Edward Jones - All Aunt Hagar's Children

So she decided that at the next stop, wherever they were, she would buy a ticket back to Picayune, Mississippi. There was not anything George could say that would change her mind. This the weight of pretty. I’m going home, and that one thought eased her heart. This the weight of me goin back home.

As the evening went on, she saw her life after the next stop: Once the train dropped her off in Picayune, she would have a six-or-so-mile trip to her parents’ place, to her home. If the weather was bad, she knew she would not have a problem getting a ride on somebody’s buggy or wagon or in a car. White or black, they knew her father, a good man, a no-nonsense man, and no one would deny his daughter and she would reach home unmolested. But she had a feeling that God would have perfect weather when she returned, so she would leave her suitcase and trunk at the train station to be retrieved later, and then she would walk the miles. Besides, her heart would be broken and she would feel that the walk would do her good.

Her train rounded a corner and swayed and the people swayed with it.

In Picayune, she would take off her new shoes just beyond the station. She had lived barefoot most of her life in Picayune, and so that is what she would return to. The town of Picayune was a small place and the walk through it would take less than thirty minutes, depending on whom she would see along the way. The speckled dog that always lounged outside Moss’s general store would walk beside her as always to the edge of town. Then it would turn back, afraid of leaving the known world.

It would be morning, and she would say “Good mornin” to all, white and black, as she went down the main street. And everyone would say “Good mornin” back. The newlywed come home so soon, they would whisper. What could be the matter? What did he do to our po Anne? Found a good girl just to lose her to his foolishness. She would not hang her head, for that was not how her people were. Outside of the town, with the dog gone, she would not see humans again until another half mile unless someone was on the road. At that half mile would be the farm of the Petersons, a white family of nine children. She had known quite well the third oldest girl. If someone there happened to see her pass, they might offer her a drink. That third oldest girl was dead now, died bringing her first child into the world, but the family would remember that Anne had been a friend. “Sit a spell and have a little somethin, Anne. Get out that sun. Linger here, child. Home can wait.” And if her heart would allow it, she would do just that.

Thin smoke wafted through her train and the adults held their breath; the children didn’t know enough to do that.

Unless a body was on the road outside Picayune, she would not see people again until she was a little more than a mile from the Petersons. The road would have turned just after their farm at nearly 90 degrees. The Elbow Road is what people for years had been calling it. “I meet you at the turn in the Elbow Road.” “Bless her heart. She had that baby right there on Elbow Road.” Just beyond the road was Patches’ Creek, the swimming hole for Negroes. Some of her best memories were of Sundays after church when the family piled into her father’s wagon with two baskets of food and went to Patches’ Creek. The Negroes liked to call such Sundays “vacation.” “You comin on vacation?” “He just up and died after his vacation. No sign of nothin bad. Just happy all durin his vacation.” “The nerve of that little hussy shamin herself and her family right out there in front of everyone. Spoiled my vacation.” Patches’ Creek was on land owned by a woman, Deborah Kerrshaw, who fancied herself the richest Negro in Mississippi. She would die not knowing there were five undertakers and one insurance company founder who were richer. She never charged anyone to swim in her creek.

After the creek, the winding road went on for some two miles with only farmland on either side. Especially now, with the crops gone from the fields, it would be lonely there because the nearest house was just about invisible and the cows and mules and horses sunning in the fields usually kept to themselves, never bothered to come out to the fence unless they knew a person. That nearest house could only be reached by leaving the road and heading away for nearly half a mile. But people used the road all the time. She had first seen four-year-old Neddy on that road, playing tag with two white boys, one of them being the descendant of one of the men who had lynched Lucas Turner’s grandfather. Lucas had taken her hand in his for only the second time on that road. And she had trembled even more than with the first time. If hunger took hold and she had not eaten at the Petersons or stopped for something at the Kerrshaw place, she would have to turn off the road and knock at a Negro door. The earth and its ground and its trees would have nothing to offer her because they were preparing for winter. But she would be welcome at any house.

The lights of her train dimmed and the adults pulled the children closer as the smoke cleared from the cabin.

Then, after the fields, the road would straighten as it neared Everlasting Light Baptist Church. If she had eaten, she would tarry at the cemetery, if only to tell her grandmother what had happened. Linger here. The time among the graves might tell her that there could yet be a life with Hayfield. Some land. Children. He could be taught to tell better jokes. She would know more and would take even more time before marrying. No matter how much he might plead with her. “We got time,” she might say. And if he was any kind of man, then he would wait. And if he didn’t, if she never married another living soul, then well…So be it. She had one aunt, near the center of the cemetery, who had never married. At eighty-two, to win a bet with a grown nephew she had raised from an infant, the aunt of slight build had done seventy-nine push-ups, four more than she needed to win the bet. Then she had stood and wiped her hands clean of dirt and waited for her nephew to count out the dollar he owed. “I’s short one quarter, Auntie.” “I don’t care. I wants my money by tomorrow mornin or you’ll have to find another home that ain’t Picayune.” Po thang, some had said of her aunt. Never married. Po thang. But Anne, mapping her journey in her train car, realized there were worse things in life than never having a man inside her.

She knew that the time at the cemetery would strengthen her somehow. And so if she met people on the final leg home, that would be good. But if she didn’t, she would make it anyway. The stand of pecan trees that signaled the approach of the short road leading to her home would make her just about invisible to anyone on the porch until she was at the mouth of the path to the house. Coming from that side was different than coming from the other side, the way George had come to her those times from her cousin’s place. Everyone could be seen coming from that side.

Her train began an awful shaking. She knew that when she had passed the last pecan tree, the person waiting on the porch would be her father. She felt that every second of her life had been leading to a dead marriage and a father who would come out to her without her taking even one step back onto their property, back onto where she had first known life. The dog and his duck companions would not rouse because she was old news. In some twenty-three long steps her father would be in front of her, having used the last two to step over the dog and the ducks. It would be about three in the afternoon. He was not really a man of touching, but if she wanted, she—now tired from her longest walk home—would be able to cry and fall into his arms, her wedding ring back there at the train station in the suitcase. But, no, she would wait to cry. With her mother. He would look down past the trees and ask, “How far back you leave your things?” “The train station.” Her mother would now be on her way from the house. Running. Her father would ask, “Anything you need amongst them things that can’t wait for now?” “No, I can wait, Daddy.” “Tomorrow then. I get Billy to go get em tomorrow.” Then she would be home.