Natalie Baszile - Queen Sugar

“You know, I’m not trying to torture you,” Charley said, and studied her hands, which had swollen in the heat. With difficulty, she twisted her wedding ring off her finger and dropped it into the empty ashtray. “Just think, Micah, how great it’ll feel to walk across fields we own.”

“I don’t want to walk across fields. I want to live in a city, with sidewalks and a swimming pool.”

“We never had a pool.”

“Stop joking. It’s not funny.” The wind tossed the flyaway strands of Micah’s braids. She brushed them out of her face and said, “You promised there’d be kids.”

“I know,” Charley said. “Don’t worry, we’ll find them.” She forced brightness into her voice. “It’s south Louisiana. It’s Catholic , for God’s sake. Trust me, we’ll find kids.”

“What if they don’t like me?”

“Of course they’ll like you. You’re smart and funny, and besides, you’re from California. People always want to know kids from California.”

“Sure. Malibu , California.” Micah picked at the flaking upholstery. “ Beverly Hills , California.” She rubbed her arm absentmindedly, and then, in a voice so quiet Charley could barely hear her, said, “Kids can be mean.”

The dark feeling lapped inside Charley and she steeled herself against it. Of course, Micah was right. Kids could be mean. But what choice did she have? She had come down here. Her father had left this door open and it was the only open door in her life.

Charley turned on the radio. The bandleader sang in a Cajun twang, and feeling her spirits rising, she tapped her hand lightly against the dashboard. The bass and drums, the button accordion’s high whine, the rolling emerald fields and the sapphire sky. “Just wait, Micah. You’ll see what I mean. It’ll all be good when the farm’s up and running.” As she spoke, Charley’s heart quickened. One song ended and another began. She stuck her head through the window and shouted, surprising even herself. “‘Oh, summer has clothed the earth in a cloak from the loom of the sun!’”

“Oh my God, Mom. Shut up!” Micah sank low in her seat.

“Relax,” Charley said, “it’s a beautiful poem.” She stuck her head through the window and yelled again. “‘And a mantle, too, of the skies’ soft blue, And a belt where the rivers run.’”

“Please, Mom! I’m not kidding. You’re embarrassing me.” Micah sank even lower and rode like that for a few minutes. Then, seeing Charley’s ring in the ashtray, she fished it out and held it up to the light, then slipped it onto her index finger. “Why do you wear this?”

“It reminds me of Daddy,” Charley said, though in truth, after four years, she struggled to remember Davis’s face. She recalled more easily the smell of his shirts, like coffee and ink, the easy sound of his laugh, and the feeling of being with him in the kitchen as he cooked on Sundays — the Grateful Dead blasting from the portable speakers, the counters overrun with spices, the recipe for some curry dish he found in a magazine splattered with oil. She rubbed her heat-swollen index finger, indented where the wedding ring had pressed into it.

Micah slid the ring off her finger and jiggled it in her cupped hands. Charley started to grab it, but stopped herself. She silently counted to twenty.

“Okay, time’s up.” She reached over. “Let me have it back.”

But Micah twisted away. “I just want to hold it.”

“No. Give it back.”

“Tu me fais chier,” Micah said under her breath, and pressed her closed fist to her chest.

“I didn’t send you to that school to learn how to swear,” Charley said, and wondered, not for the first time, how she ever let Davis talk her into enrolling Micah at the Lycée.

“It was nothing,” Micah said, then, under her breath, “Merde.”

Charley slapped the wheel. “Don’t merde me.”

“I want to go back,” Micah said, then added with more certainty, “Lorna will send me a plane ticket.”

Charley let the threat pass.

“You’re just jealous,” Micah said.

“That’s ridiculous. Jealous of what?”

“You’re a fish.”

Charley would have laughed had Micah not been glaring so fiercely.

“Lorna and I are sharks,” Micah spat. “Sharks are better. We rub our tongues along our teeth. Sharks eat fish.”

Charley didn’t take her eyes off the road. “And here I thought Lorna was teaching you which fork to use with your salad. I never guessed she was teaching you which fork was for stabbing me in the heart.”

Micah covered her face with her hands. “I want to go home.”

“This is your home. I’m your home.”

Micah whispered something in French and shifted in her seat. She extended her right arm through the window as if to sift the breeze through her fingers, and Charley, alarmed, saw the diamond ring in Micah’s palm as it reflected an instant of sunlight. She cried out exactly as Micah drew back her fist and threw. Charley caught a glimpse of the ring as it flipped in the wind and tumbled past the window. The Volvo careered off the road, onto the band of dirt edging the fields, a cloud of red dust swirling behind them. By the time Charley slammed on the brakes, they were hundred of yards farther along. Silence flooded the car.

“What the hell!” Charley cried. “What were you thinking ?” But when she turned to Micah, her daughter met her gaze with an unapologetic glare. Charley kicked open the door. She stepped out into the moist air and ran back to where she believed the ring had landed. She waded into the cane, then dropped to her hands and knees, searching for her ring among the whispering rows. If she took her time and looked closely, Charley thought, channeled all her energy into her fingertips, she could find it. Down so far beneath the cane, the light took on an aqueous hue. Clumps of warm earth slipped through her fingers. Bits of soil lodged beneath her nails. She was so close to the ground she could taste it in the back of her throat; so far below the cane, the silence was amplified. But minutes passed and she couldn’t find the ring.

“Mom!” Micah called from the road’s shoulder. “I can’t see you.” She sounded scared.

Charley imagined Micah scanning fields that must’ve seemed to have swallowed her mother. “Go back to the car!” she yelled.

“But I’m scared.” Micah’s voice frayed. “I don’t like it here.”

Charley crawled deeper into the field.

“Please!” Micah begged.

“Get back in the car!” Charley was being cruel, she knew, and withholding. If Davis were there, he’d have told her as much. It was only a ring, he’d say. They could buy another some day, and even if they couldn’t, it wasn’t worth punishing their child. She was being like her mother, he’d say, attentive when she approved, cold as a stone when she didn’t, and he’d challenge her to remember how it had felt to live with that kind of uncertainty. But Davis was gone. She was alone, and right now, cruelty felt deeply satisfying. Better than a back massage. Better than sex. The cane swayed above her and the sound of the rustling leaves was strangely soothing. Charley sat between the rows and buried her face in her hands. When the tears came, they flowed easily and she didn’t try to stop them. Because it wasn’t just the ring, or her dad, or Frasier; it wasn’t Davis, or Denton, or even Micah. It was everything.

At last, Charley dried her face and waded back through the cane. She was shocked to see how far she was from the car. The road, in both directions, was empty. An image of the two white boys in the pickup flashed in her mind.

“Micah!” She ran to the car and was relieved to find Micah hiding in the small space behind the passenger seat, her head down and her arms raised above her head as if practicing for an earthquake drill. Charley opened the door and slid in behind the wheel. “Come on,” she said. Her voice was still hoarse from crying. “Let’s go.”