The Weight of Blood (68)

“My kind?” Maddy balked.

“Yes! Yes, child. Your kind. Negroes and whites were never supposed to fornicate, but I succumbed to that woman’s powers—”

“Papa, no, stop it,” Maddy whimpered.

“They don’t know what to do with someone like you. I knew this. I knew they would only see you as an abomination. That you didn’t belong . . . anywhere.”

Her neck strained. She couldn’t stay in the house another minute. Air. She needed air.

Maddy shoved him off and grabbed her purse, rushing down the stairs. Papa followed.

“It’s why I kept you so close,” he said, stumbling behind her. “It’s why I didn’t want them to know about you. They would punish you, not me. For what I did . . . with that woman. I didn’t want to see you get hurt, child.”

Maddy’s eye twitched. Fanning her face and neck with her hand, she tried to steady her breathing.

“Papa, please. You’re going to make me sweat, and my hair—”

“They’ll hurt you. They always hurt your kind!”

“I am just going to a dance,” she said in a deliberately calm voice. “Kendrick is taking me. I was trying to tell you he’s a really smart young man, and I—”

“From the beginning of time, they’ve always hurt your kind!”

“Papa, STOP IT!”

The radio shrieked. Papa flew up, banged into the ceiling, and landed on his stomach with a loud smack. The room shook, candles crashing onto the floor around them.

Papa moaned and spit out a broken tooth, his cheek filling with blood. Panicking, he reached for Maddy’s shoe just within a foot from his face, but his arm froze. Maddy had him pinned. His stomach turned, acid boiling in his gut, cooking his insides on high, his mouth glued shut to keep him from screaming.

She took a deep breath and swallowed back tears, torn between wanting to help him and wanting to kill him.

“Papa, I made your favorite,” she said in a small, shaky voice. “Meat loaf, mashed potatoes, and string beans. There’s cake in the fridge.”

Papa’s eyeballs moved frantically in their sockets, the only piece of his body that still belonged to him. The rest was under Maddy’s control. She gripped the invisible threads tighter, and he moaned.

“I know you’re . . . scared. I’m scared too. But there are some really nice people in the world, Papa, and we need to start believing that. I’ll be home by eleven. And then after tonight, you’ll see that everything is gonna be okay. We don’t have to be scared of folks finding out about me anymore. We can start living like everybody else.”

Papa jerked, willing himself free.

“No one is gonna hurt me. I promise.”

Papa moaned, trying to shake his head. Maddy sighed and stepped over him. No sense in trying to change his mind. She walked out onto the front porch just as Kenny made his way up the steps. Her mouth dropped, and she quickly slammed the door shut behind her, hoping he hadn’t seen Papa lying on the floor. She blinked, turning on the TV inside to mask Papa’s moans.

Kenny stopped short, backing up with a whistle. “Wow,” he mumbled, stunned.

Kenny wore a crisp black tux with shiny black shoes, the satin bow tie matching his lapels. The scent of his cologne made her heart skip. He looked straight out of a Cary Grant movie. Out of her dreams, dropped right onto her doorstep.

They drank each other in with sweet relief, chasing the desperate need to be together again. As her blood eased, she noticed a plastic box in his hand.

Kenny followed her eyes. “Oh! Um, this is for you.”

With buttery fingers, he took out a corsage of white roses and baby’s breath with a gold stretch band.

“Thank you,” she said, a blooming smile taking over her face. Kenny slipped it on her wrist, stealing a touch of her palm. He stepped back to admire her again, grinning.

“Um, should I say hello to your dad or . . . ?”

“No,” Maddy blurted, rushing toward him. “We can just go.”

Kenny frowned, glancing over her shoulder at the closed door as if debating his next move. Her jaw clenched, gripping the threads tying Papa to the floor tighter, praying Kenny wouldn’t ask to come inside.

He clicked his tongue. “Well. Okay then.”

Maddy smiled and loosened her grip. She could hear Papa cough out a wheezing gasp.

Kenny offered his hand to help her down the porch steps, held it all the way to his truck, and opened her door.

“I should’ve gotten us a limo,” he said as he started the engine, stealing another look at her.

Maddy rubbed a velvety rose petal between her fingers.

“I think your car is really nice,” she said, with a coy smile.

“Yeah, but you deserve . . . more.”

Maddy blushed, squirming at his gawking, then glanced back at the house.

Everything is going to be okay, she thought. She’d prove to Papa that the world was safe for a girl like her. That they didn’t have to hide and lie anymore. That he could let her go off to college and make a life for herself. All would be well. The night would be perfect and then he’d see for himself that he was so very wrong about everyone.

From David Portman’s Springville Massacre: The Legend of Maddy Washington (pg. 220)

It was tradition that the outgoing seniors of Springville High converged into a caravan downtown on the way to their respective dances. The townspeople would line the Main Street parade route in lawn chairs to catch glimpses of the partygoers in their fine gowns and tuxedos. Students would blast music, waving from cars and limo rentals, pausing to take dozens of pictures that flooded social media feeds.