Chapter 1 VERNICE My first word was "mother," spoken out loud and with texture. MOTHER. There was a host of witnesses, including Aunt Irene, who called out for God and considered running down the block to fetch the pastor. But before she could even straighten her skirt, she decided that this wasn''t a pot to be stirred by any man''s spoon. It was August, canning season, and the women were gathered to put away snap peas and pole beans. It was Louisiana hot, but even more so, due to the water boiling to purify the mason jars. Aunt Irene, never at home in the kitchen, busied herself plaiting my hair while everyone else hulled and cut up the harvest. The Ward Sisters sang out amid the thick radio static as Aunt Irene added her colorful soprano to the arrangement.
Sitting between her knees, I rested my face on her thigh, still as stone and just as quiet. Sharp against my scalp, a rat-tailed comb created precise parts. After the death of my parents, I had shown myself to be a peculiar child. No one could say if I was born that way or if I turned that way. I walked early and would do so in my sleep, escaping my crib. I once found my way to the front porch, where I was discovered humming with my face resting on the matted fur of a stray puppy. At two and a half, I had yet to speak. Folks worried that I was slow.
My cradle friend, Annie, was already talking up a storm. She even gave me my nickname, because Vernice had been too many letters for her to hold in her mouth at the same time. "Niecy!" she called, determined to shake loose a response. When shouting didn''t work, she tried kindness, breaking her shortbread cookie in two. I smiled in gratitude, and sometimes offered sloppy baby kisses in return, yet I didn''t say a word. Annie''s grandmother joked that Aunt Irene should be grateful for my silence. Annie never shut up, not even when she was asleep. Shut eyes quivering, she mumbled the name of her own mother, Hattie Lee.
"This baby will talk when she has something to say." Aunt Irene knew there was quickness in my eyes but feared that seeing my mama shot dead had shocked the words right out of my mouth. Others worried that I had been taken over. Spirits can be hardheaded and hold grudges--purposely missing their ride to the next place. When this happens, they might just set up house in a defenseless body. Aunt Irene shut that conversation down, dismissing it as "hoodoo"--her catchall word for anything not of this world that didn''t involve our Lord and Savior. That said, even though there could be substance to that hoodoo talk, she knew her dead sister, my mother. When Aunt Irene held my face to hers, she didn''t see Arletha staring back.
Because of this, but not only this, my aunt didn''t indulge any gossip. She knew what it was to be whispered about and couldn''t bear loose tongues lashing an orphan baby. But she was worried for a colored girl who seemed slow, even if she wasn''t, a girl who couldn''t say what had happened to her. I made people nervous, which is probably why no one objected when Aunt Irene ducked out from the canning kitchen and sat on the couch to fix my hair. I had been touched by blood, and not the blood of the lamb. There I was, this haunted child, not even whimpering as Aunt Irene raked the comb through the thicket at the nape of my neck. "Mother," I said, softly at first. As I raised my voice to a bellow, every heart in the house contracted, vulnerable as a scalded tomato gripped in a tiny greedy fist.
Only three women stood in that tight kitchen, but nearly the entire congregation would let the story play on their lips, sharing details as vivid as those of any eyewitnesses. Some say their throats closed to hear me call for Arletha, dead by then just over two years. They lost their breaths, the way you choke in your sleep when witches ride your dreams. Annie''s granny said she heard wonder in my voice like I gazed into the eyes of an angel. Aunt Irene said she understood it as a command, her dead sister telling her that I was hers for life. Only Mrs. Ola Mae, the midwife, attended to me. Scooping me into her stout arms, she cooed, "I hear you, baby.
" Annie, who had been in the kitchen yapping away, toddled up to Mrs. Ola Mae, arms raised to be held as well. We were both crowded onto her lap. I kept saying my new word over and over, but Annie was quiet for once, sucking my thumb as though it were her own. ___ Women in my family have never been particularly fruitful. My grandmother had only the pair of daughters to show for some thirty years of marriage. She never gave Granddaddy a son, though word on the street was that there was a boy down in Bogalusa who shared his middle name and narrow feet. Four years in the marriage bed, and my mother hatched only me, and I hadn''t come gently.
(Mrs. Ola Mae told my mother to name me Miracle but instead, she called me Vernice up top, and Irene just after--like all the women in our family.) Aunt Irene was what the old folks called "barren" but what she called "lucky." She figured this out when she was just a teenager, the summer a revival came to town. Aunt Irene heard that altar call and what was done, was done. When the tent came down and the saints moved on to Jacksonville, Aunt Irene had joined the choir. She also joined the associate pastor in whatever accommodations were available for colored travelers who happened to be servants of the Lord. "Have mercy, he was a pretty man," she said.
"Listen. If you ever get a chance in life, grab you a preacher--but just temporarily. Don''t fool around and end up being somebody''s First Lady." She laughed at the memory, grinning into whatever was on the rocks. "I was wild when I was a girl." Eight months later, she returned home slender as a daisy. Granddaddy flogged her like she was a runaway slave, so that the neighbors would be sure to hear her crying and know what was and wasn''t allowed in his house. My mother, just nine, passed on the words whispered by the ladies in the parlor.
These were grown women who dared not lift a finger while a skinny girl was beaten like a man. "They say you must can''t get pregnant, after all the you-know-what you been doing." Aunt Irene lay on the narrow bed that would end up being mine. "They just jealous," she said. "All these heifers got nine-ten kids pulling at their titties." "Not Mama. She just got us." "So what?" Aunt Irene said.
"It''s the worst when you resent your own daughters." My mother said, "I''m going to have me a whole bunch of babies." Aunt Irene said, "You''re not. But have yourself a lot of fun trying." As soon as she was healed enough to sit on a bus for four days running, Aunt Irene left Honeysuckle. She had some money that the reverend had given her and also the cash her mother squirreled away in a crystal candy dish. She left a note. In those days folks wanted to make things plain, putting it all in writing.
She didn''t write "Dear" because what she had to say was addressed to everyone on God''s beautiful earth. You can''t stay where they beat you. I don''t care who they is. She ended up in Ohio, just over the Mason-Dixon, where she lived for eleven years. No babies, no beatings. ___ "Don''t let nobody sprinkle dirt in your pocketbook." She shook her head at her folly. "There I was sneaking off in the night and Mama was two steps ahead of me.
When I opened up my bag and I felt that grit and saw that crop soil in the corners, all I could do was laugh. But that was because I didn''t have sense enough to believe in bewitchment." By the time Aunt Irene entertained me with her stories, I had grown into a normal-seeming little girl, bubbling with wonder. "How come you didn''t put Ohio dirt in your suitcase, so it could pull you back up there?" She gave a little nod to let me know that I had asked a good question. "First off, I don''t practice none of that hoodoo. I don''t believe in it, and I don''t not believe in it. Second, it''s only home dirt that can pull you back." Up in Ohio, as the purple cornflowers and lemon puffs were doing their thing, Aunt Irene had received a letter saying her mama was on her deathbed and wanted to make amends for letting her daddy whip her like that.
Saying she understood why Irene didn''t come back for his funeral. Services are for the dead anyway. Wouldn''t Irene come on home while her mama was still living? Her mother, who was deeply sorry, was dying of regret as much as diabetes. Sleep with this paper under your pillow for three nights before you say yes or no. It didn''t take but two nights. Without the protection of any talisman or charm, Aunt Irene returned to Honeysuckle. No matter who your mama is, or how long she''s been gone, you can''t help but miss her. When you are born, she marks you with her milk, even if you never tasted her breast.
That''s not hoodoo, it''s just the way the body and the spirit come together to make you a person. Despite Aunt Irene''s man already having himself a wife, he kept her content in a yellow-shuttered house. When she told him she needed to go home for one last moment with her mother, he paid her round-trip bus fare and kissed her like he would never see her again. Whether it was the letter or the crop dirt that brought her back, it was me that kept her there. Six weeks before she buried her mama, she ended up burying her sister--my mother. I was just six months old, so new that I had lived inside the womb longer than I had been breathing air. I took a bottle at night, but in the morning, Arletha opened her pink-checked duster and fed me from.