Butler, Octavia - Kindred

I stood where I was, my head throbbing, my expression as neutral as I

could make it. I still had some pride left. “Get back in here!” he said.

I stood there for a moment longer, then went back to his desk and sat down. And he wilted. The look I associated with his father vanished. He was himself again—whoever that was.

“Dana, don’t make me talk to you like that,” he said wearily. “Just do what I tell you.”

I shook my head, unable to think of anything safe to say. And I guess I wilted. To my shame, I realized I was almost crying. I needed desper- ately to be alone. Somehow, I kept back the tears.

If he noticed, he didn’t say anything. I remembered I still had the Excedrin tablets in my hand, and I took them, swallowed them without water, hoping they’d work quickly, steady me a little. Then I looked at Rufus, saw that he’d lain back again. Was I supposed to stay and watch him sleep?

“I don’t see how you can swallow those things like that,” he said, rub-

THE ST ORM 215

bing his throat. There was a long silence, then another command. “Say something! Talk to me!”

“Or what?” I asked. “Are you going to have me beaten for not talking to you?”

He muttered something I didn’t quite hear. “What?”

Silence. Then a rush of bitterness from me.

“I saved your life, Rufus! Over and over again.” I stopped for a moment, caught my breath. “And I tried to save your father’s life. You know I did. You know I didn’t kill him or let him die.”

He moved uncomfortably, wincing a little. “Give me some of your medicine,” he said.

Somehow, I didn’t throw the bottle at him. I got up and handed it to him.

“Open it,” he said. “I don’t want to be bothered with that damn top.”

I opened it, shook one tablet into his hand, and snapped the top back on.

He looked at the tablet. “Only one?”

“These are stronger than the others,” I said. And also, I wanted to hang on to them for as long as I could. Who knew how many more times he would make me need them. The ones I had taken were beginning to help me already.

“You took three,” he said petulantly.

“I needed three. No one has been beating you.”

He looked away from me, put the one into his mouth. He still had to chew tablets before he could swallow them. “This tastes worse than the others,” he complained.

I ignored him, put the bottle away in the desk. “Dana?”

“What?”

“I know you tried to help Daddy. I know.”

“Then why did you send me to the field? Why did I have to go through all that, Rufe?”

He shrugged, winced, rubbed his shoulders. He still had plenty of sore muscles, apparently. “I guess I just had to make somebody pay. And it seemed that … well, people don’t die when you’re taking care of them.”

“I’m not a miracle worker.”

“No. Daddy thought you were, though. He didn’t like you, but he

216

KINDRED

thought you could heal better than a doctor.”

“Well I can’t. Sometimes I’m less likely to kill than the doctor, that’s all.”

“Kill?”

“I don’t bleed or purge away people’s strength when they need it most. And I know enough to try to keep a wound clean.”

“Is that all?”

“That’s enough to save a few lives around here, but no, it’s not all. I

know a little about some diseases. Only a little.”

“What do you know about … about a woman who’s been hurt in child- bearing?”

“Been hurt how?” I wondered whether he meant Alice.

“I don’t know. The doctor said she wasn’t to have any more and she did. The babies died and she almost died. She hasn’t been well since.”

Now I knew who he was talking about. “Your mother?” “Yes. She’s coming home. I want you to take care of her.”

“My God! Rufe, I don’t know anything about problems like that! Believe me, nothing at all.” What if the woman died in my care. He’d have me beaten to death!

“She wants to come home, now that … She wants to come home.”

“I can’t care for her. I don’t know how.” I hesitated. “Your mother doesn’t like me anyway, Rufe. You know that as well as I do.” She hated me. She’d make my life hell out of pure spite.

“There’s no one else I’d trust,” he said. “Carrie’s got her own family now. I’d have to take her out of her cabin away from Nigel and the boys …”

“Why?”

“Mama has to have someone with her through the night. What if she needed something?”

“You mean I’d have to sleep in her room?”

“Yes. She’d never have a servant sleep in her room before. Now, though, she’s gotten used to it.”

“She won’t get used to me. I’m telling you, she won’t have me.” Please heaven!

“I think she will. She’s older now, not so full of fire. You give her her laudanum when she needs it and she won’t give you much trouble.”

“Laudanum?”

“Her medicine. She doesn’t need it so much for pain anymore, Aunt

THE ST ORM 217

May says. But she still needs it.”

Since laudanum was an opium extract, I didn’t doubt that she still needed it. I was going to have a drug addict on my hands. A drug addict who hated me. “Rufe, couldn’t Alice …”

“No!” A very sharp no. It occurred to me that Margaret Weylin had more reason to hate Alice than she did to hate me.

“Alice will be having another baby in a few months anyway,” said

Rufus.

“She will? Then maybe …” I shut my mouth, but the thought went on. Maybe this one would be Hagar. Maybe for once, I had something to gain by staying here. If only …

“Maybe what?”

“Nothing. It doesn’t matter. Rufe, I’m asking you not to put your mother in my care, for her sake and for mine.”

He rubbed his forehead. “I’ll think about it, Dana, and talk to her. Maybe she remembers someone she’d like. Let me sleep now. I’m still so damn weak.”

I started out of the room. “Dana.”

“Yes?” What now?

“Go read a book or something. Don’t do any more work today.” “Read a book?”

“Do whatever you want to.”

In other words, he was sorry. He was always sorry. He would have been amazed, uncomprehending if I refused to forgive him. I remem- bered suddenly the way he used to talk to his mother. If he couldn’t get what he wanted from her gently, he stopped being gentle. Why not? She always forgave him.

7

Margaret Weylin wanted me. She was thin and pale and weak and older than her years. Her beauty had gone to a kind of fragile gaunt- ness. As I was reintroduced to her, she sipped at her little bottle of dark brownish-red liquid and smiled beneficently.

218

KINDRED

Nigel carried her up to her room. She could walk a little, but she could- n’t manage the stairs. Sometime later, she wanted to see Nigel’s children. She was sugary sweet with them. I couldn’t remember her being that way with anyone but Rufus before. Slave children hadn’t interested her unless her husband had fathered them. Then her interest had been negative. But she gave Nigel’s sons candy and they loved her.

She asked to see another slave—one I didn’t know—and then wept a little when she heard that one had been sold. She was full of sweetness and charity. It scared me a little. I couldn’t quite believe she’d changed that much.

“Dana, can you still read the way you used to?” she asked me. “Yes, ma’am.”

“I wanted you because I remembered how well you read.”

I kept my expression neutral. If she didn’t remember what she had thought of my reading, I did.

“Read the Bible to me,” she said.

“Now?” She had just had her breakfast. I hadn’t had anything yet, and