FIFTEEN
September 1940
May’s ears detected a knock at the door. Knocks came much more often these days, and they came just about any time of day or night. She knew another desperate soul would soon be standing before her. Sometimes men came, but usually her visitors were women—some despairing over a man who’d gone, others over a man who wouldn’t be gone. May usually didn’t have much patience for the women willing to sell their souls to hold on to a man. She would just give them the taste of juju they’d come for and send them on their way. She had a lot more compassion for the women who needed to escape a man. A steady stream of them had come to see Mother May; they always did their best to hide the bruises, but most didn’t succeed.
May hadn’t yet been moved to kill a man, but she’d come close to it once when she was visited by a woman too busy trying to hide the marks left on the babe in her arms to worry about the welts on her own skin. No, May hadn’t gotten around to killing yet, but thanks to Fletcher Maguire, she had murder in her heart. Someday, sooner or later, May knew she’d share Cain’s guilt. She’d make an offering of her own to the Red King, and when that day came, the blood on her hands would belong to the son of a bitch who’d forced her into this life. On those rare nights when sleep found her, it was imagining what it would be like to watch the light expire in Maguire’s eyes that lulled her into restfulness.
But May didn’t sleep much anymore, thanks to Maguire and the magic he’d forced her to use. This room had once been her bedroom. Now it served as her office, and as much out of pageantry as out of magic, she had painted the entire place—walls, ceiling, and floor—haint blue. She grasped the arms of the chair that had once been her mother’s, now rendered that same calming shade of cerulean.
The room’s monochrome palette never failed to make an impression on those arriving—many experienced a sense of vertigo, and some even thought May was floating before them.
May. No one called her that anymore. No one. Not even those who used to know her best. Now, everybody called her Mother Wills. “Please, Mother Wills,” or “You gotta help me, Mother Wills.” There was always somebody coming to beg her to use the power Maguire had forced her to welcome into herself. Word had spread about her, the Negress who had stood up to Fletcher Maguire himself, and about the two lawmen—one ripped clear through and the other left sightless and disfigured. Many thought his blindness was a mercy, considering what had happened to his face.
Everyone thought she had been behind the attacks, but no one, not even the Maguires, would touch her for it. Some saw her as a hero. Others as a devil. But all were willing to place coin in her hand for a taste of her power. At first May felt bad about charging people in need. Her own mama had only accepted the occasional gift, but Maguire had ensured she lost her job, leaving her with no other means to protect or feed the children.
May had always been an honest, hardworking woman. She had been the best maid the Pinnacle Hotel had ever seen, and now she was determined to bring that same pride to the work she did in magic. Word of her skill had spread in no time, and she’d found herself a steady stream of customers. She might never grow rich—folk around her had a lot more troubles than money—but the Beekeeper had taught her enough to ensure she and the girls would never go hungry. She, too, had come to think of this entity as the Beekeeper, though it had been Maguire who had labeled her as such, not the Beekeeper herself. It was strange how Maguire forcing May out of her job was what had helped fulfill the Beekeeper’s desire that May should follow in her mother’s footsteps.
She heard the springs of the screen door protest as her latest client entered her home. May drew a steeling breath, which she then exhaled in a prayer for patience. The buzzing of a fat bumblebee sounded in response. May saw it appear out of nowhere, pushing through the blue wall as easily as if the wall were the sky it mimicked. This happened from time to time, the unannounced arrival of an emissary from her patron. “Oh,” May addressed the hovering insect. “She interested in this one, hey? Got some sweet nectar she wants to taste for herself?”
The bee bobbed in the air, shooting up, then descending in a slow, lazy circle, until it landed on her shoulder. The sound of high heels clacking across her living room pulled her back to the present. A woman. May worked to put on her most imperious look, so that when the caller reached her, she’d perceive May not only as a woman of power, but as a woman whose time should not be wasted. She straightened her spine and grasped the arms of her chair. Clearly not bothered by her movements, the bee adjusted its position only slightly before commencing to preen itself. May shifted her focus to the entrance of her chamber, raising her head proudly to greet her latest visitor. Then the sound of a voice she’d never expected to hear again on this side of glory knocked the wind right out of her.
“Jilo, girl, you get over here. Don’t you recognize your own mama?” Betty’s words chased Jilo straight into May’s chamber. May’s other grandbabies experienced vertigo upon entering the room, but it didn’t faze Jilo one bit.
“Nana, there’s a crazy white woman out there,” Jilo said, panic nearly turning her words into a shriek as she ran into the shelter of May’s arms. The bee took off, no doubt rising to observe the scene from a better vantage point.
In the next instant, Betty, or at least a faded version of her, appeared in the doorway, shopping bag in hand. She wore a navy-blue dress, a quiet color May would never have expected of her, and even though the day beyond the lowered shades and oscillating fan of May’s living room was stifling, there was a fur stole around her shoulders. Betty stopped at the threshold, teetering on her high heels, and grasped the door frame to steady herself.
“What is all this, then?” Betty asked, her words coming out with a practiced accent that said she belonged in the city, not out in the sticks.
May placed her arm around Jilo, squeezing her right shoulder and tugging her closer in the same movement. She understood the girl’s confusion. This woman standing before her looked like any of the fancy buckra ladies who paraded themselves around the Pinnacle. Her hair was as long and straight as any white woman’s. Its color wasn’t the shade with which Betty had been born, but neither was it the obviously out-of-the-bottle red it had been when May had last laid eyes on her former daughter-in-law. It was brown. Chestnut brown. White-woman brown.
Betty’s skin no longer held any of its former warm tones. It showed tan, maybe olive, like she was one of those Italians. May felt certain Betty had been bleaching herself, and she doubted the woman had spent more than a minute in the sun in the five years she had been away. May released Jilo, but let her hand slide down the girl’s back and grasp ahold of her tiny fingers. She held the girl’s hand tight as she pushed herself up and advanced on the prodigal mother.
“What’s all this, then?” May parroted her, waving her free hand at Betty.
Betty released her grasp on the frame and took a backward step into the hall. May continued to will her back, away from her special place and into the sitting room. A pout formed on Betty’s lips as she took several awkward reverse steps. May’s eyes followed Betty’s, which were well fixed on Jilo. “She doesn’t even recognize her own mama. She doesn’t recognize me at all.”
May reached behind herself to close the door to her room. “How in the hell do you expect her to? You up and disappeared on her before she could walk a straight line, and now you’ve come here with no warning, looking like you stepped right out of Imitation of Life.”
Betty’s shoulders went slack and her face turned down. “I just thought she’d know . . . somehow.” A sorrowful glint in her hazel eyes very nearly touched May’s heart.
Jilo’s hand slipped from May’s grip, and the child took a few furtive steps forward, stopping just beyond Betty’s reach. Betty knelt and set her shopping bag down beside her. Her shoulders pulled back, as if in preparation to open her arms wide for a hug, but instead she turned a little to grasp the bag and set it between herself and her daughter.
Jilo turned back toward May. “Is she really my mama?”
May struggled, but couldn’t prevent a tear from falling. She couldn’t bring herself to speak, so she answered with a few quick nods, her heart breaking as wonderment filled her grandbaby’s eyes.
“Why, yes,” Betty answered for her. “I sure am your mama.” She reached into the bag. “And I brought you a present, too. You want to see it?”
Jilo cast another glance at May, her wide-open eyes questioning whether it was safe to approach this woman. Again, May signaled with a nod, trying to force a smile to her lips. She wanted Jilo to feel good about who she was, which would be a lot easier if she felt good about her mother. May felt in her bones this was only a visit. Nothing permanent. This could very well be the only chance Jilo ever had to lay eyes on her mama, and May would not take that away from her.
Following her nana’s lead, Jilo responded with a nod of her head.
A bright smile formed on Betty’s face, but May could still make out the traces of remorse in her eyes. Well, maybe all wasn’t lost for the woman after all, May reflected. At least she knew she should feel guilt. “Brought this for you all the way from New York City.”
“That where you been all this time?” The question escaped May despite her resolve not to ruin this reunion. She forced her tone to soften. “It’s only I thought you were livin’ in Atlanta, with that man. Porkpie.”
“Porkpie?” Betty’s forehead creased in confusion, then a laugh bubbled up from her. “Oh, you mean Walter. Good heavens, no. I ain’t . . .” She paused to correct herself. “I haven’t seen old Walter in years. I went up north with the band. I met . . . well, I decided to stay on . . .” Her words faded away, but May surmised she’d met another man. The one who’d paid for the fur. And for the dress that barely covered the woman’s knees. Betty pulled a rectangular box from the bag, and took off its lid before turning it around. Inside there was a doll with auburn hair and the palest of skin, delicate freckles painted over the bridge of its nose. Its cupid lips stood out, painted a bright Venetian red like that carpet at the Pinnacle.
“See?” Betty said as she tilted the box back and forth. “Her eyes open and close. Asleep.” She tilted the box back and the doll’s green glass eyes shut. She tilted the doll back to an upright position. “Awake.”
She held the doll out to Jilo, but when Jilo approached, she didn’t take the box. Instead, she traced her fingers along Betty’s hand, seeming to test if it were real, before laying her own small hand over her mother’s. Betty’s smile froze as she jerked back from her daughter’s touch. “Here you are, sweetie,” Betty said and pressed the box into Jilo’s hands. “The clerk said she’s called Flora, but I reckon you can name her anything you’d like.”
Betty stood and smoothed her skirt, signaling, May felt, that she was done with Jilo. “Where’re my other girls? Where’s my Poppy? My Opal?”
Your girls. May struggled to force her spleen down. “Yo’ Opal, she’s gone. Took off with a soldier to California, she did.” May didn’t say that she’d encouraged the girl to leave. Opal’s Nate was a fine young man, and he’d see to it that Opal finished her schooling. “Reckon she had more of her mama in her than I figured.” May regretted the words as soon as she said them, but the urge to strike out at Betty had been festering for so very long.
May didn’t even have the chance to register if her words had struck home. “She’s gonna be a nurse,” Jilo said, both hands clutching the box that held her gift, her eyes fixed on the doll therein.
A small smile formed on Betty’s lips, and her eyes moistened. “That’s good. That’s very good.”
“I’m gonna be a doctor,” Jilo said as she carefully removed the doll from its wrapping. “That’s better than a nurse.”
Betty laughed, a warm laugh that showed she did hold some affection for the child, but the look of disbelief in her wide eyes told May she was about to say something foolish. “Well now, that can’t . . .” May nearly used magic to will the fool woman to stop talking, but it wasn’t necessary. For the first time in her selfish life, Betty seemed to think about someone other than herself. She flashed her daughter a smile nearly as superficial as the one lacquered on the doll’s lips. “And you’re going to be a wonderful doctor, sweet girl. You will.” As she turned to face Jilo, the stole she wore shifted, revealing a damp spot on her blouse. “Why don’t you go practice on your dolly there, so your nana and I can talk?”
“I don’t . . .” the girl began.
“Jilo,” May said, turning the name into both a command and a warning. Jilo lowered her eyes, and her lips pulled into a pout. For the first time, May was struck by how much Jilo resembled her mother—a warmer, darker copy of the original. “Jilo.” This time her tone was softer, a request rather than an order. “Take your pretty girl to your room.”
“Yes’m,” Jilo said, moving at a reticent pace, casting a lingering glance back at her mother, as if she, too, understood she should freeze this moment in her mind. Then she turned away and began jabbering childish nonsense to the doll, inquiring about her ailments.
May’s eyes drifted from the back of Jilo’s head to the damp spot on her daughter-in-law’s blouse.
Betty tugged the fur so that it was covered. “And Poppy?”
“Poppy?” May said, nearly having forgotten that Betty had asked about her middle child as well. “Poppy. She’s good, but I’m afraid our Poppy doesn’t have much of a head for learning. At least not the book kind.”
“She’s pretty, though?” Betty asked.
May could’ve gotten angry that Betty would see “pretty” as her daughter’s best hope. Poppy was no scholar, but she was honest and hardworking. And there was nothing she couldn’t do with a needle and thread. Truth of the matter was, though, Poppy was pretty. No, more than that.
“Poppy is a beautiful girl,” May said, then quickly added, “on the outside and the inside, too.” Betty’s fur-draped shoulders relaxed. “She’s got herself work as a seamstress. Up in Charlotte,” May added, both hating that her granddaughter was so far away and worrying that she wasn’t far enough away. She’d never really accepted Maguire’s claim that his grasp reached worldwide.
“But she’s so young.”
“Only a year younger than you were when you married my Jesse,” May said, feeling defensive, but her words caused her to reflect on how Betty’s getting married too young had been the root of so many of their troubles. She bit her lip, then gave into an urge to provide the woman with a shred of comfort. “Don’t you go worrying about Poppy. Girl has a good head on her shoulders. She ain’t gonna get herself messed up with some boy. You wait and see, she’s gonna make something of herself.”
May stopped and took a good look at Betty. Her pasty skin and fancy clothes. Her pretty features and her selfish heart. May wanted to let the past lie in the past, find a way to forgive this woman, both for taking Jesse and for deserting her own daughters. But May soon realized that even though she might someday uncover a font of forgiveness in her heart, today was not the day it would happen. She folded her arms across her chest and took a wider stance.
“All right now, girl,” May said. “How ’bout you tell me what you really doin’ here?”
Betty moved her lips to speak, but before she could utter a word, May heard a high and piercing shriek coming from her own front porch. Her head jerked toward the sound. A baby’s cry—a tad less angry, but still just as desperate—reached her ears. She flashed a look at Betty’s crumpling face, then strode to the front door and yanked it open. On the other side of the screen door stood a young black woman, probably around Opal’s age, dressed in a dark gray maid’s uniform. Her tight lips twitched as her nervous eyes fell on May, but she continued to bounce a small bundle, the source of the shrieking, and pat the baby’s back.
May pushed the screen door open, the young woman taking a cautious step back as the door protested.
“May,” Betty said, her high heels clacking across the wooden floor as she rushed to catch up to her mother-in-law, grasping the screen door before the resentful spring could pull it closed.
May took in the sight of a shiny maroon sedan with a liveried driver—a white man—stationed at its side, but neither the man nor the scintillating hunk of steel held her attention.
“Turn it around,” May commanded the maid. “I want to see it.” The young woman hesitated, but then did as she’d been told.
May approached the bundled child, its face contorted by a degree of rage only an infant could muster. A balled-up fist flailed on the end of a chubby arm. May reached out and took the damp hand gently between her own fingers. “Yours?” May said to Betty, even though she knew the answer. The babe’s skin was the same warm copper shade as Betty’s natural skin tone. The hair on its head—a coppery red, not too very different from that of the doll Betty had brought for Jilo—caught the sun. The child’s eyes flashed open. As blue as a bachelor’s button. Just as May had suspected.
“Yeah.” Betty’s defeated voice came from behind May. “She’s mine.”
“Well it sounds like she’s hungry. If I were you, I’d stop nursing that fur you wearin’ and feed her instead.” May caressed the baby’s soft hand, then looked back at Betty, who seemed grateful to shrug off her stole.
Betty held the fur out toward the maid with one hand, and reached out for the child with the other. “Let me see her,” Betty said, then the two traded their burdens. Betty crossed to the far end of the porch and took a seat on the bench swing. She waited until the driver turned his back, and then her moment’s modesty surrendered to another piercing cry from the child. Betty shifted the baby to her left arm, and undid the buttons of her blouse with her right hand. The child took to the exposed breast, bleached pale as it was.
“I’ve been working on getting her switched to the bottle. I have plenty of formula, but these things,” she shifted so that her bosom jutted a bit forward, “just keep doing what they do.” Betty seemed apologetic.
“What’s her name?”
“Ah,” Betty said, her own face showing the relief of letting go of her milk. “I’ve just been calling her Baby, but . . .” Her words deserted her as her haunted eyes met May’s.
“But you reckon I can name her anything I want.” May felt a pain in her heart at the sight of the poor child in this hopeless woman’s arms.
“I can’t keep her,” Betty keened before managing to calm herself. “He won’t let me keep her.”
“Came out a shade too brown, did she?” May asked. Betty flinched, although May hadn’t intended to cause her more pain.
“He says I have to give her up.” She leaned back, shifting the child as she did so. “Wants me to turn her over to one of those horrible convents so they can adopt her out.” She patted the baby’s tight copper curls. “But you and I both know they ain’t never gonna adopt her out.”
May heard Betty’s real voice, her real words, not the practiced Yankee talk she’d been using since she arrived.
“You hopin’ he’s gonna change his mind, aren’t you? Hoping he’s gonna marry you.”
Betty laughed, a hard bitter laugh, as hot tears fell down her cheeks. “Mickey ain’t gonna marry me. He’s already married. And he’s Catholic.” She looked up at May. “I ain’t got no hope for nothing. I just can’t bear the thought of giving her over to strangers. Never knowing if she’s all right.”
May closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. When she opened her eyes again, she patted Betty’s shoulder. “ ’Course she gonna stay with me. I’m her nana, ain’t I?”
Betty’s eyes widened and a shudder of relief ran through her. “Thank you,” she managed before her words turned to throaty sobs.
“Now enough of that nonsense,” May said, a harshness rising unbidden to her words. She braced herself, looking for the strength to give this woman one more chance to do right. “ ’Course, you could stay, too. Finish raising your girls here with me.”
Betty’s sobs stopped cold, and her eyes opened in something very near to horror. “Oh, May,” she said, her haughty Yankee tone resurrecting itself in just two syllables. “I could never stay on here.” She cast a disapproving eye over May’s entire world. “No, I have to get back home. Back to New York.” She leaned a tad forward, as if she were about to share her most cherished secret. “You see, I love him.”
May nodded. “All right, then.” She turned to the maid. “You fetch the baby’s things. Bring them inside.” At the squeak of the porch swing, she looked back to see Betty standing, already holding her infant out toward May.
May accepted the child into her arms and pulled her into her bosom, even as the baby’s natural mother fumbled with buttons to hide her own exposed breasts. May turned to take the child inside, but Betty’s voice stopped her.
“I know I ain’t a good mother. Hell, I ain’t really any kind of mother at all.” She licked her lips, then rushed on as if to prevent May from responding. “I’m not a good woman. I’m selfish. I’m vain. I’m greedy. If there is a bad choice to make, you can bet your last dollar I will make it. But in my sorry life, I have done one thing right.” She paused and fixed May with her gaze. “I have left my girls in your care. ’Cause I want them to learn something I could never teach them. I want them to grow up like you.”
Betty pushed past May and hurried down the steps of the porch. She ducked into her shiny long car as soon as her driver opened its door.
This time, May had no urge to chase after this foolish woman child. Neither to punish her nor to beg her to stay. May stood firm, watching as the young maid struggled with the baby’s belongings as Opal had struggled with those damned cardboard suitcases so many years before. May ran her hand over the back of the now-sleeping child’s head, then placed a kiss on her brow. “Don’t you worry, little one. Your nana, she loves you.”