Glory over Everything: Beyond The Kitchen House(129)

“Look,” Fanny instructed me as she withdrew toys from the shelf. She handed down a doll-size table with two chairs, constructed of small twigs held together with bits of animal sinew. Beattie showed me her doll, then offered it to me to hold. I grabbed for it with such hunger that Beattie hesitated until her generous spirit won out and she released it. “Mama make her,” she said with pride, looking back to Mama Mae.

I gripped Beattie’s prize, my heart pierced with longing. The doll was made of rough brown cloth; her eyes were stitched in black thread, while black wool stood out in braids. I fingered the doll’s shirt, styled like the one the twins and I wore. She wore a red apron, and I recognized it as the same fabric as Mama Mae’s head scarf.

As dark descended, Dory and baby Henry joined us. They had frequently visited the kitchen house, where I had learned that Dory was Mama Mae’s eldest daughter. I liked Dory well enough, for she left me alone, but I wasn’t fond of the baby with his harsh cry.

Although distracted by the girls and their play, I kept a close eye on Mama’s reassuring presence. When the door suddenly opened, a huge dark bear of a man stood framed against the even blacker night sky. I flew to Mama’s side. Fanny and Beattie scrambled to their feet and ran to the man, who scooped them up. “Papa!” they cried. After he released them, they went back to their play, and with Mama’s encouragement, I joined them.

“Evenin’, Dory.” The man’s voice was so deep, he might have been underground, and when he paused by baby Henry’s mama, his large hand covered the top of her head. “How your lil one doin’?”

“Not so good, Papa,” Dory answered, not looking up from the bench where she sat nursing her infant. The child fussed when she gently pulled his swollen hands out to show her father. “When his hands get big like this, he cry all the time,” she said.

Her father leaned down and, with a knuckle, gently stroked the baby’s cheek. When he straightened, he sighed and then took a few giant strides across the floor to Mama Mae. The girls giggled and hid their eyes when their father reached for Mama, pulling her to him and playfully nuzzling her neck. “George!” Mama laughed, then shooed him off. When he stepped back, he caught my eye and nodded at me. I quickly turned away.

Belle was expecting a visitor, Mama Mae said to the man, as though to explain my presence, and the pair exchanged a look before Mama Mae turned back to the fireplace. She scooped out stew from a black pot that hung over the open fire, and Papa set the filled wooden bowls on the narrow table. Then she brushed the coals from the top lid of another black iron pot that was nestled in hot ash, and from it she removed a steaming round corn cake, browned to crispness around the edges.

The three adults pulled up small stools to the table, and Fanny and Beattie had me stand between them as they began to eat. But everything felt strange, and I wanted the familiarity of the kitchen house. With no appetite, I studied the food, and when Mama instructed me to eat, I began to cry.

“Come here, Abinia,” she said, and after I went to her, she hoisted me onto her lap. “Chil’, you got to eat. You need some meat on them bones. Here, I dip this into the gravy for you, and you eat so you get strong as Mama.”

The twins laughed. “You treatin’ her just like a baby, Mama,” Fanny said.

“Well,” Mama said, “maybe she my new baby, and I got to feed her. Now you open your mouth, lil baby.” I so wanted her mothering that I ate the corn bread she dipped into the thick ham gravy. She continued to feed me as she spoke of the captain leaving and how Miss Martha’s nerves were running over again.

Dory said she had to go back up to the big house tonight, no telling what Miss Martha would do when the captain left in the morning. Mama Mae said how she wished she could go stay with Miss Martha so Dory could stay with baby Henry.

Dory answered with a deep sigh, “You know it’s me she be wantin’,” and Mama agreed.

We had almost finished the meal when we heard muffled voices from the outside. Papa George began to rise, and my stomach clenched when Mama quickly set me aside. “No, George!” she said standing. “Me and Dory go. Won’t do nobody no good to throw another man in this stewpot.”

I heard footsteps coming at a run, and when the door flew open, Belle came in gasping for air. Her green head rag was missing, and her usual night braid was undone. Mama Mae pulled Belle inside before she and Dory rushed out. Belle leaned against the wall, panting, then straightened herself before walking over to the table, where she sat across from Papa.

Belle said, “She comes down after him this time. She never do that before. And Marshall, he comes with her. When she sees the new comb and the book he gives me, she takes them up and throws them at me. That starts Marshall pushing and hitting on me. The cap’n grabs him and sends him out the door, but then Miss Martha starts crying and hitting on him. He says, ‘Martha, Martha, get ahold of yourself,’ but she’s so worked up, he tells me to go get Mama.” Belle put her elbows on the table and rested her head in her hands.

Papa shook his head. “Did you ask for the free papers?” he asked.

Belle spoke through her fingers. “He says I’ll get them next summer.”

The air clicked with Papa’s anger, and when he stood, he pushed back the table with such force that two of the wooden bowls flew to the floor. “Next year! Next year! Always the next time! Something’s gonna happen here if he don’t get you those papers!”