The first time, she took the day off to mourn President Kennedy’s death. The second time, five years later when the other Kennedy boy was assassinated. That same year, she left work early when Dr. King was assassinated. Maybe King died before the Kennedy boy. So long ago. Memory fools. Kennedy and King. Unformed shapes and sounds in grainy black and white surround the words. Sounds and images faint and indistinct. Did I imagine them? More touch than sight or sound. What holds one funeral from the other? Makes one name, one man, one brother distinct from the other?
I can’t tell you how many times I seen that hotel.
Flitting and fitful points of light flickered on the television screen.
That’s right. Mrs. Shipco gulped down the rising in her throat. You used to live in Memphis.
Used to pass by there almost every day.
After everything else that’s happened, now this.
Sheila understood. Mrs. Shipco would get a certain look when she knew Dr. King was to appear on TV. A faint smile of anticipation would soften her face.
Sheila went home and soaked her feet in Epsom salts. Watched black and gray images burn down the city. She might have joined them but her feet hurt too bad.
She took off for Sam’s funeral, Big Judy’s funeral, and Koot’s funeral. She would take a few days off for Lula Mae’s funeral.
These past few months, she had missed more days than in all the previous years, flying down to West Memphis—outside the window, the shadow of the moving plane toy-small against the white clouds—twice a month to tend to Lula Mae on her white deathbed. Lula Mae’s toenails curved out from under the white sheets, long yellow bird claws. Sheila would remove the sheets. Look right through Lula Mae’s white skin, water. The bones delicate underneath, sprung with tension, the splinters of a collapsed bridge. And further down, the lumps of cancer like river stones. Sheets missing, Lula Mae would awaken. Take one look at Sheila and color would climb high in her bosom, neck, and face.
Sheila would pull back the curtains and raise Lula Mae’s face to the light. Lula Mae would chew the pain and talk until she could talk no longer. Sheila would replace the white sheets. Search for the long scar across Lula Mae’s stomach, the scar she and Gracie — when they were girls — would finger as Lula Mae deep-breathed sleep. The scar had disappeared. Dissolved in memory. The clear white belly mirrored Sheila’s face.
WHEN SHEILA WAS PREGNANT, she hauled the freight of her belly to work. Unimpeded by the weight, she worked while her stomach domed under her blouse. Washing, kneeling, scrubbing. Got rounder each day, so round she thought she would bounce away. Her energy did not subside during labor. Rapid breathing reflected her rushing mind. So much to do with and for a new baby. Sweat spread a blanket of wet weight over her. Her mind and chest slowed. She breathed heavy in the darkness, breath twisting up like smoke. She climbed the smoke up into a white room with a silver sun. Saw the forceps move in position. Pull. Pull. Something long emerged, a brown banana. The baby’s head. Don’t worry, ma’m. We can shape the head. It’s soft like clay. Kids can give you such a scare. She took a day to rest, then gathered the baby up in the pink blanket and hurried out of the hospital. She had never had so much energy in all her life. She could leave Porsha, her firstborn, in the cradle for hardly a minute. The baby lay on its back, the legs and arms pumping outward like a turtle. She took it high and awkward in her arms. It opened its eyes, whimpering. She rocked it. She carried it everywhere in a back sling. Carried it to work, not because she could not find or afford a babysitter, but because the magic had not burned away.
Sheila would awaken — having dozed off in the middle of mopping, dusting, polishing the piano, vacuuming the floors, cleaning the windows, folding the laundry — and find the baby lying in one of the Shipcos’ old cradles, Mrs. Shipco leaning on the cradle’s high rail, and trying to tease out laughs with a rattle.
IVORY BEACH, SHEILA, and Gracie drew water from Daddy Larry’s well — drawing water was women’s work — washed laundry and carried the baskets to town, not on the crowns of their heads as the old folks liked to do, but sack-heavy in front of them. Gracie always fell behind the other two. You, Gracie, Ivory Beach said. I’m older than you and if I can carry mine, then — She meant to say, My basket is heavier cause it’s stuffed full of herbs—beneath the sun-clean sheets—for the white folks in town. Come on here, she said. Ivory Beach didn’t like Gracie. Especially when the sun made Gracie’s birth-black skin three shades blacker, like it did the red summer day Lula Mae went away, watermelon red cause it is the scent of watermelon that always reminds you of that day. Blackbirds should be shot and eaten, she liked to say. Sheila could carry with ease. Labor was buried deep in her nerves and muscles. The three of them white-scrubbed the laundry and carried it to town over the hot sand road, the road that was like a river of heat so you walked in the grass.
Beulah got Sheila and Gracie a job, their first, in Fulton. Mr. Harrison would drive twenty miles to Houston to pick them up. Drive twenty miles to take them home. Many a Sunday, Beulah, Sheila, Gracie, and R.L. would sup with the Harrisons. Yall welcome here, Mr. Harrison said, from now to Moses. Beulah, Sheila, and Gracie divided up their work. When Sheila and Gracie rested, Beulah would nap in the same bed with the Harrison children. Why, Beulah, you the prettiest nigga I ever seen. The kids would stroke Beulah’s long hair. White men in the town tipped their hats when they saw Beulah. How you today, Miss Beulah? Mr. Harrison owned Fulton. Yall need anything, he said, yall ask. He was always good for an extra five dollars here or there. Mrs. Harrison gave Beulah, Sheila, and Gracie blouses, skirts, and dresses. Shirts, suits, and pants for R.L. Why, R.L., you got the prettiest eyes I ever seen on a nigga. The Harrison boys would take R.L. to the picture show and they would all sit in the white section, rowdy and loud. And when he got older, they took him drinking. Sometimes bring Sam and Dave along. Mr. Harrison found them good jobs at the sawmill.
Beulah moved to Memphis. Once she’d saved enough money, she sent for Sheila, Gracie, and R.L. Beulah met them at the same smoking train station where a few years before they had waved Lula Mae off to New Mexico. Beulah got Sheila and Gracie day work. Each morning, Beulah would send Lula Mae a letter by special maiclass="underline" Come back to your children. Lula Mae came back. Beulah left for the city.
Two years later, Beulah sent for Sheila. Sheila would always remember the world outside the train window. A kaleidoscope of sounds and color, loose fragments of houses, trees held together with dirty clotheslines and patches of sun-drying laundry. Day rounding into night, then the city, a tapestry of steel and light. Here was where she would live and work, live and work.
The following Monday morning, Beulah took her to meet the Shipcos.
Now remember about the daughter, Beulah said.
Lynn.