All the Forgivenesses Read online

  I put the jar on the table. Mama scooped out a glob of jelly, mounded it on a biscuit, and stuck it in Dacia’s mouth. She struggled to hold the whole mouthful, laughing and losing purple drool out the side of her mouth. But she got enough of it chewed to swallow it down.

  “I like gray jelly,” she said. White crumbs flew out of her mouth.

  “Bertie, see if there’s a cookie,” Mama said.

  “For breakfast?”

  “You’re too big, she ain’t.”

  I got down a cookie, and Mama smeared it with jelly, too.

  After a little bit, Dacia hopped down and come over to me and grabbed my skirt with her sticky hands. “Sister,” she said. She yanked on the material. “Sister.”

  “Leave me be, I got work to do.”

  “Let’s scrape some carrots and sugar them for dinner, want to?” Mama said.

  “Let’s,” I said, though I knowed she meant me.

  “Me too, me too,” said Dacia.

  “You’re too little,” I told her.

  “No, I ain’t, I ain’t little.” She took up my skirt and wiped her mouth with it.

  “Daddy and the boys take off already?” Mama said.

  I nodded.

  She sighed. “Well, he better get home with the money this time. Store bill’s due.”

  “Oh, that reminds me,” I said. “Mrs. Longhoffer, she brung some ironing by yesterday night. A dollar’s worth, I expect.”

  “Sister,” Dacia said. I felt her hands around my ankle, and I pulled my foot away. She was like to bite.

  “Well,” Mama said. “Let’s do the ironing instead of the carrots, then.”

  I nodded.

  “Don’t know what I’d do without you, Bertie,” she said to me. “Wore out as I been.”

  Warmth spread through me to my toes. “You’ll get to feeling better, Mama.”

  “Sister!” Dacia hollered. “I gotta pee!” But it was too late.

  Mama started to get up from her chair but then fell back heavy.

  “I got it, I got it, set down.” I grabbed a rag from off the table.

  Mama rested her head in her hands. Dacia started hiccupping and then took to bawling like she done, and I felt an ache behind my eyes, fiery.

  Seemed like them days was like that more often than not. You was feeling content one minute, and then, just like that, you was drug down like a coon with a pack of dogs on her. It wasn’t like chores was a tribulation. I liked feeling useful, and mostly they wasn’t that hard. Washing dishes and ironing, especially, I’d stand there and daydream and maybe sing or hum to pass the time. For me, floors, though, they was a trial. When you think about it, everthing falls down sooner or later. Our house only had two rooms—the bedroom where Mama and Daddy slept, and the front room, which had a corner curtained off for the older children to sleep—but seemed to me like the floors was dirty most all the time.

  “Bertie?” Mama said. “Where’s your mind at? Get that sopped up, she’s like to play in it.”

  I blinked and knelt down and wiped up the puddle. Then before I could get back up, why, Dacia laughed and throwed herself on my back. “Worsie! Worsie!” she hollered. She bucked and kicked me in the ribs till I give up and rode her around the table. Grit dug into my knees, and I felt Dacia’s pants leaking on my shirt.

  Pretty soon I slid her off and changed her pants. Then I left her with Mama and took the dirty things outside. I rinsed them out and hung them up in the volunteer elm tree next to the pump. Luckily it was a fine warm day. The sun would take the smell away before washday.

  I stretched my back and looked around the place. The house, it needed painting, and half the porch floorboards was gone, and the fence was down in places. The garden was weedy and needed watering, and there was a pile of trash to be burned.

  Inside, there was the dishes and the floor. And Mrs. Longhoffer’s ironing would take up most of the day.

  It surprised me when I felt tears gathering. I knowed perfectly well, whatever didn’t get done today would still be there tomorrow, so how come was I feeling blue? Then I heard Mama laughing in the house, and I reckoned my feelings was hurt she’d give my song to Dacia. Of course it wasn’t mine, but Mama had to know how much pride I took in it. My favorite part was in the second verse:

  If, in the dusk of the twilight, dim be the region afar,

  Will not the deepening darkness brighten the glimmering star?

  I used to play like I had a horse named Glimmering Star. I called him Star. As a child I never knowed what “glimmering” meant, but I loved how it sounded. Me and Star, we had a lot of adventures in my mind. Mama never knowed about my pretend horse, but surely she knowed this was the only song I knowed all the way through, the song I used to sing to Timmy.

  I give the pump a couple pulls and let the cold water run over my hands, and then I rubbed it over my face and felt it stream down my neck. I stood there next to the pump and thought about Star till Mama called me in.

  * * *

  Wasn’t long after that, maybe a month, Daddy come to my pallet one morning before dawn. “Get up,” he whispered, shaking my shoulder. “Come on now.”

  He’d never woken me up in my life. Though I was still groggy, my heart pounded. I was half-scared to find out what was going on.

  “Get dressed,” he said. “Ain’t got all day.”

  I reached for my skirt next to me on the pallet. I felt the need to stretch, and I reached both arms up.

  “You been crying to come with me all this time,” he said. “Hurry up if you’re coming.”

  I stood up and pulled my skirt on underneath of my nightdress.

  Daddy turned and walked toward the door. “Go if you have to. Won’t be stopping till we get there.”

  I pulled my nightdress up over my head and throwed on my shirt. I never let myself believe it till I got outside and seen it—there was the horses, snorting and stomping their feet, humming in their throat like they does. Daddy, he was standing next to Blue, waiting to hoist me up. I about fell over, I was so tickled. Wasn’t nobody but him and me.

  Up on Blue, my legs was splayed practically straight out. I always was little for my age.

  Daddy had gotten in the horse business when a neighbor of ours was getting evicted off his property and had to sell his horse. Daddy give him three dollars for it and sold it a week later for seven and a half. To him it was like printing money. After that he went horse trading three-four times a week. If he didn’t get his price, he brought them home and kept them till he did. Daddy knowed how much he could pay and how much he could get. He could tell how well they’d been looked after and how much starch they had left in them. He didn’t get bamboozled very often.

  We had four with us that day. Daddy was riding one in the saddle and leading Blue and the other three by a rope. I was surprised my brothers wasn’t there, but I never asked. There was some things you was better off not asking Daddy. If he thought it was none of your business, he wouldn’t answer you. And if he thought you was being mouthy, he was like to ignore you for a long time, or slap your face if he thought you needed it. Seemed like he wanted you to understand he was mad just by the way he acted.

  Me, up on Blue I felt as happy as I ever was. I always loved the sound of horses’ hooves, how they clop-clop, clop-clop in time with their backbone swaying underneath of you. Seems like horses just know what they’re doing, so you’re all right if you sway yourself in time with them.

  We rode off, and I never looked back. Wasn’t nobody up but us.

  Pretty soon the sun come up, and Blue’s back got to sweating and made my legs sweat. My skirt was hiked up, and as Blue swished her tail, it made my legs itch something fierce. I didn’t know which was worse—the flies, or the sharp tail hair lashing at my legs. Didn’t matter, though. I got whichever one I got.

  We took the trail that led to town. I was hoping we would ride through town so I could see what was what, maybe see an automobile like I seen before, but a mile outside of town we veered o
ff into the woods.

  “I ever tell you the time Uncle Seth come riding up on a mule after he was dead?” Daddy said.

  “You did.”

  “Me and my brothers was sleeping in the house on the old Strickler place,” he went on. “Now, how many brothers did I have, I wonder.”

  “Five,” I answered.

  “And what was their names?”

  “William, which they called him Billy, Thomas, James, Marcus, which he got his one foot cut off, and Ezekiel, which they called him Zeke.” I’d heard this story many a time. I knowed what to say and when to say it.

  “Your memaw, now,” he said, “it never failed she kept a bedroom window open in all weathers—”

  “And one time you woken up in the morning and your bed had a snow drift on it.”

  Daddy sighed and petted his horse on the neck.

  “But that ain’t the story,” I said. Clop-clop, clop-clop.

  “No, that ain’t the story.”

  “Tell me, then.”

  “Well, one day us brothers, we was up in that room, and we looked out the window, and we seen Uncle Seth riding up to the house on a mule. Now that wasn’t nothing—we seen Uncle Seth riding up to the house many a time. We knowed that mule.”

  “Name was Jackie, that mule.”

  He nodded. “Well, now, we run down the stairs, and there’s Memaw, setting at the table, bawling fit to die. And we said, ‘Mama,’ said, ‘what’s the matter?’ And she said, ‘Just got word. My brother Seth, he passed on, Tuesday week.’ ”

  “Poor Uncle Seth,” I said.

  “Now I ask you.” Daddy reined his horse to a stop, and the others bumped to a stop, too. He turned in the saddle to look at me. “You tell me. How was it, me and my brothers looked out that window and seen Uncle Seth, and him dead over a week? And his mule?”

  “Maybe it wasn’t him.” I run my fingers along Blue’s mane. “Maybe it was some other man.”

  “Wasn’t no man there!” The horses throwed back their heads, and there was a commotion. Even Blue got spooked and started pawing and thumping like she was high-stepping, and I grabbed her mane and made my hips as light as I could.

  “Whoa there,” Daddy said. “Whoa there.” His horse twirled around, and he dropped the lead rope. My heart roared, but Daddy quick jumped down and made clucking sounds and rubbed their necks, and after while they all simmered down and stood there blowing out their breath. I was proud I hadn’t gotten throwed.

  After a little bit Daddy climbed back up and we rode on, him still in front, me following. “Wasn’t no man there,” he said again, in a more regular voice. “Nor mule neither.”

  “What was it you seen, then?”

  He took out a rag and blowed his nose. “A dead man riding a mule made out of air, I reckon.” He wadded up the rag and put it back in his pocket.

  That was the end of the story. I knowed from experience Daddy wouldn’t brook no more questions. It was a mystery, and he liked a mystery. Not me. I wanted things to make sense—I couldn’t hardly abide things being two different ways. For one thing, I wanted to know how come Mama went to Galena Baptist and took us younger children, and Daddy went by himself, when he went, to the Tabernacle of the Blood of the Lamb. And how come Daddy seemed to believe in ghosts, and Mama always told us ghosts was from the Devil. There was lots of things where Mama and Daddy seemed to believe two different ways, and each of them so certain. I wondered what made the difference, and I longed to know which one was true.

  As for me and Daddy, I wanted him to be happy with me, if only I could figure out how. The age I had gotten to, though, I was starting to wonder was the story about Uncle Seth even true, never mind the mystery, though I would never say nothing like that to Daddy.

  * * *

  After a little bit we come to a clearing where there was a cabin and three sheds. An old man was setting out front on a wooden chair like a scarecrow. He had a full head of white hair sticking up like a scrub brush.

  “Winslow,” he said.

  I reckon I should have knowed people would know Daddy already, but I was startled to hear our name coming out of that man’s mouth. Of course, I was surprised he talked at all, setting there so stiff like he was.

  “Byrnes,” Daddy said.

  “The wife? Childern?” the man said.

  Daddy nodded. “Got anything for me?”

  The man frowned and shook his head. “Oh, there’s a gelding back there, but I don’t know.”

  “How long you had him?”

  Byrnes throwed his head back and squinted at the sky. “Two, three months?”

  “I’ll take a look.” He got off this horse, and then he come over and pulled me down to the ground. He took off limping toward one of the sheds. I trotted to catch up with him.

  We come to a bob wire fence, and he pressed his boot down on the bottom strand and stretched out the middle strand. I stepped through and then him. He said, “Fuck”—for what reason, I couldn’t see. Wasn’t the first time I’d heard him or my brothers say that one. I never knowed what it meant then, but I had a feeling if I said it I’d get a whipping. You just reckon them things out.

  A small black horse come walking up to us with his head lowered. “Whoa, horse,” Daddy said softly, making a kissing sound with his mouth. “Whoa there, that’s a good fella.”

  The gelding shied back and coughed, but Daddy sweet-talked him and after while he stood quiet. Daddy run his hand along his backbone and sighed. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a brown chunk—sorghum, I reckoned—and the horse gathered in the treat with his big, floppy lips and ground it in his teeth like they does. I heard him wheezing as we walked away.

  Daddy shook his head. “Heaves.”

  “What’s heaves?”

  “What’s it sound like?”

  We reached the fence and climbed through.

  About the time we got to the shed, he said, “After while, they get heave lines.” He stopped. “Overgrowed muscle along the ribcage, from coughing and wheezing. Heaves.”

  “Oh.” I wished he had pointed out that heave line on the horse so I could’ve saw what it looked like.

  He took up walking again. “Nothing you can do about heaves.”

  “Will he die?”

  “Ever living thing dies.”

  “I know, but—”

  “ ‘I-know-b’t,’ ” he said, mocking.

  When we got back to the horses, he mounted his and said to Byrnes, “Can’t do no business with you today.” When he stretched out his leg I seen a line of blood on his pants. Must’ve cut it crossing the fence, and that’s why he said fuck.

  Byrnes throwed back his head, nodding backward like some men does.

  “Maybe next time,” Daddy said.

  I walked over to Blue and waited for Daddy to boost me up. But off he rode at a trot, leading the other horses. Blue shouldered me out of the way and followed.

  “Daddy?”

  He acted like he didn’t hear me and rode on.

  “Daddy! Don’t forget me!”

  Quickly the woods swallowed them up.

  I turned to Mr. Byrnes, who was staring at me, grinning. “Reckon I got me a little girl,” he said.

  I should’ve knowed better—should’ve figured Daddy was only teasing me and there was nothing to do but wait till he tired of it—but I busted into tears anyhow.

  After maybe ten minutes he come riding back, laughing. When he boosted me onto Blue’s back, he seen I’d been crying. “Ain’t you got no sense of humor, bawl-baby?”

  I settled myself on Blue and petted her neck. I breathed in her smell as best as I could with a nose full of tears.

  “Can’t you take a joke?” he said.

  “Can’t take a joke,” Byrnes said.

  Daddy mounted his horse, muttering, “Whose child are you?”

  Nobody’s is what popped into my mind. No-fucking-body’s. It about took my breath away I even thought that word.

  At midday we stopped at a creek to w
ater the horses and eat dinner. He’d packed us up some bread-and-butter sandwiches and a potato each. Later on he bought two horses.

  When we got to Feldspar, he had me and Blue to wait by a church two blocks away from the livery stable while he sold the horses to the livery man. I set on the church steps and watched them. The livery man leaned against the fence, smoking cigarettes and nodding ever little bit. Daddy, he roamed around like a caged bull, flinging out his arms, pointing this way and that, talking all the while. He’d turn his back and take two or three steps and then turn and limp back. I coveted being over there and hearing what they was saying. I pictured myself perched on the fence, acting like I wasn’t interested but studying ever word. It was like when I was little, before Mama learned me my letters, when I looked at the pictures in her Bible and didn’t understand what I was looking at. I remembered Daniel in the lion’s den, how the biggest lion had his upper lip curled and his fangs bared. I pretended Daniel and the lion were friends, laughing together. I could almost talk myself into believing it, though I’d seen the handiwork of coyotes and possums, and I knowed better in my heart.

  Pretty soon Daddy and the livery man shook hands, and Daddy ducked into a storefront.

  After while I got up and walked Blue around. Back of the church we found a graveyard, and me and Blue wandered through it, her eating grass. One grave looked like a little crib. They had built railings around it, and there was flowers growing where the blanket would be. This was a child’s grave, surely, and it asleep in the Lord. I couldn’t help but tremble, looking at it. What if Mama and Daddy was both wrong, and Timmy was just dead? Soon as that thought come, I prayed the Lord would banish it. I felt my sins heavy on me.

  Me and Blue tarried there a while. It was a quiet day, and there come up a breeze, making the trees to rustle. Blue ripped up grass and chomped on it, and that sound, so familiar, comforted me and made me feel the life going on outside my own skin. I shivered. I got a feeling I had sometimes, of my future life being big and far away and calling to me through the wind in the trees. I felt a sharp longing, though I didn’t know what for.

  For the first time all day I thought about Mama and Dacia and Opal back at the house, and me here. I thought, I ain’t never going to forget this day. I’m going to remember it all my life.