Take My Hand(50)

The girls poked each other and giggled. I had not seen them act like this since before the surgery.

Everybody sat at the table, and I reached for another biscuit as Nellie talked on and on. The sound of her voice soothed like a rush of air, and none of us interrupted. I ate until my belly was full. Then I slipped my shoes off under the table.

“I’m so glad you made greens, Pat, because I didn’t have time,” Nellie was saying, “and I’m just hoping that pie holds up until after dinner, because them Joneses love to stick they fork into the dessert before dinner over.”





TWENTY-SIX





I had not fellowshipped with a family like this in a long time. All of my grandparents were dead by the time I turned thirteen years old. Daddy was an only child, and Mama just had one sister with no children. I didn’t have the dozens of cousins that so many Alabamans had, so being in that house fed my soul. We ate, rested and talked, and then ate again. We must have sat at that table for hours. They were talkative people, and it took the pressure off. I just listened and nodded.

After dinner, we sat around the table drinking coffee. There was Ricky, an auto mechanic from Lowndesboro who had married a much younger woman, Dina. They had three boys all under eight years old, who ran around the house chasing one another with toy guns. Dina kept an eye on the boys, punctuating their squeals with “Stop that running now!” Ricky just smiled and picked at his teeth with a toothpick. During dinner, the youngest boy sat in his daddy’s lap and ate from his plate.

“His first wife passed away. They never could have children,” Mrs. Williams whispered when we cleared the tables and moved into the kitchen to stack plates. “He love them boys more than a dog love a bone.”

Just as Nellie had said, Patsy and Doe were tall for women. They were sisters and had once babysat India and Erica. Both of them were magazine-cover pretty with identical puffed Afros and hoop earrings. Patsy sat beside India at dinner and kept refilling her lemonade and offering her more food. I caught Doe just staring at Erica, as if weighing what life would be like now for the girl, as if trying to determine if this barrenness was something you could see with your eyes.

Although we had not spoken about it at dinner, I was all but certain everyone had heard about the surgery. When Nellie introduced me, they observed me for a second longer than normal. At one point, a latecomer showed up—Tim, Mace’s brother-in-law. It was Tim who broke open the dam while we were sipping our coffee.

“Y’all see the news today?”

In the back of the house, the high-pitched voices of the children drowned out the din of a TV set. Only the adults were still seated at the table. I leaned back in my chair, focusing my eyes on the dusty light fixture overhead.

“Which channel?” asked Nellie. “We don’t get all the channels out here.”

“All of ’em,” Tim said.

Mace touched a finger to his temple. I took another swallow of coffee, and the movement drew Tim’s eye. He looked at me as he removed a section of the paper from his back pocket, unfolded it, and spread it out on the table. I wiped at some crumbs on the table where my plate had been and sneaked a peek at the paper headline.

Lawsuit Filed in Federal Court Against Montgomery Family Planning Clinic. Everyone looked down at it. Nobody had to read to know what it was about. There was a picture of the girls someone had taken of them outside their apartment.

“Y’all going get some money?” Tim asked.

“We going get justice for my granddaughters. That’s what we after. The man say—”

“Justice?” Tim’s voice rose. “My sister is rolling over in her grave, and you talk about justice? Justice was this thing never happening in the first place.”

“Don’t you speak about my wife,” Mace said.

“She was my sister before she was your wife. And what you done, huh? Messing up the only thing she ever loved more than herself.”

“And where was you?” Mrs. Williams interjected. “Where was you when we was living in that doghouse out on old man Adair’s farm and the rain was coming through the roof? Did you ever come see about your nieces?”

Nellie stood. “Let’s not talk about this, y’all. Ruin a good dinner. I’m going to go get the rest of the pie.”

I wanted to read the article so I could see if it mentioned Mrs. Seager. I also wanted to know what Lou’s complaint alleged. I had brought the Williamses out here to see their family, but the devil’s mess had followed.

It had been almost two months since the surgery, and it had been hard to gauge how much word of it had spread beyond Montgomery. Now that the lawsuit was filed, it would be beauty-shop gossip, church basement tittle-tattle. The clinic wasn’t well known, but it would be now.

“Stop playing!” I heard Erica yell. I wanted to go see what they were doing. I hoped the boys weren’t terrorizing India, but I knew Erica would defend her sister.

“What you got to say, Mace? Huh? How this happen, man?”

Tim wasn’t trying to stir trouble. The man was hurting over it. Everyone at that table had to be hurting over it. It occurred to me that I didn’t belong here. This was a private family moment, but I couldn’t figure out how to get up from the table and excuse myself.

Mace’s voice sounded strained and high. “I don’t know. I can’t explain it myself. Them white folks come to the place near about every day. Always asking questions, leaving me papers I can’t understand. We wasn’t starving, but getting that bit of assistance helped, man. I work hard as a mule, but it ain’t never enough. Mr. Adair give me just enough to scrape by.”