Why not?
Said she was two-headed. And the way she used to knock Gracie wit her fist, she like to give her a second head. So one day, I grabbed her fist. Squeezed it to crumble it to dust. And I told her, If you hit Gracie again, I’ll beat you till you can’t see. And that was the end of it.
Porsha said nothing. She let the new words soak in with the tea.
I saw that woman years later. She used to live on Kenwood.
She did?
Yes, she did. She said, Sheila, you wuz an evil child. I said, No. You the evil one. I hit that heifer. Like to kill her.
Porsha rowed her spoon in her cup and changed the direction of the conversation. Well, what did she do in New Mexico?
She ain’t do nothing. Casey Love, the man she went wit—
You mean run off wit.
— worked road gangs. Construction. In Tucumcari.
Where?
Tucumcari.
Porsha made a mental note to look it up.
See, R.L. was her son by that man, Casey Love. Real name was Robert Lee Harris, but everybody called him Casey Love. So I remember. She wuz married to Daddy Larry, but she left him for this man.
Porsha felt the warmth of her teacup. How old was you?
Well, R.L. was eleven or twelve, I believe. So I was ten.
Then Gracie was seven or eight?
Yes …
Why she come back?
He went on to California and she came back to Memphis. We moved back into the house on Claybrook Street that she rented from her friend. She started working at the car factory.
Car factory?
Yes.
They had a car factory in Memphis?
And a lot else.
Thought she was workin fo those white people.
That was later.
You came wit Beulah? Porsha was heavy, full of questions.
Yes.
When Gracie come?
Bout a year later. She stayed wit Lula Mae in the house on Claybrook.
What they do?
You ask Gracie.
She say that Lula Mae put you in Catholic school but wouldn’t let her go.
That’s a lie. I paid fo my own schooling. Helped Beulah at those white folks’ house.
Why she say it then? Why she lie?
You ask her.
Porsha thought about it all. How old was she when she had him?
Eighteen, I believe.
That means she was only sixteen or seventeen when—
Yes.
So R.L. was twelve when she left. That means she was about twenty-eight or twenty-nine?
Yes, that sounds about right. A year or two before the war …
Porsha thought about it all. Lula Mae was sixteen. Sixteen. A mother at sixteen. It was all starting to make sense. You said she left round the time the war started?
Yes.
But how could that be? Sam and Dave fought in the war.
They were older than R.L.
How much older?
Not that much older. A few years. They were still boys really. Couldn’t have been older than sixteen when they went.
That young?
Yes.
Well, how did they get in?
They wanted to go. Trouble never had to find them if they could find it first. Beulah did her best to keep R.L. on the straight and narrow. The people she worked for were good people. The Harrisons. Those white boys treated R.L. like a brother. Took him everywhere wit them. Then when he got grown, he went out to California. That man, Casey Love, had a ranch out there. R.L. sent me letters.
Where the letters?
Don’t know what happened to them. Beulah got them. Maybe Lula Mae.
How they get them?
You ask them.
Well, what did he say in those letters?
I don’t remember much. It was so long ago.
What happened to his father, this Casey Love?
I don’t know, but R.L. did take his daddy’s name, Love. And you know Beulah got those letters from China, his Indian wife, and R.L. Junior his son. Yeah, they out there somewhere in California. Call the phone company or get a phone directory and see if—
Mamma, you know I ain’t never tried that and you know why. You know how many Loves there might be in California? And where in California?
I don’t know …
How R.L. end up in Brazil?
I don’t know. R.L. was always ready to throw a saddle on a tornado.
There ain’t no tornadoes in Brazil, Porsha said, her mouth serious and factual.
Mamma said nothing, seemingly stunned …
How old was he when he died?
Twenty-five. Twenty-six. I believe.
Sam and Dave never went looking for R.L. out in California?
They say they did.
They weren’t with him when it happened?
No. They were already in the city by that time.
Why they chase Dave out of Houston?
I can’t remember. It was so long ago. But Dave, Sam, R.L., and Nap was always gettin into something. They were young men looking for trouble. They chased Sam out bout a year after they chased Dave. Then Nap end up dead in that jail in Jackson.
Houston?
No, Jackson.
How’d he—
Never would take his medicine. Bout the same time, R.L. passed. That red Edsel. Dave, Sam, Nap, and R.L. — all them fools drive faster than next week.
Porsha played the silence. But why?
Why what?
Why did she take up with this Casey Love? Why did she leave Daddy Larry?
Ask her.
DID YOU BRING AN EXTRA SUITCASE LIKE I ASKED YOU?
Porsha nodded.
Well get it.
Porsha got it.
Put these things in it.
Why?
Hurry up.
Porsha did as instructed.
Quick.
Her hands moved quickly. A photograph flashed up into her eyes and made her quick fingers pause. A baby-faced man grinned up into the camera from a poker table. Three other men — smoking, drinking, winking — shared his company. He sat upright, no curve in his spine, upright under a stiff-brimmed hat, tweed blazer draped over the back of his folding chair. Is that R.L.?
Mamma looked at the photograph. Nodded.
Is this the only—
Put it in the suitcase. Mamma took it and put it in the suitcase. Look at it later. Put these things in there. Hurry up. Come on. Quick. Before Gracie take everything.
43
HATCH LED SHEILA to the casket, his hand in the small of her back. A pyramid of flowers. The casket was black with silver fittings, the trestles hidden by flowers in a mass of shapes: wreaths, crosses, bows. He leaned forward and looked into eternity. About what he had expected. She had shrunk since the last time he’d seen her a year ago. Her head almost too small for her black wig. He noticed a red dime-sized hole on her neck, a red scarf trying to conceal it. A faucet hole where they had drained her decaying insides? Damn that mortician!
He held Sheila up, kept her from falling. Helped her back to the pew. Had she seen the red hole in Lula Mae’s neck? (Her old eyes weren’t as sharp as his.) He was unsure if he should ask her. She cried next to him and he watched, knowing nothing better to do, jumpy inside himself but calmly waiting for her to settle.
Clothed in righteousness, Gracie walked quickly to the coffin, looked, and didn’t linger. Sheila — resolved now, firm in herself again though still shaky, motion in every cell of her body — and Porsha carried Beulah up to the coffin, the way Lucifer and John would carry her from her bed to the front porch and the swing she enjoyed, though her legs were too weak to move it. Her frail body trembled as if she was soaked in cold water. Her smooth yellow face and long black Indian hair had escaped the snares of old age. Mamma, I been obedient, she said. I followed your words, Keep over your brothers and sisters. I’m the oldest and put the youngest in the grave. Carrie Sweet. Sheila and Porsha held Beulah up, kept her from collapsing into the casket.