THREE
April 1955
“You? You the one claiming to be able to work the root?” The woman had only been in Jilo’s house a matter of minutes, but she was already struggling to pull her heavy frame up out of Nana’s haint-blue chair so she could leave. “I ain’t got time for none of your nonsense.”
“I wish you would give me the chance to assist you with your difficulties,” Jilo said.
The woman snorted. “You ain’t got none of the Hoodoo in you, girlie,” she said, laughing, her fat cheeks, mottled with rosacea, rising as her jowls jiggled. “Anybody with eyes can see that.” She huffed and puffed, but couldn’t wrest herself out of the chair on her own.
Jilo’s early optimism about resurrecting her grandmother’s business had faltered quickly. It wasn’t easy finding folk who would place their faith in her particular brand of Hoodoo. She’d done her best to imitate her grandmother, but truth was, she didn’t know the first thing about working the magic tricks that fueled her nana’s act.
Though Jilo sometimes felt remorseful that she was perpetrating out-and-out trickery, not even backed by the belief of those who practiced genuine Hoodoo, Nana had taught her that sometimes a little deception was the best way to free people of the fears and beliefs preventing them from leading happy lives. Jilo had read in magazines about people spending hundreds, even thousands, of dollars to undergo years of psychoanalysis, just to work through childhood traumas that might not—in reality—have ever happened to them. No, she wasn’t claiming to be able to cure disease or help people strike it rich; she was just putting names to their fears, setting up boogeymen only to knock them down.
After her first go at “magic,” Jilo had called upon her nana’s faithful clients to tell them she was taking up the mantle. Word began to spread, especially after she cleared herself and Robinson out of Nana’s old room and returned it to the calling room it had been in the heyday of Nana’s business. But after a handful of visits, the trickle of callers had dried up. Nana had a touch that Jilo did not seem to have inherited.
So desperate was she for customers, Jilo had actually been happy to welcome this vile woman into her home. It was midday, so she had turned Robinson over to Willy’s care before leading the visitor into the haint-blue room. Though Willy was a few years younger than Binah, he’d left school long ago. He could read. Some. He could write. A little. It had been almost a year since the government had proclaimed white schools had to be open to black children, but Savannah was having none of it. And with only a handful of schools in the city open to black students, no truant officer would ever come looking for Willy. Jilo wasn’t his mama, even though it was sure starting to feel like it, so she didn’t force him to go.
“Don’t just stand there like a natural-born fool, girl.” Her visitor’s forehead had bunched into a concertina of angry wrinkles. She was holding out an arm for help out of the chair, probably had been for some time. Jilo hated the thought of touching the woman’s pasty, sweaty flesh, but she realized that helping the rotund old woman rise would be the only way to get her out of the house. Besides, she’d faced plenty worse in her nursing days. Bracing herself, she wrapped her fingers around the woman’s clammy wrist and pulled until the woman managed to shift her heft from her haunches to her feet.
“Naw, girl. You ain’t got none of the root in you. Just look at you.”
“I’ll have you know my grandmother was Mother Wills, and her mother was Mother Tuesday Jackson . . .”
“ ‘I’ll have you know . . .’ ” The woman parroted the words back to her and cackled, her small gray eyes peeping out through curtains of flesh. “Listen to you. I don’t give a damn who whelped you. You walk around here puttin’ on airs like you somebody. But you don’t know nothin’ about the root, you just another uppity Negro, done got yo’self a bit of learnin’ on how to talk fancy. Think you smart enough to pull the wool over folks’ eyes, but I done seen through you, girlie.” The woman ambled toward the door, then turned back. “I don’t fault you none. I saw those diapers out there drying on the line. I know you ain’t got it easy.”
Something about the woman’s sympathy angered Jilo more than her insults ever could. She didn’t want this woman’s compassion. “I think perhaps you should leave.”
A yellow, snaggletoothed smile broke out on the woman’s face, and the red patches on her sallow jowls seemed to catch fire. “I’m already on my way, girlie.”
Jilo turned away, lunging toward the window she had painted over in a color similar to, but not quite the match of, her grandmother’s haint blue. She opened the window, wanting to banish the woman’s scent, then turned and followed her out of the house. Standing on the porch, she watched the woman’s back as she trod away, her steps leaving heavy impressions in the sandy soil.
When the woman was far enough away that Jilo felt sure she wouldn’t turn back, Jilo went and sat on the porch swing, giving herself the gift of listening to the silence. The quiet felt peaceful for a moment, then due to what she could only guess was her burgeoning maternal intuition, it struck her as worrisome. In an instant, all thoughts of her disgruntled visitor faded. She pushed up from the swing, feeling it slip back away from her, and pushed her way around the argumentative screen door. The house was utterly silent, which only alarmed Jilo further. Willy wasn’t prone to silence.
She almost called out, but instinct told her not to. She passed through the front room, then crept down the hallway, ears straining for the slightest sound. Perhaps both Willy and Robinson were sleeping? She slid up to the bedroom door and wrapped her hand around the doorknob, which she turned ever so carefully. The mechanism still clicked, but it was a soft, nearly unnoticeable sound. She eased the door open, relieved to see the baby sleeping on the bed, surrounded by pillows to prevent him from rolling off. She craned her head around the door, where, unaware of her presence, Willy stood before the mirror, admiring himself in the dress she’d once worn to the Kingfisher Club. The night she’d met Guy, her mind reminded her, though she was quick to alert the part of her mind that considered that an important fact to shut the hell up.
“Willy,” she said, stepping into the room. “What in the world are you getting up to in here?” she asked as if she didn’t already know the answer to her question. As if she hadn’t always known the answer.
Shock turned Willy’s face into a nearly comical mask—his eyes wide, his mouth open and working like a fish trapped on dry land. “I didn’t mean no harm. I didn’t.”
Jilo felt herself flash hot and then cold. She bit her lower lip as she considered the situation. “You get out of that dress,” she said, each word a command in itself, the path she was going to take becoming clearer as she stepped onto it. “Then you get your clothes on, and get out of this house.”
“But I got nowhere to go. My pa. He said he’d kill me if he ever laid eyes on me again.”
She hated it. She had known. She had always known. But seeing it with her own eyes had made it more real. She cast a glance at her still-drowsing son. “I’m sorry, I can’t have you around Robinson.” She started to turn away.
“I love him. I wouldn’t hurt him. I wouldn’t.”
She stopped and turned back. “I’m not saying you’d hurt him.” She felt her heart reach up into her throat. “I know you’d never hurt him. But I can’t have you around him. I can’t have him learning”—she waved her hand in wide circles in his direction—“this.”
“But I didn’t learn this. Ain’t nobody taught me.” Fat tears burst from his eyes. “If it was something I had learned, don’t you think I would’ve done all I could to unlearn it?”
Damn. Jilo wanted to turn her heart to stone as she watched Willy’s head fall forward, his body, still dressed in her old blue cocktail dress, racked with sobs. She fought her own instinct to step forward and put her arms around the sobbing boy, who had lived under her roof for months now. His words and his sincerity touched her, and besides, what exactly was she so worried about? Messed up as Willy must be, she knew he would give his life to protect her son.
Maybe if Robinson had a father, a strong, male figure around to keep him in line? Then a question rose in her mind, one she didn’t like very much. This child before her. With his big heart. When it came down to it, would she rather have Robinson grow up like him or like Guy?
No. It was impossible. She couldn’t have Robinson growing up around a boy like Willy. She couldn’t take that chance.
No, a very different part of herself spoke up: What was impossible was to send Willy away, especially since he didn’t have anywhere to go. She loved the child too much. Was she hypocrite enough to punish him for this confirmation of what she had always felt to be true?
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, wishing she believed in God, so she could ask for guidance. Instead, she asked her own troubled heart what to do, but to her disappointment, it couldn’t supply her with a definitive answer. The path that had for one moment seemed so clear grew hazy. She crossed the room to Willy and lifted his chin up. His eyes were red, and full of fear.
Why would you want this, boy? she wanted to ask, but didn’t. It seemed to Jilo there was only one thing in this world treated with less fairness and respect than a black man, and that was a black woman. “You take that dress off. Put on your own clothes.” She paused suddenly, wondering why it should matter so much anyway, but a fearful part of her own heart felt that it must. If it didn’t, why would folk make so much of a fuss over it?
“I haven’t made up my mind,” she said. “I’m not saying you can stay on. Not permanently. But you don’t have to leave today.” He fell into her, wrapping his arms so tightly around her she had to fight to catch her breath. She managed to free one arm, which she wrapped around his back, pulling his sobbing head into her bosom. “Shhh . . .” She comforted him just as she might Robinson. “Shhh . . .”
Jilo laid the hen down on the wide, bloodstained tree trunk they’d been using as a chopping block, her subconscious saying a prayer her conscious mind would rebel against, for the beast about to die at her own hand. She held the bird tight and swung the hatchet hard, doing her best to make sure the hen didn’t suffer. The body kicked a few times, but did not, much to her relief, find its feet and take off running. She’d seen that happen once when she was girl, and it had put her off chicken for nearly a year.
“Willy,” she called out. He came out the back door and down the steps, carrying a pitcher of water and a kitchen towel. Without being prompted, he poured water over her outstretched hands till they were as clean as hands that had just taken a life—of any kind—ever could be. He handed her the towel, and she wiped her hands dry. “You finish plucking her, then singe off the fuzz.” He nodded. “There’re matches and some newsprint in the drawer in the kitchen. You know which one?” He nodded again. Of course he knew. He’d lived with them for nearly a year now. This, she realized, was his home. “You be careful. Don’t burn yourself. And make sure you keep the fire good and far from the house. You hear me?” He nodded a third time. She realized he was afraid to speak lest he say something that would change her mind. She reached out, letting her fingers brush his cheek, and said, “When you’re done, bring it in. I’ll cut it up and get it ready for frying.”
She heard the cry of the front screen door, announcing Binah’s return. Oiling the door never worked, and it occurred to her for the umpteenth time that she ought to have the thing replaced, but at this point it would almost be like losing an old, if annoying, friend. She went in through the kitchen, where Robinson seemed content enough sitting in his high chair and banging a wooden spoon against its tray, and headed down the hall. She stopped before the open bedroom door. Binah sat on her bed, the contents of her book bag spilled out around her. Jilo entered the room and closed the door behind her.
“Please tell me you aren’t in love with that boy.”
“In love with what boy?” Binah looked up at her, one arched eyebrow and a confused smile on her face. Her eyes widened as meaning of Jilo’s question seemed to dawn on her. “Willy?” She began laughing, then her laughter stopped abruptly, and any signs of amusement fell from her face.
Jilo folded her arms across her chest and nodded at the chifferobe where she kept her clothes. “You know about him, don’t you?”
Binah’s look of concern faded, her mouth pursing and her brows edging downward. She pushed herself up from the bed and stood directly before Jilo. “Yes,” she said, and paused. “I know. And if you’re telling me you didn’t, at least deep down, then you’re lying to both of us.”
Jilo looked away, casting her gaze at the floor near Binah’s feet. She took a step back, reaching behind her, and opened the door. “Willy,” she called loud enough to make sure the boy would hear her out in the yard, even though she suspected that he was lurking nearby, straining his ears to hear what they were saying, rather than cleaning the bird like she’d asked. “Bring Robinson and get in here.”
“What are you doing?” Binah asked, a fierce, protective tone in her voice.
Jilo felt a tiny bit proud of her baby sister, who seemed to have transformed into a fierce mama lion ready to defend her cub. She didn’t say a word till Willy appeared in the doorway, Robinson in his arms.
Willy’s face looked ashen. His lips were trembling, and his eyes looked like the dam was going to burst at any moment. Jilo pulled Robinson into her own arms. “You can stop with all that. I’m not,” she said, then paused. “We’re not sending you away.” The boy looked up, his expression brightening, but still cautious. “Now get in here.” Willy stepped across the threshold, his shoulders slumped forward, still expecting the other falling foot to crush him.
Jilo shifted Robinson onto her hip, then lugged the ever-growing boy over to the chifferobe. After tugging open both doors, she turned back to face Binah and Willy. “I still don’t understand this. Any of this,” she said, “but then again, there’re a whole hell of a lot of things in this world I don’t understand.” She cast a quick glance down at her own boy, hoping that she was doing right by him, then returned her gaze to Willy. “Out there”—she nodded toward the door—“you won’t be safe if folk were to learn about this. There are a lot of people who’d want to kill you. You understand me?”
“Yes ma’am,” Willy said.
If his expression weren’t so grave, Jilo might have snorted over his calling her ma’am. But it was, so she didn’t. Instead, she swallowed, forcing herself to soften her tone. “Maybe someday, some place, things will be different. For your sake, I hope so. But for now, that’s what we can expect. In here, though, with that door closed, you’re safe. You do what you need to do.” She crossed back to the chifferobe. “These things on the left side.” She made a show of running her hand down the garments. “You can have them. They don’t fit me anymore anyway. The things on the right, though? Those are mine. Do not touch them.” She paused, casting a glance down at the boy’s feet. “And Willy?”
“Yes,” he said, his eyes welling up again, from relief, she hoped, or maybe even happiness.
“You scuff up or stretch my shoes, and everything I just said about you being safe is off. I will kill you myself.” His face froze. “Just so we’re clear.” She closed the chifferobe’s doors and headed back into the hall. She gave Robinson a slight bounce, then looked back over her shoulder. “Now get out here and help me finish making dinner while Binah does her schoolwork.”
The three of them sat on the wide front porch, beneath the artificial haint-blue sky. Beyond the porch’s overhang, night was fast approaching, replacing the blue with brilliant roses and oranges. Before today, Jilo would never have dreamed of nursing in front of Willy, who was sitting on the porch with his back to the front wall, but tonight they all felt like family. So while she rocked on the swing next to Binah, Jilo undid the buttons of her blouse and shifted her fussing baby to her exposed breast.
As Robinson nursed, Willy and Binah chattered on. Mostly about how bad they needed to buy themselves a television, so they could watch I Love Lucy along with the rest of the country.
Jilo used the ball of her foot to rock the swing back and forth. She looked down at Willy. “You already spend half your life listening to that damned radio.” Jilo was both annoyed and pleased that he’d forgotten how tenuous his living situation had been only hours ago. “Besides, if we don’t find a way to start getting some money in around here,” she said, giving voice to her own more pressing worry, “we may not have anywhere to put a television set.”
Binah locked eyes with her. “What do you mean?”
“I mean we have to pay taxes on this place. We don’t pay taxes, they’ll come and take the house away from us.”
“Who are ‘they’?” A vertical line formed between Binah’s brow, and her eyes narrowed. “This was Nana’s house. Now it’s ours. Nobody has the right to try and steal it from us.”
“The law. That’s who ‘they’ are. The law. And ‘they’ say we’re stealing from them if we don’t pay taxes. They take from us, and then they tell us we’re the thieves. That’s how it works, my sister,” Jilo said, regretting that she had brought the subject up. A tumultuous day had led into a pleasant—happy, even—evening. She should have held her tongue. It was just that she had begun to feel mighty alone when it came to dealing with the problems that life kept bringing.
“What about that fat woman? The one who smelled?” Willy asked.
Jilo pursed her lips, her nose wrinkling as she remembered the woman’s sharp onion scent. “She didn’t believe that I have any of the ‘root’ in me.” Jilo said, shifting Robinson to her other breast. He fussed a little as she did, but he settled down as soon as he realized dinner wasn’t over.
“But nobody does,” Binah said, her eyes bright with humor. “There’s no such thing as magic.”
“Yeah, well, you know that, and I know that, but if we’re lucky, the rest of the world isn’t going to figure that bit out.” She pushed the swing back again, then let go. “She said she could see I didn’t have the Hoodoo because of the way I look. The way I talk.” Jilo felt the woman’s words grate at her once again. “She said I was just ‘another uppity Negro.’ ”
“She didn’t believe in you . . .” Willy said in a hushed voice. Jilo twisted to get a better view of him. “She couldn’t believe in you, ’cause you didn’t match what she was expecting to see.” He stared forward into the deepening twilight. “Sometimes you just gotta show folk what they want to see.”
“Tell her,” Binah said. “Tell Jilo about Audrey.”
Jilo had believed she knew every person in these two children’s worlds, so the unfamiliar name surprised her. She was intrigued, but Willy fell silent.
“Go on, I’m listening,” Jilo said. “Tell me about this Audrey.” Willy shook his head, drawing his knees up into his chest.
“Go on, Willy,” Binah coaxed him.
Jilo glanced at her sister before returning her attention to the boy. “Go on. Tell me. Who the hell is this Audrey friend of yours?”
“She isn’t a friend,” Willy said, then his mouth clamped shut.
“Go on, Willy,” Jilo said, softening her voice. “I want to hear about her. I do.”
Willy raised his eyes to meet hers. “You saw her. You saw her today.” He pushed himself up. “I know you think this is me,” he tugged on the tail of his shirt. “This boy you looking at, but he ain’t me. Not really. Willy isn’t the real me. He’s just someone I pretend to be. He’s a shell I wear. Audrey,” he said the name with reverence, “that’s who I really am. On the inside at least. To get by in this world, I make believe I’m Willy. But when I’m alone. When I’m really me . . .”
Jilo tugged her nipple from Robinson’s lips, surprised to find he was already sleeping. She handed the baby to her sister and buttoned her blouse, not quite sure how to react to the boy’s admission. Should she get on her knees and take Willy into her arms? Or should she pretend she’d never heard any of it?
Willy looked up at her. “You need to make yourself a shell. One you can wear when you dealing with people looking for Hoodoo. You need to give them what they’re looking for. When you dealing with them, you can’t just be Jilo. You gotta be Mother Jilo.”
Jilo froze. His words chafed her, but they struck her as the absolute truth. She’d been trying to sell candy in a box marked “soap,” and there weren’t many folk willing to believe it was candy on the inside. She needed to create a package that matched what she was selling. Jilo stood, pushing the swing back as she did. “So who is she then, this Mother Jilo?”