Then he’ll make a popping noise with his mouth, pretend-shooting trees and doors and people, then he’ll drop his pretend rifle and scramble across the ground where he’ll take the place of his victim and put one hand on his ass cheek, hollering like he was the one who got shot.
He’ll get to carrying on and whining so that nobody can stop laughing. Josey’s always the most tickled and loud, her laughing tears are showers no matter how many time she hears the story. Then, Jackson will run back to his place as the shooter and yell, “I don’t want your freedom. I’m here to defend Dixie!”
The only laughter in all of Alabama comes from here on this plantation, a song because of Jackson.
The day he came back, the day them women tried to steal everything, Josey slept all day.
She only woke for a moment, drowsy-drunk, and Charles dressed her in clean bedclothes. Even the sizzle and pop of bacon fat from the stove didn’t wake her the next morning, though the dead walls came alive, its wood pine oozed sap again. The fragrance cleaned the air and took away the dry cough Charles had carried for months. Jackson’s a healer of the dead, the sick, the soul.
And it was like he and Charles were best friends from the start. Better, family. Jackson was some lost son and Charles the grateful father. And Jackson was a savior to Josey. Charles still cain’t forgive hisself for not hearing nothin on the day those women came and tried to steal the washing. “You’re a better man than me,” he told Jackson. But Jackson said, “Only man better than you is God. I’ve grown up watching you.”
“Don’t burn it,” Jackson said, laughing a little, just before Josey woke up the second day. He was leaning back in his chair, biting an apple when Josey dragged the hanging sheet over, showing herself to the room. He almost fell over.
“Here she is!” Charles said when he saw her. He rushed Josey, put his arm around her. “Don’t be shy now, baby. Say hi to your friend.” But she wouldn’t speak that day. Only on the third day, when Jackson embarrassed her after he saw that she was still wearing the faded-to-pink bracelet he’d given her years before on her birthday, did she turn bright red and speak.
“I knew you loved me,” he said, and smiled.
Jackson had gotten all their clothes back from Feral that first day. “Couldn’t say much for my shirt, though,” Charles said, laughing. Jackson had already tied what was left of it around his head.
“It’s a blessing Jackson came when he did,” Charles told Josey. “I can get another shirt. Cain’t get another you.”
Jackson brought with him all kinds of rations from war. Salt pork, sugar, flour. The bacon and coffee was already on. Charles drained the bacon grease on a clean rag next to the stove while I raced around the room, excited that Jackson had come home a hero. And for the first time my sprints caused the front door to open and they all looked at me. Not seeing. Jackson said, “Just the wind.”
His words gave me hope that day. Hope that I can have hands again. For George.
BEFORE JACKSON CAME back, Richard left Annie with only doubt and questions and a rifle he won from the mill. He and Kathy took everything that wasn’t tacked down, like they promised, except the gun cabinet, her gin, and the shutters falling off her empty house. But she’s still holding on. Bedless. Without a place to set a dish, a place to eat. The emptiness inside her house is like poisoned air. The society ladies don’t go around there no more. Not since word of divorce. And now that their world has surrendered, everybody’s empty.
Hell is everywhere.
Annie will shuffle through her corridors mumbling and blaming herself for the things she did wrong. Like Josey. She cries in Josey’s old pink-painted baby room, mumbles her regrets, the wrongs she didn’t see. “I was so selfish,” she’ll mumble, and, “My baby,” she’ll say.
And now, she’s lost everything.
Not Josey.
Not me.
Not today.
Brittle sycamore leaves cartwheel across the yard in celebration. One catches on the heel of Josey’s bare foot, shifts, and gets swept away, chased over Josey’s decorated broomstick.
The minister, maybe nineteen years old, and his wife and three children — the youngest, a baby of a few weeks — were just passing through on their way west. Whatever you could spare, they asked. We got plenty, Jackson said.
Jackson packed grains and nuts and canned beets, and Josey gave rest to the young mother, holding Baby Boy right, her hand behind his head. Josey swaddled him, bounced him. So natural with him. “We don’t see many babies out in the community,” Josey told her. “Most mother’s don’t come out ’til the baby’s months old. It’s scary to have a baby in times like these.”
The minister asked Charles, “Why don’t you come with us? We could use strong hands. Build a church. We need families. Bring your son-in-law, too.”
“Oh, they’re not married,” Charles said, just as Jackson came up.
“Who’s not married?” Jackson said.
Now, Josey’s white dress mushrooms from a breeze. Her veil made of bed sheets whips her gold hair to the sky as she stands next to Jackson, hand in hand.
“With your permission,” Jackson had said to Charles. “I’d like to marry her.”
Charles had to choke back tears when he said, “It’s her that has to say yes.”
And now, Charles seems both broken and proud next to Josey while the young minister reads from his Bible. When he finishes, Jackson lingers in front of Josey. She pulls him into her and kisses him like she did her pillow before her life restarted.
I’m covered in sky.
It passes over us in a baptism of colors: blues, whites, and the yellow sparkle of sunshine.
I want to stay here forever.
Part IV
33 / FLASH, Just Outside City Limits — Conyers, Georgia, 1847
THE TINY LIGHTS in the night sky make me a believer. Make me think I can wish on a star and all them wishes’ll come true.
I close my eyes real tight, ball my fist. .
I wish Jeremy never left me.
Wish I never made him mad.
Wish this day never happened.
I open my eyes.
It’s still night.
I’m still sick. And Jeremy’s still gone.
To hell with them lying stars.
I fall back against the side of Mr. Shepard’s house, hoping Soledad, the Mexican, will take me in. Hoping she’ll remember her promise that she would, ’cause I was wrong about her. About calling her the devil when I saw her rage at Cynthia. She already knew something that I didn’t. Had a friendship with Cynthia that ended for a reason.
Her street sign across the road is rocking back and forth, squeaking in both directions. The lamp above the sign is showering yellow light on its words, “Hummingbird Lane.” It’s too bright for me to watch for long, already starting me a headache.
I’m crying ’cause it’s all my fault.
Jeremy left me, my fault. I ain’t got no place to lay my head, my fault. I shoulda just told Cynthia, yes and yes, ma’am. I messed up everything. My freedom. My peace. Messed up the chance Hazel risked her life to give to me. I should have stayed on the path she set me on. I should have kept running ’til I found North. Should have never stopped at this place, never met Jeremy, never loved him. I want to erase every moment ’til right now. Want to start again, build a new life. Go anywhere but here. But as it is, I’ve only gone three miles tonight.
I could go farther. South could be my new north like Albert said. But after I told him to leave me alone, I don’t know if he could forgive me, either. Everybody hates me.