Grace. Natashia Deon
Miss Annie.”
Next to the bed, water trickles into a basin as a light-skinned slave twists a wet rag in it. When the rag stops dripping, she slides away the mosquito netting that surrounds the bed and lays the rag on Josey’s forehead. Her body is drowned in covers, her head sunk into the pillow. Only the tip of her nose and her cracked pink lips show. She breathes lightly.
A lanky old white man, a doctor, sits down on the bed next to us and puts his big head on Josey’s chest, listening. He sits up and puts his fingertips on the center of her ribcage, massaging around in little circles. He say, “It’s not my intention to call to question your methods, Missus Graham, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t say that it is highly irregular for this child to be in this house.”
“Is her chest clear?” Annie say.
He lowers his head back down and listens just as Bessie comes back through the door carrying a cup of black coffee. “Place it there,” Annie tells her, and Bessie sets it next to the basin.
Annie say, “Have you met Bessie, Doctor? She was trained by Mrs. Durand herself. Her coffee would stand against all challengers in these parts. Tea, especially.”
“Training is one thing, Annie. But this gal in the bed . . .”
“She is my property, Doctor. I’ll do what’s best to see she’s cared for.”
“I urge you not to be so giving. This room . . . your good coffee. If Richard were here . . .”
“Bessie, try to wake her,” Annie say. “Have her drink the coffee. It’ll loosen her chest.”
“Yes’m,” Bessie say.
Bessie puts her hand behind Josey’s head to lift her up to sitting, waking her for coffee. Josey takes a few sleepy swallows.
“I . . . I found that girl, Ada Mae,” Bessie say to Annie. “She was peeking through the window downstairs. I thought you might want to have a word so I . . . She’s in the hall . . .”
“You brought her in here?” Annie say, meeting eyes with the doctor. Doctor folds his arms like he told her so. “Where is she now?”
Ada Mae comes through the door slow and with her clothes still stained with berry juice and dirt from playing earlier. She stutters, “I . . . I was just comin ’round for Josey. See how she was. She got the vapors when we was playin and . . . I ain’t too sure how it started. Could be the berries or could be . . .”
“Do you think it’s acceptable to come in my house dirty?” Annie say, her voice rising. “Like some naked African fresh off the boat. Some kind of vile creature,” she yell. “Answer me!”
“No no, Missus Graham.”
“Then why have you insisted on bringing your filth into my house? Get out! And the next time you try to kill another one of my slaves, I’ll have you and your momma strung up like runaways. You hear me?”
Doctor seems pleased.
“Yes’m,” Ada Mae say, trembling.
“Well go!”
The wind of Ada Mae’s sprint makes the door yawn and Josey comes wide-awake. Annie leans over Josey’s bed. “And you. If I have to spend another dime to treat your carelessness, I’ll sell you off!”
“Yes’m,” Josey say, breathy.
From the other side of the doorway, hands clap together, loud and slow. “Bravo,” a man’s voice say before his muddy black boots stomps across the threshold shaking brown chunks to the floor. Newly growed to manhood, about eighteen, George is two feet taller than he was the last time I saw him but he still small—the same size as Annie is now. “Brilliant,” he slurs, drunk. “Wonde’ful.”
“Bessie, come and clean this up,” Annie say, pointing to the mud.
“Was that little performance for the doctor’s sake, or yours?” George say. “It was . . . quite amusing.” He burps, then covers his mouth, dainty and polite-like, making hisself chuckle. He steps out of his boots, front ways, over the tongue of ’em, kicks ’em back into the hallway with his heels, then staggers toward Annie in his stocking feet, swaying from side to side.
“George, this isn’t the time,” Annie say.
He grabs her around the waist and lifts her up, grunting as he do. She stiffens in his skinny arms, her pretty puffed dress crushed to a wilted flower. “That’s enough,” she say, shoving her forearms in his chest. He holds on to her anyway, pulls her closer.
“I can’t show my big sister how happy I am to see her? Been back three days and you haven’t even hugged my neck yet.” He swishes his sweaty hair in her chest, laughing, while the sweet funk of alcohol rises off of him.
“I told you to stay out of the cordial,” Annie say.
“Always telling me what to do,” he say and drops her directly. He reaches in his coat pocket for a metal flask, undoes the lid and swallows a few gulps of something strong before teasing the flask under her nose. “It’ll sweeten your disposition.”
“Doctor,” Annie say, clasping her hands in front of herself. “Wouldn’t you like to use the washroom? Down the hall. Last door on the right.” She waits for Doctor to understand that her question wasn’t a question and when he finally do, he nods before he go.
George strolls around the room, drunk-grinning, pretending to ponder the sad people on the wall. “When’s your husband supposed to be back?” That’s the third time he’s asked about Richard in as many days.
Richard’s been gone for years and with no word to Annie on when he plans to come home. George has known the fact since the first time he asked, but annoys Annie with the question anyway.
“Bessie, come and help me fold these clothes,” Annie say, reaching for her basket of folding.
Annie shoves a blouse into Bessie’s hand and takes a pair of bloomers for herself to fold.
George twists his flask open again but before he sips, he stops and squeezes out gas from his backside. A shame, really. George used to be a pretty boy. Striking, even. And polite. The sight of him—dark-haired with eyes the color of purplish stones—used to be enough to stop me from doing my rounds through this property. I’d stop just to stare at him.
He was twelve years old when I first took notice. It was the year after I first come. He had an odd beauty about him, his features verging on manhood, even at that age. He was slim like a boy, and poised like a young man, but his Adam’s apple was pronounced like full-grown, his lips a dark-pink rose. Girls had noticed him before he’d noticed himself. At twelve, his focus was still on building forts and wooden trinkets. Inventions, he called ’em, and his imagination took him everywhere he needed to be, gave him a place to escape.
Josey coughs from the bed, hard and will-less, the bout sending coffee through her nose and out her mouth. Annie tells Bessie, “Give her a cloth and a little more coffee. Slower this time.”
George takes a sip from his flask, then strolls around to the bed, sits down on it, falls back like it’s his, stares up at Josey. “Goddamn, they’re looking more and more like us every day. Pretty soon we’ll all be coons.”
“Off the bed,” Annie says.
“Me, off the bed,” George laughs. “What in the hell will your husband say when he finds out you’ve been having niggers in the guest bed?”
“What I do in my house is nobody’s business,” Annie say.
“Hell,” he say, getting up. “If you like it, I love it. Just keep it out of my room.” He takes a mouthful of drink and squints from the burn.
“I heard about what happened in Montgomery,” Annie say, folding a pair of britches.
George’s manner changes. He slowly puts the lid back on his flask and