Jilo (Witching Savannah #4)(5)
May, well, she’d married Reuben, and his job, as well as his inclination, had demanded they stay in Savannah. May glanced over at the empty plot between her husband and her mother, both chilled and comforted by the knowledge that she would one day take her rest there.
But there’d be no rest for her today. Even though many of her kin had come bearing baskets of food to share, she’d have to see to feeding the horde descending on her home before packing them back into their vehicles or pointing them north toward the train station. Family as thick as a swarm of locusts today, and nothing but loneliness to contend with tonight.
The caretaker of the cemetery stood at a distance, leaning on the same rake he would use to scrape the grave clear of the pottery as soon as the last of the family was out of sight. The cemetery belonged to the city, after all, and Savannah had no more room for the family’s traditions than her fool of a daughter-in-law did.
May was surprised to see a young white man approach the caretaker. Even from this distance, which made it hard to get a good look at his features, May could see his suit appeared well made, expensive. His light blond hair caught the light. May wondered what interest this buckra could have in an old black woman’s funeral, his gaze fixed as it was on the dwindling party. She watched as the caretaker nodded his head again and again, like it was on a loose spring. He seemed anxious to convey his understanding of—or perhaps agreement to—the white man’s words. The two conversed for another minute or so, then the white man reached out and patted the caretaker’s back. He turned away and headed toward a shiny black car waiting just outside the cemetery gate. As the buckra drew near, another man, dressed in livery, rushed to open the car’s back door at the exact moment of his arrival.
“You recognize that fellow?” she asked Jesse with a small nod at the car that was already pulling away. An overtired Poppy began crying and tugging on her father’s pant leg.
“No ma’am,” Jesse said, holding out the baby for her to take. She accepted Jilo from him and wrapped her in a tight embrace. Jesse knelt to scoop up Poppy. “Probably just someone looking for the entrance of the white section. We should get back to the house now. Folk are there already, I bet.”
“Maybe,” she said, “but seems to me that a fellow who can afford a car like that would have sent his driver to ask directions, not come on his own. No,” she shook her head, feeling a chill run down her spine, “I think that man wanted to get a good look at us, at what we’re doing here.”
“I recognize him,” her sister-in-law Martha said, drawing near and leaning in like she had good gossip to share. “That there is that Maguire boy. He’s probably come looking for your mama’s help.”
It was true, her mama had occasionally met those seeking her assistance at the cemetery’s entrance. Still, the young man’s presence didn’t sit right with her.
“Help for what?” May found her gaze turning back to the caretaker, who shifted uneasily from foot to foot under the weight of her stare.
“It was all in the papers yesterday. His father, big man Maguire, had a bad stroke the same night your mama passed. Looks like he might not be long for this earth either. Reckon the doctors told the boy they can’t help his daddy, so he came looking to see if your mama could.”
“Well, he came a bit late for Nana’s help,” Jesse said, hefting Poppy up onto his shoulders.
“That he did,” May said, placing her hand behind Jilo’s tiny head and hugging the girl close. “That he did.”
THREE
Cousins, uncles, and aunties were spread out around Jesse’s mama’s house and yard. The older folk, those around Nana Tuesday’s age, sat crammed tight inside the darkened living room, taking their turns at soughing, snoring, and fanning themselves as one reminiscence after another rose up and got passed around, either prompting smiles or birthing discord depending on the memory and how it was either recalled or misremembered. Family members his mama’s age and younger had taken to the out-of-doors, sprawling out on blankets beneath the shade afforded by the tall oaks at the rear edge of the property, praying for a breeze.
Jesse’s aunties by blood hovered around the kitchen, getting under his mama’s feet, arguing over the cooking. Aunties through marriage, the wives of his father’s kin, knew better than to join the fray, choosing instead to watch over the children, both the little sleeping ones like Jilo, and the wild, older ones, who were roughhousing and running around, shrieking with laughter until someone would remind them of the passing they’d come to honor. For a time, the laughter would fall silent, replaced by an unnatural, though blessedly temporary, stillness.
Jesse didn’t like the quiet. When it got quiet he could hear his family’s whispers.
That his mama owned this place outright stood as a matter of pride for the whole family. Not many folk around Savannah, white or colored, owned their own houses, and this one even had enough land for a vegetable garden. Jesse’s daddy had been a cook on one of the Central Railroad’s executive cars. He’d worked for years to squirrel away the money for this house, not wanting to marry until he had a home for his wife. That was why he’d married a woman sixteen years his junior. “I was his queen,” his mama often said of his daddy, “and this place here,” she would add with a tone of solemn pride, “was his castle.”