Natashia Deon - Grace

“You do nursing?” the satchel man asked and shifted his bag again. “Is there somebody I can talk to about hiring you out? A blackmith, too. I heard y’all had a blacksmith.”

I looked beyond the man to out near his wagon. Albert weren’t on it. He was standing out in the field across the road near his workshop. I suspect he was waiting for me to decide. He’d never push me the way my sister Hazel did that night she told me to run, and this satchel man was my chance to make her sacrifice worth something, make James’s and Momma’s killings meaningful. Make it so I belong to myself and my future.

But I already got freedom here. With Jeremy. He’s my future.

I can still smell him all around this room. On these piano keys, my fingertips. My face. His scent reminds me of how our love lingers.

Satchel Man said again, “Somebody here I can talk to?”

I didn’t answer.

Don’t need his help.

Freedom is where the heart is and I got the man who loves me. Whoever heard of running anytime beside night, anyway? And what am I supposed to make of him coming to the front door like this? Got negroes in the wagon. Reckless.

I closed the cracked-open door ’til there was just a line of light between us. I pushed my lips to the space and said, “We ain’t open.”

EVEN THOUGH THIS is the longest time me and Jeremy ever been apart, longest we been without lovemaking, I know he’ll be back for me. I shouldn’t have made him mad, said what I said. But I was mad, too, at what happened with Mr. Shepard. It stayed fresh in my mind. Dirty.

AND I WAS sorry that I couldn’t get past my condition when we tried to lay together, pretended to be like we was. Jeremy went soft and I stayed dry.

I don’t remember what I said to make him so angry, but he stormed out, dressing hisself as he went, had me running behind him telling him sorry, then good riddance.

But he’ll be back for me.

He’ll forgive me.

Nobody can love him like I can.

I’m wearing the pretty yellow dress Jeremy bought me. I’ll wear it again tomorrow and the next day, if I have to. Every day ’til he comes back here so he can see me in it and know how much I love him.

This feels like the longest two weeks ever.

For now, though, I got to finish cleaning the parlor before Cynthia wake up and start yelling at me again for spending too much time pushing the broom. “Pretending to be cleaning,” she say. It’s one of the only things she’s had to say to me. She mostly sit in her room ’til five minutes before opening.

Sometimes I catch her sitting on the edge of her bed mumbling to herself. She probably asking herself why she didn’t stop Jeremy and me before it happened. I never promised her nothing and if God don’t forgive her for the things she did wrong in her life, it’s her own fault not mine. I don’t see how she could think what Jeremy and I found has anything to do with her.

She do treat her son Johnny better now. Gave him his own room and put me in it with him.

I don’t care.

I ain’t got to hear her snore no more and I can pray in silence. I promised God that if he send me Jeremy back, I’ll start going to church even if it mean going near those hateful ladies that curse us most Sundays.

Maybe I’ll stop doing the things Jeremy and me already do and wait ’til we married.

The jingle and click of a turning key starts at the front door. It excites me ’til I remember Jeremy ain’t got no key and we don’t open for another two hours.

It’s only Albert.

He stands in the doorway, his hair is red and wild as ever. I know what he got to say about me not leaving with Satchel Man yesterday and I don’t wanna hear none of it so I don’t start no conversation.

I wipe down the tables, mind my own business. I hear him sniffling like he sick. “They captured them slaves and the Freedom Fighter,” he say. “The boy and the girl. The gal they maimed before returning her to her master. The Fighter they hung by his satchel. Tied it around his neck. Burned his body. Left it blackened and hanging. I don’t know about the boy.”

I cain’t breathe.

“And I don’t know what’s worse, burning to death or being left up there with no proper burial. He’s still there. Up the road.”

I have to sit down.

I bow my head over an uncleared table, take a swallow of water left yesterday by somebody else. I whisper, “I thought you said it was safe? That nobody would suspect nothing?”

“He was turned in. Somebody knew the plan. The route. It’s the only way it coulda happened. .”

“It wasn’t me,” I say.

“You didn’t know the route, Naomi. It was a risk for all of us.”

“If he wouldn’t have stopped here for me. .” I say. “Oh! That little girl. That boy. Have mercy, I saw ’em. Jesus! It’s ’cause of me!”

“’Cause of what he believed in,” Albert said. “Cause of the freedom those children deserved. What every person deserves.”

“We should’ve been with ’em.”

“You saved both our lives,” Albert say.

“You stayed ’cause of me?”

Heavy clicks of heeled shoes come up the porch steps behind Albert. Albert leaves directly, down the hallway. The back door opens and closes. The old priest — Preacha Man — is here. He’s wearing a wide-brimmed black hat.

“How do, suh?” I say. “We not open. But Sam’ll be in in another hour or so. I could help you, though. Remember you take bourbon.”

“I came to see Cynthia,” he say, sliding his hat off.

“She might already have a customer, suh. Or sleep. Folks don’t usually come for her or the girls ’til after two. It’s just noon.”

“I’ll wait.”

“If that’s your pleasure.”

I step around the bar and pour him a bourbon. Slide it to him.

He takes a sip and stares at me like he gon’ say something, got questions, maybe about Cynthia or this place. I don’t want him watching me no more so I say, “I’ll go and check on her for you, suh.”

On the way up the hall to Cynthia’s room, I can smell her liquor. I knock on her door. “Cynthia?” and push the door open.

She’s still in her nightgown. Ain’t been dressed yet.

“What the hell you want?” she say with gin spilling out her mouth.

“That priest is here to see you.”

“What the hell for?”

“I told ’im you was busy but he said he’d wait.”

She laughs too loud, snorting now. “A goddamn priest. That’ll be a first. Help me up.”

She throws her robe on and stumbles up the hall in front of me. I say, “Don’t you want to get dressed first? Put some shoes on?” But she keeps walking, her drunken legs crisscrossing in front of her like sticks with no knees to bend with. She’s been drinking more since we stopped talking, since she found out about me and Jeremy.

The first thing she say when she get to the saloon is, “You come for a piece of this, Preacha Man?”

He stands and wrings his hat. She go right up to him with her eyelids drooping, wearing a closed-lipped smile. She grabs his hat-holding hand and puts it between her legs, sliding it back and forth.

When he pulls away, her gin grin becomes a flat line.

“I’ve come to apologize,” he say. “I haven’t been obedient to the word of God and I failed you. I should have been a vessel for your confession the other day, not a hindrance.”

“So you apologizing to me?” Cynthia say.

“Yes, ma’am,” he say, wringing his hat again. “Even the faithful struggle sometimes.”

“I charge by the hour,” Cynthia say. “And since you confessing some bullshit, you’re gon’ have to pay upfront.”

He reaches in his pocket and slides a wad of money across the bar, surprising me and Cynthia both. She flicks through it like she ain’t impressed. “That’ll do,” she say and falls back on the stool in front of him.