Memphis: A Novel(18)

The baby had been a girl.

“Joan,” Miriam had christened her daughter.

“And she saw things others couldn’t,” she’d said simply to Jax when it was all over.

And now, Miriam had come back to Memphis to give birth for a second time. Jax was away at officers’ training, a yearly sojourn for any high-ranking Marine Corps officer. He would miss the birth of their second. But Miriam had been adamant that her second daughter be born in Memphis, too.

Miriam, though she missed her husband, was thankful to be back home with her sister and her young nephew. Joan loved the house too, her tiny body explored the house like a calico kitten, always hiding in the crannies of the antique furniture. August had given birth eight years before, to the first son in the North household in generations. She spoke little of his father, and Miriam, not wishing to upset her sister, asked few questions.

From their spot on the porch, the sisters looked out across the street at a pecan tree in the neighbor’s yard, swaying gently with the breeze. They sipped their drinks, though August’s sweet tea was laced with whiskey. She was draped in a new silk kimono Miriam had gotten her.

“How you feeling?” August asked.

Miriam didn’t answer. How her sister asked, the tone of her voice—as if her sister were approaching a weak, injured feral animal—reminded her of the night of her wedding.

August, almost fifteen years old at the time, had been standing behind her, wrapping Miriam’s long curls into tight pink rollers. Miriam wore a long silk nightgown with a thousand white cranes outlined in emerald sequins throughout the long folds of fabric.

Their mother sat on the edge of the quilted bed of the girls’ room, watching. Al Green had been crooning from the record player. Don’t look so sad. I know it’s over. “How you feeling?” Hazel had asked. She wore concern on her face like foundation.

“Mama,” Miriam said, sighing, trying not to roll her eyes in exasperation.

“You know she in love, Mama. Though, Lord knows why,” August said.

“I love y’all two crazy girls, Lord knows why,” her mother had replied, a coy smile on her face. Then, after a pause, the smile evaporated. The concern was back. “Meer, y’all hardly know each other.”

“I know I want him,” Miriam said.

“Being the wife of a Marine is a hard, hard thing.”

“So is being alone.” Her mother was silent. Miriam regarded the large sapphire resting atop her left ring finger.

“You’d drown for sure,” August said, laughing.

“August!” Miriam hissed. “If anything happens, I’ll come home, Mama.”

All ya gotta do is, all ya gotta do is make believe you love me one more time, sang Al Green.

“My lovely, beautiful daughters, both of you can always, always come home,” her mother had said, swiping tears from her eyes.

Now Miriam felt tears prick the corners of her eyes as she looked down at her pregnant belly in the porch swing, wondering if she’d always think of this house as home. If her future children would. Her sister sat next to her, gently kicking out her feet to keep the swing in motion.

“I wonder if the pecans are ready to pick,” August said. A few had fallen in the wind and bounced around the neighbor’s gnarled tree’s roots before settling in the dark thicket of the lawn.

“How’s school going?” August had gotten accepted to Southwestern—now called Rhodes—the spring before and had thrown herself into her studies.

“All I do is read and write, it seems. I can read a novel by the time we finish this bottle.” August drank.

“You still not talking to God?” Miriam asked. Why was she this way? This critical of her lovely, brilliant sister? The only one in the family not a believer.

“About what?” August said, spitting the words out in a staccato bitterness.

“You know it’s not His fault Mama died.”

August swirled the ice in her glass, stared into it, took a sip. “Who the hell else’s fault is it?”

A bang—the massive yellow front door had opened, the wind catching it with a force that flung it against the side of the house and back again.

“What on earth?” August began. “Derek, bedtime was hours ago.” She stopped speaking just as abruptly as the door had opened.

Miriam had to angle her head since August was so much taller, but she finally saw Joan.

Joan was naked from the waist down, the top of her Kermit the Frog pajamas disheveled and part of it caught in the curls of her hair. Thin streaks of blood trickled down her brown, baby spider legs. Her eyes were wide as saucers but dry as bone, staring through the twilight and autumn wind.

“My God,” August whispered. Her glass fell then, toppling into the folds of her kimono and soaking the cushions of the porch swing.

Miriam did not remember standing up, but she must have moved like lightning, because she was suddenly on her knees on the porch floor, her arms around Joan, trying to absorb her daughter’s body into her own, whispering, “Oh honey, oh honey, oh honey,” as if it were a spell that would make everything all right. She’s three, she kept thinking. She’s only three years old.

August found the wire hanger in Derek’s room. One end twisted, slick with blood.

A week later, Miriam and Jax sat in a pediatrician’s office in Midtown Memphis. She wore a pink suit with big black buttons that ran down the front, lace gloves, her hair pinned up. She had wanted to appear as respectable as possible. Within the chaos of the week, the Department of Children’s Services had visited the house, had taken Derek away for counseling, for state-mandated therapy, taken him away for months. What if the same were to happen to Joan? It was a thought too frightening to bear. So she put on her Sunday best. Made sure Jax did the same. He wouldn’t let her adjust his tie in the morning dawn. Swatted her hand away without a word. Miriam noticed the sweat dripping from his thick, close-cropped hair, as if he had sprinted from the plane. He likely had.