Memphis: A Novel(66)

When Miss Dawn raised the crystal glass in a toast, Hazel thought her long fingers were a marvel to behold. Miss Dawn sipped her whiskey. Hazel thought she looked like Circe considering Odysseus’s ship stranded offshore.

Hazel stood smoking her cigarette, one arm braced against the other. “I never told him,” she said shakily, though she knew Miss Dawn already knew. “How am I—what on earth—what the hell am I going to tell August when she’s older? What am I going to tell folk when they ask all her life where her daddy is?”

“Tell folk the truth,” Miss Dawn said after some time, shrugging her shoulders, the red of her dress iridescent even in the dark of the unlit kitchen. She took a shot of whiskey, and the wide arms of her dress resembled newly struck fire. “Tell ’em that nigga dead.”





CHAPTER 29


Miriam


2001


Miriam’s hips swayed as she walked in the September light up to Jax washing his Shelby in the driveway. Remembering countless late afternoons when she would blend a pitcher of margaritas and sashay it out to Jax, tinkering with his car in the drive. He hadn’t aged much in the past six years. The only difference was there were more medals and stripes fixed to the lapel of his Marine Corps uniform.

Miriam eyed him for a time. The day before, she and August had stood on the porch and watched Joan, Mya, Bird, and Jax climb into the low black Shelby.

August had shaken her head, reached into the deep folds of her kimono, and withdrawn a cigarette.

Miriam arched an eyebrow. “Let me have one of those,” she said, hand extended. August eyed her sister. “Oh, shut up and give me one.” Miriam snatched the Kool from August. “I been through it.”

“And I haven’t?” August asked.

Miriam turned, and her face spoke a thousand apologies. “We all have,” she said. She nudged August, gave her a playful jab. “Plus, it’s only one cigarette.”

August clicked her tongue against her teeth. “You had one last night, too,” she said.

“Okay, Mama,” Miriam said. She saw then, to both her horror and pride, that Joan, not Jax, was backing the Shelby out of the drive. “That girl.”

“She’ll be fine,” August said.

Miriam coughed on her first inhale of the Kool.

August rolled her eyes. “Put that damn thing out. You ain’t proving nothing.”

“Why you always think I’m going to turn to drink or become addicted to something?” Miriam had choked out her question.

“?’Cause you light-skinned, your husband a damn Yankee.” August exhaled. “And your kids crazy.”

And now, in the morning light, Jax wore only a wifebeater as he threw a soapy rag into a bucket and then onto the hood of the Mustang. He and Bird had been in Memphis for two days.

“Remember when I tried to sell the damn thing for free? The sign in the yard?” Miriam figured Jax wouldn’t flinch at the sound of her voice, even though his back was to her. He was a Marine, after all. In all their many, many fights, Miriam could never get the upper hand, could never conquer the element of surprise.

“I remember,” he said, as he ran the wet rag along the Mustang’s spine. “Was in the Officers’ Club when Mazz burst in hollering that I better come and see what you had done.”

Miriam laughed. It was a bitter one. “Why you here, Jaxson?” She was tired of having him in the house. The scent of him was overpowering. It brought back too many memories, that sandalwood, that musk, that shoe polish, the cigarettes. It was hard for Miriam to stomach.

He paused in his cleaning. “To see my girls.”

“Our,” she corrected.

“Our,” he repeated.

“No, mine.” Miriam pointed an angry finger to her heart. “I’m the one raised them these last six years. Me. Without any help from you. Not a dime. You think it’d be any different had you died? That inferno on the TV, that hell you escaped, is nothing, nothing compared to what we’ve lived through here. And you didn’t see us jump into a car and come find you.”

“No, you jumped into a car and left.” Jax stood, his voice rising.

“I saved myself,” Miriam shouted back. “You were hell, Jax. Nothing but.”

Jax kicked over the bucket of soapy water. It hit a stone and flipped itself over. Water splashed around their feet. Miriam watched in silence as the bucket slowly rolled down the drive and rested at the mailbox.

Jax hung his head. His shoulders went up and down as a heavy sigh escaped him. “I know I wasn’t the best husband—”

Miriam crossed her arms, scoffed.

Jax raised an eyebrow, threateningly. He began again. “I know I wasn’t the best. But Meerkat…” He cleared his throat, shuffled his feet.

Miriam’s stomach turned at the sound of her pet name. She hadn’t heard Jax say it in years. The sound of it brought her back to when she was first pregnant with Joan. At month eight, she had worried and fretted over every burp; every pass of gas became an instant alarm of labor.

“The Gulf got the better of me,” Jax said, pleadingly now. “It got the better of me, Meer.”

Miriam took in the full picture of him. He looked pitiful. A tall, dark man ravaged by ghosts and war standing in her driveway, holding a soapy rag, apologizing to her in the best way he could. Years ago, hearing regret in his voice would have meant everything to her. Now she found it meant almost nothing. She had raised their daughters the best she could without his help. Raised them to ensure that they always provided for themselves, never relied on the whim of a man, because how far would a Black woman get with that? In that moment, Miriam remembered what Jax had spat out at her one day: