What are you doing? Gracie said.
Sheila turned and faced her. Trying to sort through all these things.
Why you ain’t tell me?
Sheila looked into Gracie’s eyes and saw the calculation in them.
I already told you.
Gracie said nothing.
Why don’t you come help me? When Porsha gets here, she and Hatch can go through the attic.
Gracie said nothing.
They can do the little house, too.
Gracie turned and left the room.
SHE SAT ON LULA MAE’S BED and listened to the night frogs and crickets. She had accomplished all she could and deserved rest. She saw very clearly how her life had led to this moment. A moment that demanded perfection. It would take everything she had to grant a wish, but she would pay it. That much she owed Lula Mae. She had refused money from the Sterns, from Porsha, from George. She had bought her plane ticket and Gracie’s. She had paid for the wake, the funeral, the burial arrangements. She could breathe easy and Lula Mae could rest without worry, knowing that her death had been placed in Sheila’s loyal, dutiful, and determined hands. Sheila was the host that Death had promised her.
Tell Gracie to stay home, Lula Mae said. Don’t come here no mo. All she do is set up in that rocking chair and accuse and pity.
When Cookie died, Sheila had had to make all the arrangements, pay all the expenses. Gracie moved slowly and stiffly, her heart beating at a heavy cost, carrying in her blood the lead fact of the death of her firstborn. After the funeral, Sheila helped Gracie put Cookie’s wheelchair into the closet of the Kenwood apartment they shared. From there they pushed it to the patio of the May Street apartment and finally into the basement of the house on Liberty Island, where it waited in the corner, uncovered and empty. The house on Liberty Island with a real hearth where a fire could burn. Where Cookie’s photograph held command on the mantel above: a will-less face and loose eyes that looked in two directions at once; a white-and-pink bow; a pink dress with white collar and black belt; black patent-leather shoes; a white cloud surrounding her body, Cookie standing out like a gem against cotton.
She had defended Gracie from Ivory Beach, the wicked Houston stepmother who staked claims during Lula Mae’s New Mexico absence, the swamp woman who found daily satisfaction in tormenting Gracie. And, many years later, she exacted payment in Gracie’s name and memory. She saw a woman standing old and thin and alone on Sixty-third and Church Street. The sight slowed then stopped her feet. No, it couldn’t be. Surely her eyes deceived. Illusion. Mirage. She stood thinking that her cold desire for revenge and justice had caused the woman to crystallize. The woman’s eyes jumped with recognition. She started to turn her face away. Thought twice about it. Why, why, Sheila.
Sheila listened to the remembered voice and said nothing.
Is that really you?
After all these years, Sheila said. Sheila had heard no word about the woman since leaving Houston. Now to find her here, in the city, on this very street corner.
Yes. How you makin along?
After all these years.
Ivory Beach lifted her nose with her old pride. Yes. After all these years. You was a mean one.
Sheila punched Ivory Beach in the face, feeling the ancient brittle bones go soft under her knuckles.
Gracie had forgotten all of this. Remembered only what she wanted to remember, needed to remember, cause if she remembered it all the past might force her to forfeit her anger.
Sheila found Lula Mae’s Bible where she thought it would be.
Lula Mae had inserted strips of white paper throughout the Bible, perhaps to catalogue important sections, clue her to crucial passages. Sheila found a yellowed newspaper clipping sandwiched between two pages.
Sheila returned the clipping to its exact place. She ran her palm over the book’s rough cover. She left it here for me to find, she said to herself, thinking, and thinking almost saying aloud. She put the Bible in her suitcase and locked the latches.
41
SHE MUST BUY NEW CLOTHES for the funeral. A plague of moths had eaten her old ones. (Could this be? Is it not true that moths eat wool and wool only? Perhaps certain varieties of moths feed on a range of fabrics.) An army of babies rode off in her shoes, tanks.
She fluttered, angels in her body. She blessed the railroad plank above the grass-covered drainage ditch. Blessed the ditch itself. Blessed the chain-link fence that surrounded Lula Mae’s property, contained it. Blessed the lawn. The lawn furniture. Trees — apple, pear, and plum. Blessed the concrete walkway leading up to the house. Blessed the two concrete front-porch steps. Blessed the front porch. Blessed the lil house out back behind the house. Blessed the two railroad planks positioned side by side to offer a walkway to the three concrete back-porch steps. Blessed the back-porch steps. The back porch itself, an uncovered block of concrete. Blessed the kitchen. The bathroom. The living room. The bedroom where Sheila slept. The second bedroom where Mr. Pulliam used to sleep, the bedroom that Lula Mae rented out after he fled to heaven. She blessed the hall. The attic could wait.
Blessing done, she entered the second bedroom where Mr. Pulliam used to sleep, the bedroom that Lula Mae rented out again and again after he fled to heaven. She undressed and slid under the covers, full and satisfied. Sharp-edged silence. Sheila slept quiet across the hall behind a closed door. Memory wheezed in the darkness. She put her Bible underneath her pillow and heard Lula Mae talking.
42
DAMN, MAN. Can’t you see that Indian behind you?
Gunfire crackled through Lula Mae’s house.
Man, is you blind?
Turn that TV down.
What? Woman, you ain’t left to get my medicine?
A folk can’t even think round here. All that clamor.
Think what? Think bout gettin my medicine. Mr. Pulliam breathed.
Fool, get out of my face, Lula Mae said.
Woman, you make me, Mr. Pulliam said. The words bubbled, like he had something in his throat, phlegm, dammed spit.
You touch me, I steal yo life.
Mr. Pulliam grunted at Lula Mae. Turned back to the loud TV. Lula Mae left the room.
Mr. Pulliam sat bent forward on the divan, face almost touching, kissing the TV screen. He breathed beneath the TV’s traveling volume. The sound of his breathing always reached the front door ten steps before he did. His belly bulging his ribbed, sleeveless undershirt like a white laundry sack. He plowed clean paths through his lathered face with a straight razor. Fool, how many times I tell you to close the door when you in the bathroom. Ain’t nobody interested in your business. Lula Mae was careful to tell Porsha not to touch his food. (He had his shelf in the refrigerator, and she hers. So too the freezer.) Not to enter his bedroom.
Lula Mae returned with her largest skillet, black iron, creased with shining grease.
Woman, what you think you gon do wit that skillet?
Lula Mae rung the skillet against his head.
Damn, woman. You tryin to kill me. I’m callin the police.
Call them.
He did.
The white officer arrived with the speed of arterial blood.
Can somebody turn off that there TV?
Porsha turned it off.
You see what the woman done to me? Mr. Pulliam gestured to the white kitchen towel pressed to his head. I jus asked her to get my medicine. I’m sick.
Sick in the head.
Damn this woman. She sposed to be my wife. Look at what she done to me.
I can’t miss it.
Take her to jail. I worked a good job. I’m sick.
He struck me.
Law, I swear I never touched that woman. I swear on a mountain of Bibles.
Don’t let your nasty mouth mention the Good Book.
I’m sick.
He struck me.
Well, seem like what we got here don’t add up. Somebody talkin out the side they face.
Law, it ain’t me.
It is you.
You both want to go to jail?
I’m sick.
Not sick enough.
Well one of you is talkin sideways. Girl—
The white officer looked at Porsha.
— what happened here?
That’s right. My granddaughter here can testify.
That’s fine wit me. She saw what happen. Tell Law here what happen.
Porsha said nothing. She had something to say but the words wouldn’t come.
Girl look scared to me.
She from the city. Up North.
Maybe that explain it. City life. Come on here. The white officer took Mr. Pulliam by the shoulder and moved him toward the front door. We better see bout yo head. Now, ma’m. You be nice. I don’t wanna come back here. I do, both yall comin down wit me to the jail. We got plenty room.
Law, she attacked me.
The white cop looked at Porsha. Something mighty wrong wit that girl.
She’s a mamma’s girl. Lula Mae smiled. When she was a toddler, I used to call her Duck. Followed her mamma everywhere.
Well, pigeons never fly far from home, the white officer said. All wrapped up in them apron strings.
Young folks. Lula Mae smiled. What can you do? Who can you blame?
Blame? the white officer said. I know this, what you put down is what pops up.
Lula Mae gave the officer a hard look. Her brown eyes toughened like shit.