Toni Morrison - Paradise

Meantime the nights were terrible.

On the fourth day, having brushed her eighteen milk teeth until the toothbrush was pink with blood, she stared out of the window through warm rain-sprinkle at morning people going to work, children to school. Then for a long time no one passed. Then an old woman with a man's jacket roofed above her head against the fine rain. Then a man tossing seed on bare places in the grass. Then a tall woman walked past the window. No coat and nothing on her head, she touched her eyes with the back of her arm, the inside of her wrist. She was crying.

Later, the sixth day, when the caseworker came, she thought about the crying woman who looked nothing at all like Jean-was not even the same color. But before that, on the fifth day, she found-or rather saw-something that had been right there for her all along. Demoralized by unanswered prayers, bleeding gums and hunger she gave up goodness, climbed up on a chair and opened the bread box. Leaning against the box of Lorna Doones was an envelope with a word she recognized instantly: her own name printed in lipstick. She opened it, even before she tore into the cookie box, and pulled out a single sheet of paper with more lipstick words. She could not understand any except her own name again at the top, "Jean" at the bottom, loud red marks in between.

Soaking in happiness, she folded the letter back in the envelope, put it in her shoe and carried it for the rest of her life. Hiding it, fighting for the right to keep it, rescuing it from wastebaskets. She was six years old, an ardent first-grade student, before she could read the whole page. Over time, it became simply a sheet of paper smeared firecracker red, not one decipherable word left. But it was the letter, safe in her shoe, that made leaving with the caseworker for the first of two foster homes possible. She thought about the crying woman briefly then, more later, until the sight of her became an occasional heartbreaking dream.

The wind that had been stirring the grass was carrying snow now-scarce, sandy and biting like glass. The hitcher stopped to pull a serape from her duffel, then ran to catch up and wrap it around the walker's shoulders.

Sweetie flailed her hands until she understood that she was being warmed, not prevented. Not once, while the wool cloth was being wrapped around her shoulders, did she stop walking. She kept on moving, chuckling-or was it sobbing?

The hitcher remembered passing a large house less than a half hour earlier as she hid among the crates. What took twenty minutes in a truck would take pedestrians hours, but she thought they ought to be able to reach the place before dark. The question was the cold; another was how to stop the crying woman, get her to rest and, once they reached shelter, get her inside it. Eyes like those were not uncommon. In hospitals they belonged to patients who paced day and night; on the road, unconfined, people with eyes like that would walk forever. The hitcher decided to spend the time talking and started out by introducing herself.

Sweetie heard what she said and, for the first time since she'd left her house, stumbled as she turned her smiling-or crying-face toward the uninvited companion. Sin, she thought. I am walking next to sin and wrapped in its cloak. "Have mercy," she murmured, and gave a little laugh-or whimper.

By the time they saw the Convent, Sweetie was cozy. Although she had felt none of the biting cold sweeping the road, she was comforted by the warm snow covering her hair, filling her shoes. And grateful to be so clearly protected from and unassociated with the sin shape walking next to her. The sign of Sweetie's state of grace was how badly the warm snow whipped the shape, silenced it, froze it and left it breathing heavily, barely able to hang on, while she, Sweetie, marched unbowed through the cutting wind.

Of her own accord, Sweetie slogged up the driveway. But she let the demon do the rest.

The woman who opened the door to the banging said "Ooh!" and yanked them both inside.

They seemed like birds, hawks, to Sweetie. Pecking at her, flapping. They made her sweat. Had she been stronger, not so tired from the night shift of tending her babies, she would have fought them off. As it was, other than pray, there was nothing she could do. They put her in a bed under so many blankets perspiration ran into her ears. Nothing they offered would she eat or drink. Her lips were shut, her teeth clenched. Silently, fervently, she prayed for deliverance, and don't you know she got it: they left her alone. In the quiet room Sweetie thanked her Lord and drifted into a staticky, troubled sleep. It was the baby cry that woke her, not the shivering. Weak as she was, she got up, or tried to. Her head hurt and her mouth was dry. She noticed that she was not in a bed but on a leather couch in a dark room.

Sweetie's teeth were rattling when one of the hawks, with a blood-red mouth, came into the room carrying a kerosene lamp. It spoke to her in the sweetest voice, the way a demon would, but Sweetie called on her Savior, and it left. Somewhere in the house the child continued to cry, filling Sweetie with rapture-she had never heard that sound from her own. Never heard that clear yearning call, sustained, rhythmic. It was like an anthem, a lullaby, or the bracing chords of the decalogue. All of her children were silent. Suddenly, in the midst of joy, she was angry. Babies cry here among these demons but not in her house? When two of the hawks came back, one carrying a tray of food, she asked them, "Why is that child crying here?"

They denied it, of course. Lied straight through the weeping that sifted through the room. One of them even tried to distract her, saying: "I've heard children laughing. Singing sometimes. But never crying."

The other one cackled.

"Let me out of here." Sweetie struggled to make her voice shout.

"I have to get home."

"I'm going to take you. Soon as the car warms up." Same sly demon tones.

"Now," said Sweetie.

"Take some aspirin and eat some of this."

"You let me out of this place now."

"What a bitch," said one.

"It's just fever," said the other. "And keep your mouth shut, can't you?"

It was patience, and blocking out every sound except the admonitions of her Lord, that got her out of there. First into a rusty red car that stalled in the snow at the foot of the driveway, and finally, praise, praise His holy name, into her husband's arms.

He was with Anna Flood. They had been on their way from the minute she'd called on her Savior. Sweetie literally fell into Jeff's arms. "What you doing way out here? We couldn't get through all night.

Where is your mind? Lord, girl. Sweetheart. What happened?"

"They made me, snatched me," Sweetie cried. "Oh God, take me home. I'm sick, Anna, and I have to look after the babies."

"Shh. Don't worry about that."

"I have to. I have to."

"It's going to be all right now. Arnette's coming home."

"Turn the heater up. I'm so cold. How come I'm so cold?"

Seneca stared at the ceiling. The cot's mattress was thin and hard. The wool blanket scratched her chin, and her palms hurt from shoveling snow in the driveway. She had slept on floors, on cardboard, on nightmare-producing water beds and, for weeks at a time, in the back seat of Eddie's car. But she could not fall asleep on this clean, narrow childish bed.

The crying woman had flipped-in the night and the next morning as well. Seneca had spent the whole night up, listening to Mavis and Gigi. The house seemed to belong to them, although they referred to somebody named Connie. They cooked for her and didn't pry. Other than discussing her name-where'd she get it? — they behaved as though they knew all about her and were happy for her to stay. Later, in the afternoon, when she thought she would drop from exhaustion, they showed her to a bedroom with two cots. "Nap awhile," said Mavis. "I'll call you when dinner's ready. You like fried chicken?" Seneca thought she would throw up. They didn't like each other at all, so Seneca had equalized her smiles and agreeableness. If one cursed and joked nastily about the other, Seneca laughed. When the other rolled her eyes in disgust, Seneca shot her an understanding look. Always the peacemaker. The one who said yes or I don't mind or I'll go. Otherwise-what? They might not like her. Might cry. Might leave. So she had done her best to please, even if the Bible turned out to be heavier than the shoes. Like all first offenders, he wanted both right away. Seneca had no trouble with the size eleven Adidas, but Preston, Indiana, didn't sport bookstores, religious or regular. She detoured to Bloomington and found something called The Living Bible, and one without color pictures but with lots of lined pages for recording dates of births, deaths, marriages, baptisms. It seemed a marvelous thing-a list of whole families' activities over the years-so she chose it. He was angry, of course; so much that it dimmed his pleasure in the extravagant black and white running shoes.