Black Cat

  "You were. You must not do anything like that again," I said sternly.

  "You're bad. too. We have to work in the garden." She turned and ran out of the kitchen.

  Betsy was mean and selfish, but maybe she wasn't so wrong about all of this. I thought sadly. Baby Celeste wasn't growing up right. I lifted the bassinet and carried it and Panther to the living room where Baby Celeste had curled up on the sofa. She had her thumb in her mouth and her back to me. I set Panther down gently, then went to the sofa and stroked

  Baby Celeste's hair.

  "We were going back to the garden, but you shouldn't have hurt little Panther. Celeste. That's not the way to clean him."

  She shook her head, kept her thumb in her mouth, and closed her eyes.

  "Do you understand me? He's just a baby. What did he do to make you want to do that to him? Tell me."

  She didn't answer. She held that thumb in her mouth. A thought came into my mind. a thought both terrifying and intriguing. I turned her slowly to me.

  "Did someone tell you to do that, Celeste?'

  She nodded.

  "Who? Who told you?"

  She pointed toward the doorway, but I saw nothing.

  "Was it a man?"

  She nodded.

  "What did he look like? What color was his hair?"

  "My hair." She touched her head. Then she turned her back to me again and closed her eyes.

  I sat there, unable to speak, unable to move. until I heard Mama drive up.

  The moment she entered the house and looked in at us, she knew something was wrong.

  "Why are you in here on such a beautiful day. Noble?" she demanded before I could speak.

  I felt a great exhaustion, a deep emptiness. I didn't have the strength to find answers that would soothe or please Mama. This sense of helplessness made me numb. All I could do is stare back at her. She stepped farther into the room. looked at Panther in the bassinet, and then at Baby Celeste, who had turned and sat up to look at her. Her eyes moved from one face to another.

  "What happened here?"

  "When I wasn't watching. Baby Celeste lit one of your black candles and put it in the bassinet under Panther's foot to burn him."

  Mama looked at her and then back at me.

  "Why weren't you watching?"

  "I was upstairs."

  "Doing what?"

  "I brought something to Betsy."

  "Did she do her chores? Is the pantry finished?"

  "Yes. Mama." 'Why wasn't she more concerned about what Baby Celeste had done?

  Her eyes widened and then she fixed them on me. "'Where's that girl? Why wasn't she watching her own child?"

  Betsy had heard her enter the house and had come dawn the stairway quietly. She was still wearing Mama's dress and all the makeup.

  "You think you're going to blame it on me?" she said. spinning Mama around. When Mama confronted her, she gasped at the sight of her in the dress and with all that makeup on her face. "It was all your precious special baby's doing." Betsy smiled. "I'm sorry I mean your cousin's baby."

  "What is the meaning of this? Why are you in that dress and where did you get the makeup?"

  "Don't you recognize the dress?" Betsy said. twirling. "Oh. I'm sorry. I needed to make some alterations. I hope you don't mind."

  Betsy's audaciousness stunned Mama. She stood there staring at her and then turned to me.

  "What's going on here, Noble?"

  "Yes. Noble., what's going on here? Your mother has a right to know. Tell her,"

  "Stop it!" I snapped.

  "Stop it? That's exactly what I intend to do,' Betsy fired back at me with her hands on her hips.

  "I don't know what you're up to now. Betsy, but you have put yourself back months with this behavior. I couldn't justify giving you a single penny of your father's trust," Mama told her.

  Betsy held her smile. "Oh, you're going to give me a lot more than that, Sarah. Isn't she. Noble? Or should I say. Celeste? What should I call you? Sarah, what should I call her?'

  Mama gasped audibly as her hands lifted and fluttered like baby birds to the base of her throat. She took a step back and shook her head.

  "What are you saying? What is she saying?" Mama asked me. "Tell her what Im saying."

  "Stop, please," I begged. "I'm doing what you asked me to do."

  "It's not enough anymore. I haven't got the patience for any of it. You listen to me. Sarah." Betsy continued, heartened, encouraged, and strengthened by Mama's signs of retreat, "The whole world is going to find out what a sick thing you did here, making her behave and act like a boy. And the whole world's going to know about your precious Baby Celeste, who is just as sick as the two of you.

  "Unless," she continued, now merely a foot or so from Mama. "you turn over all my money to me immediately. You go to that locked-up phone and you call the attorney and tell him to have my check ready tomorrow. Hear me?"

  Mama shook her head. She couldn't speak.

  Betsy smiled. "What actually happened here, Sarah? If that's really Celeste, where's Noble?... Well? Tell me!" she screamed into Mama's face.

  "No!" I cried, and lunged forward to pull Betsy away.

  Baby Celeste started to cry and that woke Panther, who joined her in a chorus of screams and wails while I struggled to pull Betsy away from Mama.

  "You go make that call. Sarah. You go do it now. I'm warning you!" Betsy continued. waving her fist at her face.

  Mama continued to shake her head, then she hurried to the stairway.

  "Where are you going. Sarah? You better be going to make that phone call," Betsy shouted after her.

  Mama didn't look back. She climbed the stairs, pausing at one point to steady herself with the rickety balustrade. She looked about to faint.

  "Mama?" I cried up at her.

  She turned and stared down at me with such hateful accusation in her face. I felt my heart shatter like brittle china under my breast. It brought tears to my eyes. I shook my head and whispered, "Mama. please."

  "Call!" Betsy screamed. "I want to get out of here tomorrow!" Mama continued up and

  disappeared.

  "How could you do that? I was doing everything you wanted," I bawled.

  "Oh, stop it. You should be grateful and thanking me on your hands and knees. You won't have to pretend to be a boy anymore, but you better see to it that she does what I asked her to do. You go impress her with my determination, hear me? And I want some money and the keys to the car right away, give you ten minutes. Go up and get it and come right down. Do it!" Betsy ordered, pointing her finger at the stairway.

  I looked at Baby Celeste, who was clutching herself and sitting on the sofa. Tears streaked down her cheeks almost as fast as Panther's had. Panther was crying so hard as well that the bassinet rocked.

  The children." I said.

  "Oh, they'll live. Just do what I said." Betsy gave me a shove toward the stairway. "Now."

  I started up the stairs slowly.

  "Move it. Noble Celeste. You were a freak after all. I was sure you were gay. Maybe you are." She laughed, then turned and shouted at the children, "Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

  I hurried the rest of the way, hoping to act the money and the keys and get her out of the house as quickly as I could. At the moment that seemed to be the only solution there was. Mama's bedroom door was open. I stopped in the doorway and watched her clearing off the vanity table slowly and putting things away. She moved as if she were walking in her sleep. Betsy had thrown garments all over the room.

  "Mama. I'm sorry', She came in on me at night... Mama..."

  I heard something, and at first it confused me, but as I entered the bedroom. I understood she was humming to herself. I recognized it immediately, a song she often sang to Noble and me when we were young.

  "Mama?"

  Instead of answering me, she started to sing.

  "If you go out to the woods today, you're sure of a big surprise...

  "Mania, please listen
to me." I touched her arm.

  She turned and smiled.

  "If you go out into the woods today..."

  "Mama?"

  "...you'd better go in disguise."

  She turned away, continued to clean up, and returned to humming.

  I watched her for a few moments.

  "Noble Celeste!" I heard Betsy shout from the bottom of the stairs, "Im not going to be here all day!"

  I looked around and saw Mama's purse. While her car keys and some money, then closed it.

  She was singing again.

  I hurried out and down the stairs.

  "Did you get it?"

  "Yes." I flung the keys at her.

  She caught them and smiled. "What about the money?"

  "Here's all I can find." I handed her the bills.

  She counted them quickly. "Okay. This will do for now. When I come back, she had better have made that phone call. Otherwise..."

  She let her threat hang in the air.

  "Children." she said, turning to Baby Celeste and Panther, who was dozing again, "I now leave you in capable hands. Have a good night.

  "I'll be thinking about you. Noble Celeste," she said, and walked out.

  The moment the door closed. Mama's scream pierced my heart and fell like thunder from above.

  19

  Almost Over

  .

  When I rushed back up the stairs to her

  bedroom. I found Mama collapsed on the floor. Her body was folded awkwardly, twisted with her right arm out and her left under her torso. When I knelt beside her. I saw that she had fallen hard and scraped the left side of her forehead. A tiny trickle of blood emerged from the wounds. I rose quickly and retrieved a wet washcloth to first clean the scrapes. Fortunately, she wasn't heavy. In fact. I was surprised at how I hadn't realized her thinness beneath her clothing. I could feel her rib bones as I lifted her gently and laid her on her bed. I put the cold, wet washcloth over her forehead and rubbed her hand.

  "Mama, wake up. Please," I moaned, Below. Panther was still crying loudly, but Baby Celeste had come up behind me and was standing in the bedroom doorway looking in with concern.

  "We have to work in the garden," she said, as if that were the solution to everything, In a vague place deep in the bottom of my mind. I wondered if it was, if working in the garden was magical and somehow roused all the good spirits who would come to our aid.

  I shook Mama's hand. She groaned.

  "Mama, wake up. Please." I begged.

  Her eyelids fluttered, opened and closed, and

  then fluttered again. Baby Celeste drew closer. "The garden." "Celeste. please. Don't you see Mama's not feeling well!"

  She looked at Mama and then at me, her face full of accusation. I thought. I could almost hear her thinking. Thiswas your fault.

  Mama groaned again. then her eyes opened. She looked at me., but she didn't speak. "Mama, are you all right? What should I do?"

  She stared and still did not speak. Then her eyes shifted away. I wiped her scrapes clean and went for some healing balm. When I returned. Baby Celeste was gone, which put some more panic in my chest and made me feel as if my nerves had broken into tiny little marbles rolling and bouncing inside me. I could take only short, little breaths and hurried to care for Mama's scrapes. All the time, she kept her eyes fixed on the wall and avoided looking at me. I begged her to listen and talk to me, but she didn't utter a sound.

  Concerned for Baby Celeste and especially for Panther's welfare now that I had seen what Baby Celeste had done to him before. I reluctantly left Mama's side and hurried downstairs. Panther was in a deep sleep again in his bassinet. but Baby Celeste was nowhere to be found. I stepped out and saw her working in the garden.

  "Celeste!" I called. "Why did you go out without me?"

  I charged off the porch, anger like a wind carrying me to the garden where she was bent over, digging with her small spade and ignoring my cries. I ripped her away from the soil.

  "Didn't I tell you to wait for me? Didn't I?" She glared at me sullenly.

  "First. we have to see to Mama and then we'll come out here. Celeste. The garden is not important now."

  "We have to work in the garden," she chanted.

  I carried her back, struggling and screaming in my arms.

  "You're being very bad," I told her. "You know what happens to people who are bad in this house,"

  I marched up the stairway with her and put her forcefully down on her bed. "You take a nap," I ordered. "I need to tend to Mama."

  I left her glaring at me and closed her bedroom door. but I was worried she would sneak out again. In the top right dresser drawer in Mama's bedroom, I found the skeleton key that opened and locked all the doors in the house. Before this. I would never dare touch it or look for it without Mama's permission. I returned to Baby Celeste's bedroom door and locked it. The second she heard that, she wailed and pounded on the inside of the door.

  "Take a nap!" I shouted.

  Then I calmed myself, went downstairs to bring Panther up in his bassinet, and put him in his crib in Betsy's room. He moaned and squirmed a little, but he didn't wake up. How many days like this had he already had in his life? I wondered. but I didn't have time to think about all that now. I had to return to Mama.

  She was still lying flat on her bed, her head turned toward the wall, her eyes opened, the eyelids blinking slowly. I sat beside her and held her hand, hoping she would eventually turn to me and tell me what she wanted me to do, but the afternoon light dwindled into twilight and she hadn't moved an inch or said a word. In fact, her eyelids closed and she fell into a deep sleep.

  I rose, feeling exhausted myself. The children were quiet, the house was dark. I had to see to dinner. I told myself when I looked with longing at my own bed. I was tempted to fall asleep and dream that none of this had happened, but I descended the stairway slowly and went into the kitchen to prepare something for all of us to eat.

  My early days as Celeste, a daughter who often stood side by side with her mother in the kitchen, returned to my memory. As Noble. I had done little in the kitchen, but remarkably, all I had done with Mama years and years ago was vivid. I prepared her wild rice and prepared some eggplant with her herbal breading. Then I set the table. I heard the grandfather clock bong and listened expectantly for the sounds of Mama rising. She would be pleased at what I had done. I thought. She would be restored.

  But when I went up to see her. I found she was still in a deep sleep. I hesitated, wondering if I should wake her anyway. She should eat something. I thought. If she doesn't wake up soon.Ill feed Baby Celeste and Panther, then bring up some food for her. She'll still be pleased.

  I unlocked Baby Celeste's door and found her curled up on the floor beside it. She sat up, rubbed her eyes, and looked at me furiously,

  "If you behave now, you can come out. Are you going to behave?"

  She nodded, but did not speak.

  "Come on then. I've made us dinner. 'We have to get Panther and feed him. too." Panther was squirming uncomfortably in his crib and alternating between sobbing and coughing on his tears and pain. I put another dose of balm on his burn and brought him down to sit in his high chair at the table.

  "Help me bring everything out I told Baby Celeste. She did so, but not with the same excitement and joy she had when Mama asked her to do it.

  Afterward, she sat quietly and ate, watching me feed Panther and eating something myself as I did so. I couldn't stand the way Baby Celeste glared at me. It was Mama's angry face transposed on her face like some mask she could take off and put on at will.

  "We've got to behave ourselves," I lectured, and help Mama. She's not feeling well, and not behaving will only make her feel worse. Celeste."

  Her normally sweet lips tightened in the comers, but she didn't say, "Okay," or anything. She finished eating and then, without my telling her to do so, began taking things back into the kitchen.

  Panther ate, but he was uncomfortable. I wondered what Be
tsy was doing and when she would return. Until I had a good talk with Mama, there was little I could do to make Betsy happy and keep her from making trouble for us. I thought. I settled Panther in his crib and then I looked in on Mama. She had turned her head and had her eyes open, but she was staring at the ceiling.

  "Mama, how are you? Are you hungry? I made some dinner for you.' She didn't reply.

  "Ill bring it up," I said, thinking that when she saw it, she would be pleased and begin to speak.

  Baby Celeste followed me about, but was as silent as Mama, not responding to anything I said or asking for anything. I fixed Mama's pillows so I could sit her up. She was limp and did nothing to help. Even after I put the tray before her, she just stared in silence.

  "You've got to eat and drink something. Mama. You have to." I began to feed her. She looked at me and she chewed slowly.

  Good. I thought, she's coming around. I fed her as much as she would take and made her drink as much water as I could, but then she just turned her head and closed her eyes. All the while Baby Celeste sat on the floor listening and watching. I adjusted Mama and her pillows again, then carried out the tray.

  "Let's go downstairs, Celeste," I told her. "I'll read with you."

  I continued down the stairs to the kitchen, my mind reeling with worry and confusion. It took me a few minutes to realize Baby Celeste hadn't followed. After I had taken care of the dishes and silverware. I went back upstairs, expecting she had remained in Mama's bedroom, She hadn't. I looked into her bedroom, and to my surprise I found she had prepared herself for sleep and was in bed. It was truly as if she was tuned in to Mama's every mood, every feeling. Suddenly, that frightened me. Instinctively, I thought that wasn't good.

  I attended to Panther, talking and playing with him for a while until he, too, drifted off to sleep. then I went downstairs and sat in Grandfather Jordan's chair and waited with a trembling heart for Betsy's eventual return. It was like anticipating a tornado. The silence was ominous.

  "Daddy," I whispered at the darkness outside our windows. "Come to me. Help me. Help us."

  I held my breath and listened and waited. but I heard nothing beside the pounding of my heart, thumping like a distant drum.

  For some strange reason. I began to hum Mama's song. Then I sang it softly.