Natashia Deon - Grace

“The end is nigh, right, Preacha?” she say. “I need to get saved, is that it, Preacha Man?”

I can tell the priest is tired. His shoulders sank with her question and his eyes closed. “Ma’am, you looking to give a confession?”

“By the looks of thangs, you going to hell same as me,” she say. “Can I take yours?”

Preacha Man only nods slow like he understands something. Exhausted-like, he say, “If there are no other fine establishments around here, I hope you don’t mind if I have a drink?”

Cynthia puts her leg down. “So God didn’t send you here for me?”

“Not unless your first name is Jake, last name Beam-Bourbon.”

“Funny, too,” she say, standing up, stretching and cracking her back real good. “Go’n in.”

Cynthia like to control everybody.

Everything.

Who come in and who come out of here. What people do. Say. She’d control God if she could. Tried to control me. But I made my decision last night, lying there with Jeremy, his body in mine — an ending like a thousand purple butterflies fluttering on my eyelids.

I did what I wanted.

These are my choices.

My body.

No longer a slave.

If I did what she wanted, I’d be living her life, not mine. I cain’t save her. Cain’t nobody save another person that way. She say she’s trying to protect me, keep me from the hard choices she made. But we have to choose for ourselves and our sacrifices are our own to make.

“Can you believe that bastard!” Cynthia say, unwinding a tightly folded sheet of paper in her hand, smaller than a playing card. I go to look, too, and see the image of our bartender on the paper. But only if he was wearing Bernadette’s long blonde wig. It’s Jesus.

“Bastard had the nerve to leave his literature on my seat. Does he know who I am? Like he’s gon’ convert me. .”

I hear him before I see him.

His clicking boots come up the porch steps.

My whole body flushes when he passes behind me, brushing my hand. My hip. The soft wings of last night awaken me. My eyes close and my knees buckle.

I open my eyes. I didn’t know she was watching me.

In her sudden silence, my eyes peek open and slide toward her. Her eyes bore through me. “You didn’t!” she say.

“What?”

She charges at me, grabs my arm. “Let me look at you! You slept with him?”

I shake my head. Fast as I can.

“You did! I can see it all over you!”

Jeremy stutters something. . nothing. . “Damn you to hell!” she tell him. “You’ve damned us all to hell! After all I’ve done for you!” She grabs him by his neck and throws him off her porch, follows him down.

“Cynthia!” I yell.

She slaps him over and over — his back, his head — closed-fisted to his jaw.

“Cynthia!” I race down the stairs.

She face me. In her eyes I see all the spite and disappointment. Whatever she was trying to protect me from, whatever protection she was giving me, is gone now. I don’t even recognize her. “How could you give it to this mother fucker? How could you!” She’s crying and I’m crying now, too, and I don’t know what for. “Why this asshole?” she say.

Not an asshole.

“Naomi, you was pure. You were supposed to stay that way. For both of us.”

I shake my head.

“What’d he give you for it?”

I don’t want to look at her.

She backs away from me, throws her hands up, disgusted. She turns her back on me and her boots clap up the porch.

THERE’S NO SUCH thing as justice when somebody’s killed. Only satisfaction. The person cain’t be brought back for no amount of punishment or cost. I cain’t have the old Josey back and I’ve been long gone. My loss is worse when I think about how George got away with it. And how he did it. How he had to have been watching Josey before it happened. Watching her the way animals do prey. How else would he have known that Charles would be gone that day, or the moment she’d come home?

George was there waiting in the dark for her — black. Blending into trees — black. Squatting behind a bush — black. Pushing the leaves aside to make a space for his peeping eye — black.

There’s no justice for that.

Bessie said to let it go but I won’t. She should understand the pain of no justice ’cause she black, too.

And three weeks ago, George came back. Again, I got no justice.

His return was just a shadow of something I’d been waiting for, had hoped for, and crushing disappointment ain’t sour enough a phrase. I was helpless but he was right there. Like needing to buy the life-saving medicine in front of you, but being ten dollars short and finding no charity.

His shadow stretched up Annie’s porch steps and touched me before I knew it was him, shortened when he got closer.

Annie and Kathy were sitting at a stalemate — a woman and a whore, is what Annie said. That’s when he took his first step up the porch and said, “I heard I had family in town.”

A sudden fire started inside me and I rushed his body. The flames were from him. But I was grounded before I even started in. Was on fire, the way Bessie said I would be. Weak and broken, I could only watch him as he smiled from the bottom of the porch steps, popping sunflower seeds, his hair fresh cut and close. I was forced to watch this man who took so much from my daughter and God gave me no charity.

It ain’t fair.

I despise him, and it ain’t fair. I’m trapped this way. It ain’t. . fair.

He’s the devil walking free. Didn’t even look like half a demon when I saw him standing there, gentle in his disguise. No horns. No tail. Just a man. Annie’s brother. And with joy, she sprinted down to meet him.

I was sickened.

Richard came fast-limping out the house and down the stairs, was laughing when he fell into George’s arms and hugged him. “Bumfucker!” Richard called him.

“And you’re my favorite asshole,” George said, and asked him where the hell he’d been.

“I should ask you the same thing,” Richard said.

“I’m done. I’m staying,” George said. “Followed the fighting far enough. Heard they might go on to Winchester and that’ll have to be without me. Not all my choice. And by the look of that hobble, you’re done, too.”

“It just means they need to bring the fight to me!” Richard said, and almost by instinct, excited to see George, Richard held Annie’s hand. After a pause, he let go, introduced his cousin. “This is Katherine. Your cousin from down in Corinth.”

“Corinth?” George said. “Now that’s some fighting.”

George went up the steps to greet her, and the whiskey on him turned the air drunk. He kissed Kathy’s hand and said, “How do?” then held her gaze. “Corinth’s a dangerous place for a beautiful young woman like you.”

“No place more deadly,” Kathy said. “You know Mis’sippi?”

Richard cleared his throat. “I could use some help up the steps,” he said.

“Will you join us for tea?” Kathy asked George.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Richard said. “George will join me for a drink in my study. A celebration. The brothers have come home!”

JOSEY WON’T LEAVE the house much now.

Not even to wash.

Not without Charles coming, too. He’ll sit on the porch or a few steps away carving the ends of wood branches into sharp tips while he waits. And with Nelson around now, Charles goes to the field, too, instead of the blacksmith shop. Iron’s scarce. It’s all at the mill. But if there’s something needing doing, he’ll take Josey with him. But me? I’m useless. For the first time I realize: this must be what it feels like to be dead.