My head to my sister-in-law (sorely in need of brains)
My teeth to my nephew (Eat and put on some meat)
My nose to the taxman (no other use for it)
My ass to a casket
51
EVERY SOLDIER TUGGED HOME A THICK HEAVY ALBUM of snapshots. Horse-playing with his war buddies. Flexing muscle in the flexing jungle. Or posed proud and pensive with weaponry. Even photos of kills. John brought back few frames from the war, all black-and-whites touched up for color, like (in the old days, years ago, years gone) the photos of jazz singers fronting the nightclubs on Church Street. Lucifer’s favorite, the one angled in the corner of the bedroom mirror and so angered his wife: John arcing for a dive into ocean, arms thrown back like wings, frozen in time.
Sheila refused to look at it now. Caged her eyes and yielded to excess. Free. Vindicated. Her heart shaped something it could not utter. Her blind fingers discovered the thick world of Lula Mae’s Bible. Black surface (artificial leather) and white depth. She touched the book with a tender sense of all it symbolized. She opened the cover and her eyes.
Jesus Chapter 5? No such thing. No Book of Jesus. Certainly in no Bible she had seen. She searched the Table of Contents to be certain. Found nothing. Hidden, protected, absorbed, she turned to the Sixth Chapter of Matthew and read to the end.
She flipped two or three slow pages. Then—
She spun the pages like a riverboat’s wheel.
Spun. Wind and water. Spun. Motion. She floated freely. An undercurrent tugged at her. Some deep weight that anchored inside her so she could not advance. Why would Lula Mae save the FBI clipping? She searched for it, waded back, searched but found nothing. She searched again. Still nothing. She was heavy with her lack of discovery, heavy but held up, light, buoyant with possibility ahead. (She would have to find it at another time, some other day, hour. It ain’t going nowhere.) She hurried to meet undiscovered pages.
The Genealogy Record Family Register was blank, untouched.
At the back of the Bible, at the very top of the page, written in blue ink in Lula Mae’s hand:
She turned two pages.
Read from page bottom to page top. Reversed the book’s direction. Read. Page bottom to page top. Read. None the wiser. Flipped on. Maps of the Holy Land, past and present. Faraway lands charted, penciled, reduced. Journey on, eye and hand. Journey to the final page. Find there written in blue ink:
She lifted the NAACP receipt attached to the page by a baby’s safety pin and revealed the name beneath: Cynthia. Cynthia? No name she recognized. No fact in her memory.
She worked her way backward through the Bible, hovering and hesitating, small strips and squares of paper positioned between pages, and small sheets of paper with handwritten verse headings, Lula Mae’s private index. She closed the Bible. Enough for now. She had years to read it. Years.
LOOK, GEORGE, Inez said. It’s Junior’s wife. She spoke through tight teeth, teeth clamped down on invisible hairpins. Watched Sheila with a face framed in smooth yellow.
No it ain’t, George said. That’s Sheila. You remember Sheila. That’s your other son’s wife. Lucifer.
I know. My daughter-in-law.
Sheila could see through Inez’s body, wax paper, see her cloudy insides. She was disappearing, disappearing into the same invisible space where John and Lucifer had gone.
My daughter-in-law. Gracie.
How are you, Inez?
Inez stared into Sheila’s eyes. I think I’m dead.
Here, Inez, George said. Why don’t you come on in here and lie down. He took her by one thin biceps, holding it like a broom handle, and guided her to the bedroom.
George, you want me to take her?
No, Sheila. You set down and relax.
Sheila pulled a chair out for herself and sat down at a small round glass table on the screened-in patio that overlooked the backyard and the garage with its own screened-in patio. She relaxed in the cool shade unbothered by summer insects. So long since she had been here. So long. Her eyes moved over the world map on the wood-paneled wall, red thumbtacks indicating all the places George and Inez had traveled.
How are you, Sheila? George stands in the raised doorway on a foot of concrete, waiting for her answer. He wears a pair of brown slacks that she recognizes from thirty years earlier. The years have taken away none of his sinewy muscle — he was always active, in motion — only weakened his eyes, dimmed them. He strains to watch her, as if she were far away, and his hair is grayed with a painter’s touch.
Fine.
That’s good. George steps down into the patio. Comes forward and seats himself on the opposite side of the table.
When did you all make it back?
Last night.
Everything go okay?
Yes. The way she wanted it.
That’s good.
Yes.
So everything went okay?
Yes.
That’s good. Everybody’s okay?
You know. Sheila gestured.
Yes. Give it time. Give it time.
What were yall doing today?
Oh not much. I made us some breakfast.
I guess I should have called first.
No, Sheila. You know you don’t have to call. We weren’t doing nothing. I was jus about to turn on the news. George lifted himself from his seat, his strong arms trembling with age.
I can do it.
No, Sheila. That’s alright. You set there and relax. He came forward and past her. Clicked on the television, an old black-and-white, the volume low. He had always preferred his hand-sized radio to the television. It lay quiet on the glass table. George passed her and retook his seat with the same trembling effort.
The television flickered light in the patio. Outside, the yard glowed with the brightness of the hot still hour.
George, the garden looks so nice.
Thanks. I try to keep it up.
What did you plant this year?
My usual stuff.
Well, it looks really nice.
You want me to get you some tomatoes to take home?
No, George. Don’t bother.
Oh, it’s no bother.
Maybe later then.
The television made small talk and small pictures about something or other.
You remember how Porsha liked to play in that bird pond when she was little?
Sheila chuckled. Yes.
Wasn’t she the cutest thing?
Yes. Sheila saw Porsha bright and happy, her charitable hand holding out bread crumbs (Inez’s leftover biscuits), waiting patiently, waiting, but birds flying in safe range on a steady sweep of wing, and Porsha crying out in anger and frustration, tears dripping into the marble pond.
Don’t cry, John said. Try a mouse. Birds like mice.
And Hatch liked to sit out there on the patio by himself and read.
Yes. Sheila’s fingers moved over her dress, followed the long black scar that ran up her belly. Rocking and reading, she said. Her vision was instantaneous. Hatch barely visible behind the garage’s screen, rocking and reading in a rage of curiosity, his private hours at the helm of some great imaginary ship, glancing up now and again at the screened-in patio.
And that Jesus.
Yes, Jesus. She pictured Jesus’s sharply cut features, then shoved the image out of her mind violently.
She had enjoyed coming out here as much as Hatch and Porsha. The moist air. Shadowed figures in the garden. The quiet and clean assurance of nature. The circular stones where—