My Monticello(55)

Once everyone was there, Knox made his way back to me. Hands on my back, he hastened me to turn and face them.

We have to decide, I said, my voice edged in frailty or else jurisdiction. Right now, I said. There’s no more time.

It was with that sense of urgency that folks recounted the details of the day. Each small story linking into our larger one, until the whole of it belonged to all of us. Carol spoke about the armed men in the pickup and Knox described how the orchard people had sent us away. Mr. Byrd and Elijah, along with KJ, retold the story of the barefoot man approaching. Together, in bursts, we worked to pick apart and weigh his grisly message.

So now they snatching up and holding Black people, Ezra said.

Devin laid a hand on Ezra’s shoulder, to calm or comfort him, but making contact with Ezra’s exasperation only riled Devin’s own body back up. What you think they doing to that dude’s children? Devin said.

Papa Yahya ran a hand over his hair, which, when brushed back, held undulating ripples. Beside him, his son tugged at his elbow. His feet, Jobari exclaimed. Did you see his feet, Papa? Will our feet be like his?

I told everybody about the great plume of smoke we’d seen, how we thought the men might be gathering or camping at the old sanatorium, near the highway. I tried to describe what we’d seen of town: the fire-ravaged buildings and patchy broad damage, how it looked more widespread than what those men could do on their own. What else had happened down there? What was going to happen? When I described the ruin of our hometown, I thought I felt MaViolet’s gaze, bright and hot, on the back of my head.

Forty-eight hours, Mr. Byrd said.

Fresh anger, deep anguish, and a renewed sense of terror spread through the room, evidenced by new tics in the composition of our faces, by wringing hands and rocking feet. KJ backed into a grandfather clock, taller than his body, hanging against a library wall. Where’s my bag at, he called to the Yahya children. For real, did y’all move it, I haven’t seen it in days.

Mr. Flores said something softly, in Spanish. His older son, Edward, echoed him in faultless English, in a cadence native to our country, our state, our town, our street: a kind of prayer.

Below me, Yamileth tugged at my ragged hem, her dark hair streaming around her skinny teenage face. We cannot let them win, she said, her voice full of nerve and gravel. I felt just the same, but despairing too. They had all those people, all those vehicles and weapons. How could we win against their righteous rage?

We murmured to ourselves and to each other, trying to work out that impossible equation, to make it come out in our favor. The sun was already starting to sink, like it always sinks, the room slowly filling with shadows.

There’s no more time, I said again.

We have to leave, Carol said, standing up from the low green sofa and taking a small stumbling step. We’ll take what we can, and we’ll just—leave, like before. We can drive the other way, away from town. We can walk, even. We can find some other town. We can camp in a field—

I tried to move forward too, but my hip hit the jutting edge of the revolving stand to my right, recalling that old bruise, a feverish throb. I wanted to crawl back into bed with MaViolet, or to run. I was fast, I knew that now: I could be fast. But I could feel MaViolet behind me, twisting against those gritty bedsheets. In front of me, Jobari and Imani clung to Mama Yahya’s legs as if they were much younger. Lakshmi whispered something to LaToya, and I thought about Lakshmi’s long, frightening drive to her parents’ cul-de-sac and the old flag, hidden there. I could feel, as if encased in darkness, that turn we took too quickly, our rushed ascent, only to crash to a halt at the gate. The loose sound of Carol’s sandals against gravel and the moan that rose in me when I saw the stranger’s desecrated feet. Felt I could hear dogs barking in the distance.

We’ve got to stay together, I said. We’ve got to protect one another.

Ms. Edith was sitting in her chair in the bedchamber, looking through MaViolet’s tunnel of a bed at me. His will, she said. On earth as it is in heaven.

Ms. Edith, I knew, had marched with church groups on the streets of Washington, DC, back in the day. And in town, she’d hectored many a city official to serve our neighborhood too, rallying folks to speak up, to stand up for themselves. She’d come regularly to sit with MaViolet well before the unraveling and deep into it, bringing fresh food and gossip. I knew Ms. Edith as a person who prayed through action, with her raised voice and lifted hands. Even so, when Ms. Edith said “His will” I felt like we might as well throw our hands up and follow the path past Jefferson’s graveyard all the way back down beyond the welcome pavilion. File through the parking lot to where they’d found the stray bones of slaves—unadorned, unnamed—and lie on that rough uneven ground.

I could almost see us there.

We should fight, I thought, but I held my tongue. I must have muttered something, though, since everybody turned toward me again, each member of this new and chosen family of mine. Why is it we love what we love? I felt such love at that moment, for every soul in that space, because they were like me and different. Because we’d become a part of one another. I loved Knox, who had his hands on my shoulders as if to buffer me, lowering his sad and serious eyes. I loved the Yahyas in their bright colors. And LaToya, her hair half braided, half free, as she turned to look out the window; Ezra and Elijah too, like one side of a coin and the other. And Devin—I loved Devin, even if that love complicated everything. I loved all the children, coughing and playing, and Ms. Edith, out there in the wild rows. Even the rabbits’ twitching faces, the birds claiming blackberries. I swear I loved the rich and loamy earth and the trees, especially the trees. Because we are all part of one another and sacred together.