The Almost Sisters(88)

I felt my cheeks flush and said to Sel, “She’s sick.”

“S’okay. I knew I was black.” He flashed me a quick smile before turning to Frank, who’d returned with the pills. I hadn’t noticed him come up behind us until he was handing me an amber bottle. Sel said to Frank, “Can you get their first-aid kit?”

“Look how black he is, I said, you salty bastard!” Birchie was still talking to the portrait.

Frank, his whole face gone pink with embarrassment and stress, said, “Sure, yes, it’s in the pantry,” and went back up the hallway.

Birchie stared the portrait down. “We’re having ourselves a little, tiny black baby. Come next year there’ll be a tiny black Birch sitting at your table, eating up Vina’s recipe for sweet potatoes. Eating right off your spoons. Little toasty marshmallows. Off your spoons. How will you like that?” That girlish, awful laugh got out of her again. “How will you like sitting at this table then?”

She was blowing, puffing her air out, then pulling in a tiny panted sip on the inhale. The hectic splotches in her cheeks had spread to stains that ran from her chin to the outside of her brow line.

“How do we make those sweet potatoes?” Wattie asked, holding the napkin tight to her arm. “I forget. Do they take brown sugar or molasses?”

Birchie swayed, her head cocked. She was listening, but not to Wattie. The lifted fork trembled in her hand. Drool had collected in the corners of her mouth.

Birchie said, “He doesn’t like it, Wattie,” staring the portrait down, weirdly joyful.

“I’m sure he doesn’t,” Wattie said. “But I need you to tell me, how much butter?”

“Fuck those sweet potatoes,” Birchie said, her fury reigniting, but at least she was talking to Wattie now. Not a painting. Not the bones. “Why won’t you hear me, Wattie? You know him. You know, but you will not ever hear me.” Her gaze went right back to the portrait, and I knew we’d lost her again. “She knows you, you fuck, you fuck, you fuck-fuck-fuck.”

“Birchie?” I said, but she was gone.

She ran at the painting in a blur, screaming obscenities, faster than I had seen her move in decades. She drove the raised fork into her father’s painted face. The curse became a high animal keening, and she stabbed again and then again, as hard as she could, aiming for his right eye. Spittle ran down her chin, spraying his face as the fork caught. She jerked it out, tearing the eye away entirely. She took aim at the second one, stabbing true, then dragging it down the eye, scouring it.

I didn’t know her. I didn’t know this version of her, and my hands were on my own cheeks, and my cheeks were wet.

Sel was on her side of the table so fast I hadn’t clocked him going. He came up behind her, ignoring her banshee wail and the wild tomahawk chopping of her stabbing hand. He took Birchie in his arms in a single smooth movement, catching her wrist before she could stab the painting again. His long arms locked around her, pinning hers. She screamed and reared, her feet lifting off the floor as she kicked the air in front of her, her fluffy bun unraveling as her head thrashed back and forth.

“Oh, no, oh, no!” I said, helpless, watching my grandmother flailing and screaming in his arms.

“It’s all right, it’s all right,” Sel Martin said, as calm as Wattie, dragging Birchie back a few steps so she couldn’t kick the wall and hurt her feet. Both her shoes had come off, and I hoped the broken glass was all on my side of the table.

“Don’t hurt her,” I said, but he wasn’t hurting her.

His arms around her were firm and sure, holding her as she thrashed like a caught fish.

Birchie’s screaming thinned, devolving into a word. A name.

“Wattie! Wattie!” Birchie called, her voice shaking. Her body stilled, in pieces. Feet first, and as soon as she stopped kicking, Wattie was there, in front of her, dropping the bloody napkin to the floor so she could peel Birchie’s fingers open and take the fork. “Wattie!”

“Hush, baby, hush,” Wattie said, dropping the fork, too. It clattered onto the hardwood, and she put her hands on Birchie’s cheeks to still her thrashing head. Her arm continued to bleed, but she ignored it. She put her face near Birchie’s face and looked into her eyes. “I’m here. I’m here. Hush. Hush.”

“Call an ambulance,” Sel said to me, calm and sure.

Wattie said, “Don’t you dare,” in that same voice Rachel had used to send off Lavender. Unbrookable Mother, and it worked on all of us. Except the medical professional.

“I think we should,” Sel told us. “At least call her doctor.”

“I’m so sorry. I did not mean to upset her!” Frank said. He was back with Birchie’s first-aid kit from the pantry clutched in his hands. He set it down on the table, then put Birchie’s chair upright, and I was instantly so grateful. It was one less wrong thing in this room full of wrong things.

“It’s all right,” Wattie said. She kept her eyes fixed on Birchie’s eyes. “I’m here. You see me? I’m here. It’s just us here. We’ll have our medicine? Yes?” She held Birchie’s face firm in her hands, with Birchie’s long white hair loose from its bun and hanging down in strings over her face and Wattie’s hands. Birchie started crying.

“I’m so tired,” she said. “I’m so tired.”