Natalie Baszile - Queen Sugar

“Pop?” Blue raised his head and reached for Ralph Angel’s arm.

“Go back to sleep.” Ralph Angel dragged the clock radio to the edge of the nightstand. Midnight. He turned it toward Blue. “Don’t move from this bed till you hear the man on the radio say it’s seven o’clock. I mean it.”

’Da’s purse was on top of the refrigerator. Ralph Angel took it down, then cleared a place on the table, his heart bucking as he pulled at the tarnished zipper. Inside: old tubes of lipstick, a packet of tissues, an envelope stuffed with store coupons. Everything smelled like her, the sweet, powdery fragrance he’d known since he was a boy. He twisted the clasp on her pink wallet and it yawned open, but there were only two crumpled bills and a handful of coins.

“Think,” Ralph Angel said to himself and paced the floor. Next door, Miss Marti’s rooster crowed. In a few hours, steel-blue and orange light would bleed through the kitchen window to fill the shallow sink and spill over the lip of the counter.

The Kerns jar was shoved all the way to the back of the cabinet. Ralph Angel untwisted the rubber band, straightened the stack of small bills, and counted them with a bank teller’s speed. One hundred sixty-five dollars. He closed the lid and slid the empty jar back into its place before jamming the roll in his pocket. One hundred sixty-five dollars wasn’t much but it was good for a seven-day run.

On the way out, Ralph Angel paused. Charley’s door was open but the light was off. Holding his breath, he moved closer and saw, through the doorway, Micah asleep on the air mattress. Charley’s bed was empty.

In her room, he swept his hand across the dresser, feeling for any coins or bills Charley had left behind, until his fingers grazed the cool base, the square feet. Ralph Angel paused, considered his next move, then eased The Cane Cutter toward him, mindful of its weight. Charley shouldn’t have embarrassed him the way she had. She always had it so easy. Everything given to her while he’d struggled for the crumbs. Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall —the passage came to mind before he could stop it.

On the air mattress, Micah mumbled in her sleep. Ralph Angel froze. He waited. And when all was still again, he slid The Cane Cutter off the dresser and backed out of the room.

Beyond the porch, the street was alive with shadows. On the porch, the Bible passage came to him. Grace in the eyes of the Lord . Ralph Angel paused. Some people believed they were worthy of God’s grace and some people didn’t. Then he stepped into the darkness, stepped back across the line.

Miss Honey’s living room was New Year’s Eve before the ball dropped with all the party hats and plastic kazoos, the spiraled tin sparklers and colored streamers draped in scallops, and mylar balloon bouquets everywhere. Charley taped the HAPPY BIRTHDAY banner over the window before everyone hid, until Micah, still sleepy but dressed in her school uniform, opened the bedroom door and headed for the kitchen and they all jumped out and yelled Surprise!

“But you told me we weren’t celebrating until this weekend,” Micah said when she recovered from the shock. She had asked her two new friends to sleep over, and Charley had agreed to let the girls do beauty makeovers, have cake and an ice cream bar.

“I couldn’t let your real birthday go by without doing something special,” Charley said. “And since I won’t be home until late tonight, I thought we’d celebrate now.” She would drop Micah at school, then head to New Orleans.

“Open your presents,” Blue said. “Mine first.” He handed Micah a wad of newspaper tied with string. “It’s Zach,” he said before Micah could untie the knot. When she did, Charley recognized the action figure he played with the day he arrived. It was his favorite, she knew, and gave Blue a hug. “You’re so sweet. Thank you,” she said, knowing Micah would give it back to him.

Miss Honey gave Micah a new Bible with a bright white cover and real gold leaf on the edge of each page. “Every child who goes through confirmation at Mount Olive gets a Bible just like this. I order them special.” Micah opened the front cover and saw her name in gold letters. “I still have mine, from when I was a girl,” Miss Honey said.

Then Charley set a large present on the coffee table and they all held their breath as Micah lifted the lid off the cherry-red box and held up the Leica IIIf “Red Dial.” “It has a self-timer,” Charley said.

“Mom.” Micah stared at the camera. “This looks expensive. Are you sure?”

Charley nodded. “It’s used. And the man at the camera store said I can pay in installments. He said it still has a lot of life left. I thought you might need something more advanced since you’re in the photography club.”

• • •

Miss Honey made grits and eggs, Micah’s favorite breakfast, and they were passing the camera around, taking turns looking through the viewfinder, when Violet, in paint-splattered overalls, on her way to repaint the church bathrooms, rushed into the kitchen. “I wanted to catch you before you went to school. Happy birthday,” she said, and set a box of Meche’s glazed doughnut holes with two containers of chocolate dipping sauce on the table. The doughnut holes were still warm, light as air, and Charley stuck a candle in every one and they sang “Happy Birthday” and Micah made her wish. They passed the doughnuts around and everyone took two, and Micah announced this was her best birthday ever.

Charley looked around the table. She saw her grandmother, she saw Blue, she saw Violet, she saw her daughter, who looked happier than she had in months, and Charley thought, yes , this was what she wanted. This was what she’d been hoping for.

“I just wish Ralph Angel were here to celebrate with us,” Miss Honey said. She shot Charley a dark look. “He was pretty upset when he came in last night.”

It had not occurred to Charley until that moment to wonder about Ralph Angel. Last night, she met Remy for a drink at Paul’s Café and managed to put Ralph Angel out of her mind. She came home late to a quiet house, and this morning, rose extra early to decorate the living room. She didn’t feel like thinking about Ralph Angel; not today, not ever. Charley looked at her watch. In a little while, the sky would be filled with great mushroom clouds of gray smoke as farmers burned their cut cane before loading it in the wagons, and she would see, along the bayou, where the tupelo trees donned leaves of orange and yellow where they had been green before, the China rain trees ablaze in a crown of red blossoms. “We should get going. I want to beat the New Orleans traffic.”

“I’d like to eyeball that statue one last time since it’ll belong to someone else tomorrow,” Violet said.

Charley sent Micah to fetch The Cane Cutter from the bedroom, but Micah came back empty-handed. “It’s not there.”

“It has to be there,” Charley said. “Look again. On the dresser.”

But when Micah returned empty-handed a second time, Charley went to look herself. She looked on the dresser and in the closet and behind the door. She flung clothes and shoved aside the stack of farm catalogs. She lifted the mattress.

For the next hour, they searched the house — every shelf, every corner, every box — the whole time the voice in Charley’s head repeating over and over, This can’t be happening , until finally, she told everyone to stop looking. The Cane Cutter was gone. Charley collapsed into a chair. She laid her head on the table. She cried and didn’t think she would ever stop.

• • •

Three hours after Charley discovered The Cane Cutter was gone, she still sat in Miss Honey’s kitchen, clutching a wad of paper towel after having cried until she was spent. Hollywood still looked a little crestfallen after learning about her date with Remy, was trying, Charley could see, to put on a brave face. He had stopped by to say hello to Miss Honey and to wish Micah happy birthday, and heard about The Cane Cutter disappearing. Now he held Charley’s hand and tried to comfort her. He refilled her water glass and encouraged her to drink; whispered, “Don’t worry, Miss Charley, I won’t leave you,” which was sweet and kind, but Charley barely heard him. Meanwhile, Violet and Miss Honey debated whether to call the police. Like Charley, Violet was sure Ralph Angel had taken The Cane Cutter. She was sure that if they called the police right now, they could get it back. But Miss Honey kept saying, “No, Ralph Angel didn’t take it; leave the police out of this.”