My Monticello(43)

Wheeze, whine, wheeze, whine—

In this way, seconds or hours passed.

Then Knox was there and standing over the cabinet-room side of the bed, his hand hot on my back. He made me sit up, helped me to pull MaViolet to sitting so that her feet dangled. He prompted me to try once more with the inhaler. He made MaViolet sip at whatever was in the saucer on the bedside table—water or tea. Between rasping breaths, she choked a bit down, straining still. Straining less.

Much later, when the sky was alive with birdsong despite the rain, Ms. Edith came back, as always, to sit by MaViolet’s bed. I was exhausted, grateful for a reprieve, though I knew I would not be able to sleep. I found Knox on the terrace outside our room’s open window, his lanky body pitched against the brick exterior arch. His shirt, washed and worn again, looked thinner, the stripes across his chest faint. His hair, usually so neat, had grown out shaggily since the storms. He turned at the sound of my approach and I dredged up a smile for him, because MaViolet had survived the night, and because he’d smiled when he saw me, that old dreamy smile, if fleeting. In his haste to help, he must’ve dropped his glasses the night before. They looked like they’d gotten bent and reshaped; they made a new geometry of his cheeks.

Your name, I said, an imitation of the first night we met, across a table, with me marking his name on a tag. But my voice came out flat, even though I’d tried to infuse it with air.

Knox, he answered, sitting up straighter. What’s yours?

Da’Naisha, I said.

When I got close enough, he reached out to loop me into his arms, and pulled me toward him as if in slow motion, his chest sticky with heat. When I looked up, he was gazing far off at the ridge of low blue mountains. Just as slowly, with intention, he untangled himself, moving back to look at me.

I guess I don’t understand, he said.

I thought at last Knox would say something murky and true about me—about how I’d neglected to bring what MaViolet most needed, or how he sensed my unfaithfulness in the way Devin and I avoided one another. I nearly hoped he’d finally say he’d noticed my body’s soft revolution: the pregnancy I’d worked to keep hidden but that must’ve been showing itself in small ways. At that moment, I wanted him to say something shameful about me. But Knox only spoke of the world and its failings. The problems that desperately needed solving, and how they might be solved. There are people who can fix this, Da’Naisha, he said.

Why didn’t I just grab her medication, I remember saying.

Smart people, Knox persisted. People more than capable of restoring the lights, getting the planes back in the air. My father even—he’s brilliant. But there are other people, better people, groups who could come up with a plan to temper the worst of this weather we’ve made.

It had to have been in the kitchen, I said. Or else on her bedroom dresser.

We’re probably just in some terrible bubble, Knox said. I bet there are people working to get here, to town, I mean. It’s awful, this moment, but it’s probably fine elsewhere, in Maryland or in West Virginia. Hell, maybe it’s fine in Richmond. We can’t see it now, because we’re inside it. But this has got to be an aberration. It will be fixed. Then we can go back.

You could go back to town, I said. You should go.

Are you listening to me? Knox said. If things don’t get fixed, your grandmother is going to die here!

My body went flighty again, as if it was not nearly heavy enough to hold me, even if my bare feet remained squarely on the planked terrace. Behind me, in the house, I could almost feel MaViolet turning in her bed. I held my own arms, rubbing them, trying to wake my body up.

Da’Naisha—wait, Knox said, his Adam’s apple rising and falling at his throat. I’m sorry, honey, he said.

You should go back, I repeated.

It’s going to be okay, Knox said, as if he hadn’t even heard me. Maybe my words were garbled. Maybe I was already speaking into the dirt. I just mean it shouldn’t all fall on you, he said.

Knox kept saying sorry, his hands on my shoulders, my neck, pulling me to him. I could feel him kiss my earlobe, my jagged part, as he spoke: You’re going to become this incredible teacher. I’ll get hired somewhere in town, nothing fancy at first, but something in energy—geothermal, wind. Knox had pulled my head to his chest and I could hear his heart thumping. I’m just worried is all. What if nobody comes, he said.

I looked out over at the sky, thick with fog, and the Afro-ed heads of trees nodding, and the dark depressions of roads. More dangerous every day, Mr. Flores had said, and the students had seen the men driving at night, near the highway, until they had stopped seeing them. I was so tired I could’ve collapsed onto the beaded wetness.

I pressed my mouth into Knox’s chest. What if somebody comes, I said.


VIII.

When I opened my eyes, the light on the walls had shifted. I must’ve fallen back to sleep on my pallet because now it was fully day. I could hear muted footfalls around the house, the gentle creak of a door swinging. Someone called across the yard outside an open window. I lifted myself, made my way back to MaViolet’s bed.

I could hear her steady breathing, and there was a smear of color on her cheeks. Maybe she’d been listening for me. As soon as I walked in, she opened her eyes and spoke.

Grandbaby, she said.

She looked fine. Better than fine, but for how long?