aggie should know how that felt.