Memphis: A Novel(55)

August closed her shop that week. No one in the mood to get their hair done anyway. Get dolled up to sit in front of the TV and cry? August closed the shop, and she and Joan sat in silence most of the day until Miriam came home from the hospital and rushed to Mya’s bedside. The girl would not move from her bed. August walked past the quilting room and caught sight of Miriam, still in her scrubs, stroking Mya’s hair and whispering things to her. Mya moved not.

On the third night, August heard the doorbell again. Everyone was home that night: unusual. Miriam had to work most nights, but she’d pulled back on her shifts that week. It was far past everyone’s bedtime. Midnight had come and gone. But no one could sleep, so no one told anyone else to go to bed. August, Miriam, and Joan sat around the kitchen table, forks in hand, eating directly from Miss Jade’s pan of chicken noodle casserole, which she had pushed into August’s hands earlier, shaking her head and exclaiming what a shame it all was, somehow every lady up in this house loses a daddy.

Wolf raised her head from Joan’s feet and growled.

August turned to her sister. Perhaps it was instinct. The basic, intrinsic knowledge of danger can overwhelm a body. Or perhaps August, born on a Wednesday, had been accustomed to woe. But she knew that knock on the door was no neighbor.

“Fetch Mama’s gun,” she whispered to Miriam.

August saw her sister nudge herself out of the booth and walk, very calmly, into the quilting room. When Miriam came back, walking in those same slow strides, she tossed the Remington to August, who caught it midair, nodded for Miriam to follow her.

The door pounded again. The bell rang.

Wolf uncurled herself with some effort from Joan’s feet. The years were getting to Wolf. She moved a bit slower, but her protective instincts had kicked in. She got into a stalking position, crouched low to the ground. She had stopped growling; now she crept, inching toward the door, whimpering slightly.

“Mama?” Joan asked. “Auntie?”

August led, and Miriam was her shadow. The sisters walked as calm and graceful as some ancient African queens: out of the kitchen, down the hall, through the parlor, and up to the door. The bright yellow of the door dulled in the dark of the September night; the door now resembled tall maize in a night field. The door became something August had to wade through, a field of yellow poppies that August had to cut back, regardless of their Siren’s power. But she made it to the door, and just as August leaned to peer through the peephole, the door’s golden hinges shook with more pounding.

Her head jerked, and she jumped back. She didn’t get a chance to take a good look, but she’d seen enough to know that two unknown men stood on their porch steps at nearly two in the morning.

“Mama?”

August heard her niece. Heard the worry in her voice. Joan must have followed them to the parlor.

Gently, Miriam pushed August out of the way and took her place at the door. She held the door handle. August could tell Miriam sought her approval.

August gave it with a quick nod. In one swift motion, she aimed the rifle, and Miriam swung the door open.

“No!” Joan cried.

As the September wind rushed in and August tried to make out who was standing there in the dark, the first thing she became aware of was Wolf. She stood up straight and made an unexpected sound—not a threatening bark or a growl, but a submissive, almost curious whine.

August kept the Remington aimed. Her eyes adjusted, making out the figures on the porch, and involuntarily, her shoulders contracted, then relaxed, then contracted again. For a second, she thought about pulling the trigger anyway.

“Well, damn, Jax. We survived all hell just to get killed by some crazy Negresses in North Memphis.” The voice was male, foreign, and yet familiar.

August felt herself grow nostalgic. She lowered the weapon so it hung loose at her waist, and then, after a few deep breaths, rested the handle on the hardwood floor, barrel toward the ceiling. August had opened that same door for this same man many, many years before.

“Joan,” August said, breathless, panting the adrenaline out of her system. “Your daddy and ’em here.”





CHAPTER 25


Miriam


1968


In the early evening, Miriam paused on the way home from her piano lesson to regard her figure reflected in the sheet of ice coating a house window. There was no denying it. She was the exact image of her mother. She had the same doe eyes, the same shade of brown skin; she even bit her lip the same way when she was deep in concentration. She was beginning to grow hips that she expected would eventually turn into the curved vase of her mother’s figure.

Miriam sighed, disappointed.

She had wanted to look like her father: tall and dark. It was her way of being close to the man she had never, and could never, meet. Let me have his face, please God, Miriam prayed. Instead, she thought she looked like one of the calico kittens that came to her porch in the evenings: bright and petite, the spitting image of Hazel. She couldn’t hate her looks, though, not after August was born five years before and Miriam saw both her and her mother’s eyes staring up at her from her baby sister’s face. And maybe God had been listening, just a little late, because even though she knew August’s daddy wasn’t Myron, her sister had that darkness, that long body, that Miriam had always wanted.

The blizzard of two weeks before had added an extra minute to Miriam’s routine walk from Douglass Middle to her home on Locust Street. It was still freezing outside. Patches of ice and dirty snow lined the curbs. When the snow began, Miriam’s mother had gone into a dark lacquered chest with Japanese geishas painted across the top and pulled out Miriam’s winter coat. Her mother shook her head, muttering that she had just put the coat away for the season.