Midnight Without a Moon(6)
As Ma Pearl and Papa walked the Chicago-bound family to their train of a car, Fred Lee, with his shoulders hunched and his fists clenched, left the house and headed to God only knew where.
Me? I collapsed in the chair next to the window and peeled back the curtain, my heart breaking when I peered out. Piling into that shiny black car, smiling, Mama and her family looked so happy, as if they had stepped off the pages of one of those Sears and Roebuck catalogs in the corner. And I would’ve torn off my right arm to join them if I could have. I spent six years wishing I could be a part of her and Mr. Pete’s family. Now they were heading to Chicago, leaving my life and Fred Lee’s for good.
I tried to hold back. I had promised myself I would never cry over Mama again. But I couldn’t stop the flood. Tears gushed out before I knew it, racing down my cheeks, rushing over my trembling lips. I hugged my knees to my chest, dropped my head, and sobbed into the folds of my dress, welcoming the tears, urging them to hurry, to flush the pain from my heart. I sat there trembling and sobbing, burying my face in my dress, wanting to block out the world, until the sound of slamming car doors jolted me to my senses.
My tightening chest reminded me that I couldn’t bear another chastisement from Ma Pearl for wearing that tear-soaked dress in her pristine parlor. I gave my face a final swipe, sprang from the chair, and fled to the back room to release my tears in private.
Chapter Three
MONDAY, JULY 25
BEFORE OUR OLD ROOSTER, SLICK CHARLIE, even had time to crow, Ma Pearl called my name from the doorway of the bedroom. “Rose Lee,” she said. “Git up, gal.”
I didn’t move. Monday meant laundry, cooking, and cleaning. And that was all before noon. After that, I had to go to the field. Besides, with Mama gone, the heaviness in my heart had radiated down to the rest of my body, paralyzing my arms and legs. When Mama was a car ride away in Greenwood, I knew I would occasionally see her when she felt the need to have Mr. Pete drop her off for a visit on a Saturday afternoon. But with her all the way up in Chicago, I’d be lucky to see her once a year, when all the other northern Negroes paid the South a visit. If she ever decided to come back, that is.
“Rose Lee,” Ma Pearl said again. As long as her voice remained low enough so she would wake only me and not Queen, I pretended to be asleep. But when she leaned inside that sheet-covered doorframe and said, “Gal, git up. You going to the field this morning,” I shot up faster than a stalk of corn in the middle of July. Laundry, cooking, and cleaning were bad, but going to the field all day was worse.
I didn’t bother putting my housecoat on over my thin nightgown or even rubbing the crust from my tired eyes. I dashed out of that room and chased Ma Pearl through the house, asking, “How come I gotta go to the field this morning, Ma Pearl?”
I stumbled through the moonlight of Fred Lee’s room, on through the darkness of Ma Pearl and Papa’s room, all the way to the soft glow of the kerosene-lit front room. The floorboards of our old house creaked with every step.
For a big woman, my grandma sure could move fast. I panted as I tried to keep up. By the time we reached the kitchen, I was sweating. And it didn’t help one bit that our old woodstove in the corner was lit up like a campfire.
Ma Pearl lumbered over to the icebox and pulled out a bowl of butter. A basket of fresh eggs from the henhouse waited on the table while the nutty aroma of coffee percolated in the pot. Without even a glance at me, she finally answered my question. “Albert and his boys cain’t make it today.”
I shaped my mouth to protest, but she cut me off. “Don’t complain.”
When she sealed her words with a steely-eyed look, I plopped down on the rickety bench next to the window and yanked back the faded yellow curtain. It was still black outside. The only indication of morning was a pink haze lingering over the horizon at the end of the long rows of cotton. The yellow glow in the barn meant that Papa was already in there preparing for a long, hot day. I yawned and wondered why I was up before Fred Lee, seeing that he had to go to the field as soon as the sun came up too.
On a normal Monday, before I worked like a slave in the house, I would go out to milk Ellie while Queen lay around somewhere curled in a ball, pretending she had the monthly cramps. I let the curtain fall and peered at Ma Pearl. “Is Queen go’n milk Ellie this morning?” I asked.
With her face in a tight frown, Ma Pearl dipped flour from the croker sack with a tin can and poured it into her sifter. She held the sifter over her scratched-up mixing bowl and cranked the handle. Like a soft dusting of fresh snow, flour flowed into the bowl. When she was good and ready, Ma Pearl paused, pursed her lips, and glared at me. “You know that gal cain’t tell a tit from a tat,” she said. “You go’n milk Ellie. You got time.”
Like a small child, I crossed my arms and pouted. I couldn’t believe I would have to go to the field all day and still be expected to work around the house. With the help of Mr. Albert Jackson, who lived a few miles down the road from us, and his two sons, Levi and Fischer (Fish for short), I at least got a break from the field two mornings a week.
“What happened to Mr. Albert ’n’em? How come they can’t come today?” I asked.
Ma Pearl’s pudgy fingers pinched the butter into the flour. While she worked at the mixture until it resembled yellow cornmeal, her eyebrows knit into a deeper frown. “I said they cain’t come.”