My Monticello(57)

And just that one time, Devin again.

Remember that day, Naisha, he said, leaning against the rough broad trunk of the tree behind him. How I said, it was something, what you’d done—building yourself up and still showing up in the neighborhood? It felt good, you coming to me, even if I knew you wouldn’t stay.

There’s no going back now, I said.

Could be, could be not, Devin said. Either way, it’s something, what you did: bringing us here.

Devin lit his cigarette with the Zippo’s steady flame. I hadn’t seen him smoke since that very first night, but now the smell of menthol filled the air between us. The glow made me able to see him more clearly, the scruff on his cheeks, his otherwise smooth brown skin, his eyelashes casting long shadows.

Last one, he said, then like it was nothing, he placed the Zippo in my hands.

Here’s the thing, Devin said, his voice wavering like it used to, way back. It doesn’t even matter why—not anymore. What matters now is the future, baby girl’s future. Promise you won’t come to me anymore. You and me are history. People like us, we do what we’ve got to do. What I’m asking you to do is go and tell him she’s his and make him believe it. Because, the way I see it now, she got more of a chance with him as her daddy. Tell him, and please, please don’t come around anymore.

I started to say something, to argue with him maybe. I wanted to say something to lift him up, and myself with him, but no words formed between my teeth and tongue. Devin flicked his last cigarette down and stubbed it out beneath his boot tread. He turned himself away from me so assuredly I knew he would not turn back. He walked to his far-flung room at the end of the terrace, leaving me alone and holding that small metal thing. Then I walked back to my room, to where Knox lay sleeping.


XIII.

Yesterday we started early, as if we’d never stopped. Almost twenty-four hours had passed since the barefoot stranger had arrived and shared the armed men’s intentions. We’d have one more full day to prepare, if what he said held true. We’d gone back and forth about it, whether the stranger’s stated timeline was a ruse. Maybe those men were on their way already. Or maybe they delivered a baseless threat to us in the hopes of scaring us off. There was no way to know for sure.

All day long we kept at it, between the hourly clanging of the newly wound clock, determining the best shooters among us, locating the most defensible lookouts. We divided our meager stash of weapons and ammunition, and chose evenly matched groups, like picking teams in grade school, each with a home base, a walkie, and a view in one of the cardinal directions, like Jefferson’s weathervane. Mr. Byrd and some of the others sharpened bits of metal, to mark a spiky perimeter below Mulberry Row. The SCFP students handed out Mace and face masks. It no longer felt safe to send an envoy up to Montalto mountain, but Devin and the twins skidded up on the slant roof to look down to try to see what was happening below.

As I moved along the south terrace toward our greenhouse room, I couldn’t help but notice how we’d transformed, yet again. In those intervening hours, everybody had bejeweled themselves with objects from the house. Carol and Ira were collecting food from the garden, but they sipped, every so often, from a pair of tarnished Jeffersonian goblets. The Flores men were dragging logs to make a blind along Mulberry Row, with Mr. Flores wearing a pair of binoculars, brassy and hanging from a thin leather string down his back. Georgie was splitting wood with Papa Yahya, who’d paired his cargo shorts with a billowy “Jefferson Everyday Shirt” I’d seen earlier in the giftshop. LaToya, who worked alongside Lakshmi and the other students as they painted a large banner, wore a tiny cowrie necklace on a chain at the hollow of her throat. Even Mr. Byrd’s belt, which held up his newly sagging khakis, looked suspiciously like a period piece. I heard Ms. Edith pause in the side yard to speak to him in passing. These daylilies, she said. Look at them, coming right on up. I suppose they won’t show their orange faces for a few weeks yet—

I paused just inside our giant window. I was still looking out at all of it when Knox came up behind me, placing his hand on the nape of my neck. All morning we’d been so terribly busy, with Knox running in one direction and me in the other, and both of us checking on MaViolet in between. Both of us doing everything we could think of, even if it did not feel like nearly enough. In addition to the sharpened metal, we’d run lines of wire between trees in places, to trip the men or bite at their shins if they came running up in darkness. We’d moved our food stores and water toward the center of the house. The kids dug a pit near the east walk and covered it with a sheet and leaves.

What else? Knox said, polishing his glasses with the edge of his shirt. My mind was racing; I threw out one variable after another.

What about the children?

We have them falling back to Mama Yahya, in the all-weather pass, he answered.

What about if they try to wait us out? I said.

Knox reminded me that the Flores brothers had set up those blinds so that they could pick men off. Shoot them. Discourage them. We’ve got water, Knox said. If they wait, we wait. Knox slid his frames back onto his face, where they’d listed to one side. What about your grandma? Knox said.

We’d been doing our best to make MaViolet comfortable, but she hadn’t spoken or even taken water in more than a day. Her bed smelled of urine, and when I’d last tried to wash her, with a basin and rag, I could see sores up along her body even though we’d tried to turn her. Each breath left her chest curved like a question, one that might not be answered. At least she’d go in a bed, I told myself, trying to feel some kind of relief, but not feeling it. By her bedside, folks had begun to leave vases or cups spilling with blooms: foxglove, lilac, sweet William. A handful of faded tulips. What did it mean, her being here, I wondered—what did it matter?