Natashia Deon - Grace

Finally, he gets up and goes to her, puts his hands on her shoulders, squeezes. “Cynthia, I wanna take you away from here. Give you the good life.”

Cynthia laughs out loud. “And make a good woman outta me, Nate?” She throws her washrag in the basin. “Take me away from my kingdom?”

She squats above her chair, smacks the wet rag between her legs, and swishes it around her privates, then stands up and sprays a burst of perfume there, too. She slides her frilly britches over her hips.

He puts his hands back on her shoulders.

“Come on, Nate. I got a headache and another customer. Just pay me and go.”

“I’m serious,” he say.

She clears the snot from her throat, hocks it in her rag, and throws it back in the basin, then falls back in her chair and takes a fancy silver box off the table. She pulls out a cigarette. “You still here?”

He grabs his hat and coat from off the dresser. Hiding under ’em is a bunch of yellow flowers. She smiles. “You gettin soft on me, Nate.”

“I know you like yella,” he say. “I could bring you flowers every day, if you let me. Be the man you want me to be.” He crouches on one knee, holds the flowers out to her. She lets him rub her thigh. He say, “I love you. You know that. I could look after you. You could stop what you’re doing here and just be mine.”

Her expression softens.

“Hell,” he say. “I’d even look after your bastard. Every boy needs a daddy.”

She stiffens, lights her cigarette, sucks it started, and blows the smoke over his flowers, say, “I’m allergic to little dicks and spare change. So like I said nice before, get the fuck out.”

His fistful of flowers slam across her chin and her hair spreads across her face. Yellow petals twirl across the room and blood rises from her split lip.

He say, “I. . I try to do s-something nice for you. Look what you m-made me do.”

She don’t look at him.

“Just leave my money on the dresser,” she say, her voice crackling. She picks up a glass of water and drinks. Blood rushes in.

The door slams when he go. It makes me jump but Cynthia don’t. She keep puffing on her cigarette, then eases down in her chair and lets her legs gap open like a man. The strap of her gown slides off her shoulders, flashing bruises on her back. I ain’t never seen a white woman with bruises like that.

Between her puffs, she spits out bits of blood from her lip, sprinkling her gown with dots of red. She wipes her mouth with the back of her arm, leaving a streak. It makes me scared for her.

“Don’t look at me like you better than me,” she say.

I close my eyes fast.

I can hear her turn her chair around to me.

“I’ve been keeping these dogs off your ass for twelve days.”

I ain’t never heard a woman talk like that.

“What brings you to Conyers, girl?”

I don’t answer. Keep my eyes closed.

“Then let’s start easy. . What’s your name?”

I open my eyes. Don’t say a word.

“How about my name is, ‘Thank You For Saving My Black Ass.’ Yeah, that’s a good name.”

She puffs on her stick again, glares at me, throws her feet up on the bed, slides back in her chair.

“Albert found you in the woods thirteen nights ago. Thought you was a wild pig, grunting and groaning so. Nearly stabbed you dead. Felt sorry for you since you busted your head wide open. Caught yourself an infection. Lucky for you, it was nothin I hadn’t seen before.”

Must be a nurse.

She exhales a line of smoke. “What was you doin out in them woods anyway? Ain’t no town closer than forty miles. . What? Was you runnin north?”

I don’t look at her.

“You people always tryin to run north like y’all ain’t niggas up there, too.”

I don’t want to talk.

She throws my Bible, spinning it toward me, I catch it with my strong hand.

“Only thing you had on you ’sides this fire poker.” She picks it up from next to the mirror, sucks on her cigarette. Smoke seeps out her nose. “No money, no papers. Like to have thrown you back. Where you from?”

It don’t matter. I cain’t never go back but when I get my strength, I’m gon’ leave here, too. So I ain’t got to listen to her. I press my Bible against my chest real hard, close my eyes real hard and start praying cause Hazel told me that God can understand me even if I cain’t talk.

“Ain’t gon’ do you no good,” Cynthia say. “The gods are dead. There’s only us.”

My ears pop open for the first time and sound rushes in, forcing me to sit up and pay attention. I can hear knockin all around me, behind these walls. I didn’t hear it before, didn’t feel it, smell it — the liquor, the perfume, sweat, reminding me of the times when Massa made Momma dress up and smile.

“This is my house,” Cynthia say. “God don’t own a half cent in my dime.” She blows a funnel of white in the air.

I push myself against the wall ’cause I know God put me in hell. She laughs at me with bloody teeth, the taste of it turns her ’round to the mirror and she leans into her reflection, rolling her lip over and stares at the cut. She licks off what’s left of the blood, then pushes her cigarette back in.

She stares at me through the mirror. “So you a runaway?”

I don’t say nothin.

“Hell, girl. We all slaves to somethin.” She turns herself to me.

I press myself straight against the wall, the furthest I could go without breaking through. She say, “I tell you what. . runaway or not. You gon’ need to earn your keep.”

My body gets tight cause she gon’ force me.

She reaches under her bed and throws a white sheet at me. A dress. Long and plain. “Here, you wear this.”

I ain’t gon’ be Momma for her. Momma died so Hazel didn’t have to be her, neither.

In one quick move, she grabs my poker from against the wall and shoves it far behind the dresser and relaxes back in her chair. She say, “That dress is the only thing I got decent. Wore it at my momma’s funeral. It’s clean. Mop and pail’s in the closet down the hall. You gon’ be cleaning up after us.”

I wasn’t expecting her to say that.

“I might get used to you,” she say. “Keep things interesting around here. And don’t you mistake it for kindness, cause when losing people get angry, they first turn on the kindest hand. You a loser?”

I shake my head.

“Good. Letting you stay here is no more than my good fortune of finding a slave for nothing. My pappy used to say, ‘everythang cost somethin.’ But you ain’t gon’ cost me, are you?”

I costed Momma.

Costed Hazel.

She grabs my arm and yanks me to her. “Law say, I should send you back where you came from. But I tell you the truth?. . You steal from me. . or run, I kill ya on sight.”

LIFE CAIN’T BE taken for granted. ’Cause in the end it’ll leave you with the worst kind of wanting. Like being desperate for something that came and went an hour ago.

That day, the word would rise and stretch and breathe sweetness from her mouth like warming dough. Then it would sink back down into her throat, undone. Just one and a half years old and Josey wasn’t ready to speak her second word. Her first was “yes.”

She’d fallen down that day, scraped her knees and elbows, had hit her head and started growing a knot in that place. When I got to her, I hung over her, listening and praying while she oozed blood and cried. I wanted to hold her, to kiss her where it hurt. And that moment is when the word fully formed in her mouth and she spoke it out loud. That m-word, that mmmm, that rounding, that calling to me, that kneading, wanting me to heal her bruising things, smear her tears away and cool her knots ’til they were all better. But this word wasn’t served to me.