Memphis(19)

He had taken leave from officers’ training school the moment Miriam called. Took a helicopter from a discreet military facility, hopped on a military flight, and landed in Millington a day later. Entered the ancestral Memphis brick home, swung open the wide yellow door and scooped up his daughter. Spoke to no one but her for days. Kept stroking her soft, tight-coiled curls. Whispering into them, My Joanie. My Joan of Arc. My brave Joanie girl.

They were ten minutes early for the appointment. Miriam had made sure. Told August to wait in the car. Take Joanie for an ice cream, maybe. Or eggs, since it was still so early. They shouldn’t be longer than an hour.

Miriam had seen awareness spark in her sister’s dark brown eyes as she spoke. Looked like amber shining. Miriam didn’t have to say more. She had reached into the car window. She gave her sister’s hand, on the Cadillac’s steering wheel, a reassuring pat and followed Jax into the hospital. She didn’t need to look back. She didn’t need to verbalize her worry: What if they take her? What if they say I am an unfit mother and take my daughter? Get her out of here. Get her the hell away. Her sister had understood: That amber gleam in her eye flickered as she sped away, Joan strapped into her car seat in the back.

Dr. Seth Cobb was a petite man with long, slender fingers and a large forehead accented by glasses with thick black frames. His office was in the sixth-floor children’s ward of the Mount Zion Baptist Hospital, the same Memphis hospital where both Miriam and Joan had been born and where Miriam’s mother, Hazel, had worked as its first Black nurse.

The doctor was sitting in a plush tufted-leather chair with an array of degrees framed behind him, arranged on the wall like an offering. Joan had been seen by him earlier in the day, and before, on the night of the rape. Miriam and Jax now sat across from the man, who held his small chin up as he spoke, as if he were looking down on them.

Miriam twisted her gold rosary, while Jax, next to her, sat completely still. He wasn’t in uniform, but a crisp white Oxford shirt and pressed trousers.

Miriam withdrew teeth from lip and blurted out, “What are the next steps?”

“Her hymen broke. She has some scarring, but she will heal. I’ll send you home with some antibiotics for that.”

My God. My baby, Miriam thought. “She’s allergic to penicillin.”

The doctor poked his chin out even farther as he reached to examine some notes in front of him. “What happens when she takes penicillin?”

Miriam didn’t like his tone. There was doubt in it. Like he didn’t believe her. But she knew damn well what her firstborn was and was not allergic to.

“She breaks out in hives.” Miriam’s voice was strained. She spoke slowly, trying to be polite, cordial.

“Ah, yes. There are others. Not to worry.”

“I’m worried about my child, Doctor. About the trauma of it all. Will she remember this? For the rest of her life? Have to carry this around with her? We want…” Miriam took a moment to craft her sentence. “We want the best for our daughter. We are good parents.”

Dr. Cobb shrugged. “She won’t remember this,” he said flatly.

She couldn’t believe it. “And why do you think that?” Miriam asked. She gave up on pleasantries, did nothing to mask the contempt in her voice.

“Because the girl is only three,” he said, blunt, so matter-of-fact.

Miriam cringed. How he had said “girl.”

“Look.” Dr. Cobb folded his hands neatly on the massive desk in front of him. “I see a lot of cases like these. Too many, in fact. Abandoned children. Bad homes.”

It took all of Miriam not to stand in that moment. But for the life of her, she couldn’t help but hold up a lace-gloved hand. “My father is Myron North. The first Black homicide detective in this city. My husband is a captain in the United States Marine Corps. This suit?” Miriam grabbed at her collar. “Vintage Chanel. That girl wants for nothing. Nothing.” Miriam’s hand shook with fury.

“Now, I’m not saying that’s the case here,” he went on flatly, as if she hadn’t spoken, as if he hadn’t heard one word of Miriam’s emphatic proclamation of her family’s humanity. “I’m talking in general, understand.”

Miriam realized, with relief and horror, that her worst fear—Joan’s being taken away from her—was no more than fantasy. She doubted that this man would ever give a damn about the life of a Black child.

He continued, nonchalant, seemingly unfazed, his dry tone never breaking. “And she’s young.” He waved a hand. “It won’t affect her. At least not mentally. She’ll be sore for a few days. I recommend warm baths. Oatmeal baths. There will be some discomfort, of course. Urination may be painful, but the meds will help with that. Given her age, I will prescribe a very small dosage of pain medication for that. Bring her back in if the pain worsens or you see any blood in the urine. But it would be rarer than Halley’s comet appearing thrice in a season,” he said. “A three-year-old remembering her own rape.”

So help me, God, Miriam thought. Do not kill this white man. Compose yourself. Get it together. Ask him about counseling.

Just as Miriam opened her mouth, Dr. Cobb stood up and said, “Have a great weekend, folks,” then opened the door for them to leave.





CHAPTER 9