Natashia Deon - Grace

Fourteen years she’d waited. Fourteen years ago, Mr. Graham — her then best friend — left her in the middle of the night with Scotch on his breath and unspoken words on hers. And now, his knock was at her front door again, a stranger.

He knocked harder, surer. He said, “Annie, open this door!”

Annie grabbed hold of a chair, bracing herself, but still waited.

“Annie!” he said.

She took a deep breath, nodded to Bessie. When the door opened, he came barreling in. “Next time you hear me at the door,” he told Bessie, “open it.”

“Yes’sa, Massa Graham.”

He was a beautiful man, Mr. Graham was. Like a garden statue standing there, five foot nothin. He threw his soaking-wet coat on the rack, letting its water rain on Annie’s newly polished floor. Bessie got him a towel.

He looked around the room, puffed his chest out, held his shoulders back, his legs spread in a wide stance like he weren’t a gimp and put his hands on his hips, nodded his head as if he was saying, yes, I live here. . Yes, I own this house. Everything in it’s mine.

“Get me some tea,” he said to Bessie.

“Yes’sa, Massa Graham,” Bessie said.

He took stock of the room, kicked off his shoes, and finally acknowledged his wife. “Annie.”

“Richard,” she said.

He dried hisself off, then threw the towel on the floor, stretched his back to cracking and something caught his eye on the grand mantle over the fireplace. He limped over to it, then fingered the plain porcelain figure and a matching white vase that sat in the middle of the mantle, lonely and small, even though they was a pair.

Richard moved the figurine along the shelf one way, then moved the vase the other. He stepped back to look at his new arrangement. Unsatisfied, he switched the vase and the figurine again and stared at ’em. Finally, he grabbed ’em both off the shelf and said, “No, even you can’t fix empty, Annie,” and laid them down like captured chess pieces.

“I wasn’t expecting you,” she said.

“This is my house,” he said, looking at her for the first time. “I live here.”

“Not for years,” Annie said.

“I’m not going to let you bully me out of my right, Annie. My property. My house. My place in it. I’m the head of this household,” he said, as if restarting a old argument new.

“I only meant that. . I’ve missed you,” she said.

“Psh,” he said. “You couldn’t wait for me to leave.”

“That’s not true, Richard.”

Bessie came in with his tea. He waved at her to set it down the farthest she could from Annie and he went to it, took it, told Bessie, “Take my shoes to my room.” But instead of getting ’em right away, Bessie looked to Missus Graham. Annie nodded and Richard raised his voice and his hand at Bessie. “You do what I say do,” Richard said. “I don’t need Annie’s approval.”

“Yes’sa,” Bessie said.

“Lincoln thinks he can infringe on our way of life,” Richard said. “Has taken it upon himself to take away our rights, our livelihood, kill our brothers. Remove our property. He’s freeing slaves to allow them to live among us as equals. Wants us to treat these mongrels as ‘brothers,’ too. It’s wrong. Wouldn’t you agree, Annie?”

“Is this about Lincoln?” she said.

“I intend to protect what’s mine from any challenger.”

“Do you intend to stay then?”

He sipped his tea. Then again while she watched.

“If Mr. Graham pleases,” Annie said, “make a new bed, Bessie, and see to it that he’s comfortable.”

“That we are comfortable,” Richard said.

“Yes. That we are comfortable. Clean sheets.”

That’s when he said it: “I have someone accompanying me.”

“Oh. Of course. Make a place for him, as well.”

“She’s pregnant,” Richard said. He used the word pregnant like it was some throwaway word, small talk, the same as saying, it’s night outside.

“What?” Annie said, raspy.

“With child,” he said. “She can help you to manage the property until it’s time for the baby to come.”

“And her husband?”

“Dead,” he said. He wouldn’t look at Annie.

“How long?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“How long, Richard?”

“Two or three years.”

“And you brought her here? You brought some pregnant whore to my house? Look at me and tell me, Richard. Is it yours?”

“You heard me the first two times.”

Before he finished his words, Annie swung at his face and he caught her hand, threw it down, held his gaze on her ’til she was the one who looked away.

He left her there that way, went outside and brought back that girl wrapped in three or four blankets and a hood over her head. When it slid off, she was the spittin image of Annie but a whole lot younger. He said to the girl, “This is my wife.”

“How do, ma’am?” the girl said, smiling.

Annie spit in her face but before her mouth closed, Richard’s backhand crushed Annie’s lips. “Be a lady, Annie! You’re still my wife.” Annie covered her mouth with shaking hands. “If anyone asks,” he told her. “This is your cousin, Katherine, visiting from Mississippi. Her husband, the father, is away at the war.”

Richard put his arm around the girl to help her to the stairs. He called to Bessie to fix Katherine some warm water, some dry, clean clothes, and to re-dress his bed, Annie’s bed, for Katherine. And for a long time, he sat in the chair across the room from that girl, watching her sleep. And Annie took herself into a guest bedroom where she stood ’til sunrise.

I WALK QUIET ALONG the path of a stream, pressing my feet softly on the spongy ground where the short grass and flooded water trace my footfalls.

Trout, brown and green and yellow, wade in place beside me, waiting for food. A few feet away, a lone fish jumps from the water and splashes down, chasing a bug or watching me. I take a step behind a tree, lean back further to keep my shadow off the surface. Upstream, Jeremy’s hiding behind that mostly bare bush, but I can see him clear as day ’cause the small spring leaves ain’t near enough cover for his blue shirt.

He signals with his hand for me to move down further, holds it up again to say stop, then points down to the water. I drop my fishing line in and my bright red salmon egg rides the running water, gliding toward him.

It disappears.

Jeremy shoots his thumb up from his fist, confusing me. What I’m supposed to do?

“Pull up on it!” he yell. “Pull up!”

The fish leaps out of the water and my pole shoots out of my hands, straight toward the waves.

“Don’t let it get away!” Jeremy say, hopping over rocks and around a tree to get to me. I dive on that pole, pound my fist on the handle, jam it in the soggy grass. Water sprays in my face. When Jeremy gets to me, he grabs my pole and yanks the fish on the other end. “You all right?” he say.

I spit out the dirty water, wipe it away from my eyes. “It’s that fish that gotta worry,” I say.

He watches the place downstream where my line pierced the water.

“You got it?” I say.

“I got it.”

He closes one eye and follows the line to where that fish should be even though it stopped moving.

It splashes!

Jeremy pulls up on our pole, the fish fights side to side. He winds the line around his elbow and hand, careful not to break it, and drags its fight to the shore. Finally, he lops it out of the water, puts his foot on its side to keep it from jumping back in. Takes the hook out. The hole where it was pierced trickles blood water.

He puts his finger through the fish’s gills and holds it out to me but I shake my head. “I don’t want it.”