“Who down buried in that blanket, Bertrand?” Mama Nadine said. Her voice, too, sounded smoky and somehow far away. Her fingers worked gracefully with the comb, pulling the girl’s strands of hair, and the girl’s head fell back and she gritted her teeth as if it hurt. To Sarah, the girl’s hair looked like Papa said an Indian’s did, hanging straight and black.
“Owen Breedlove’s girl, one come here two weeks back,” the man answered.
“Sarah?” Mama Nadine said, pulling the name from memory.
Sarah nodded, sniffling this time.
“What drive you out in this storm to see Mama Nadine, ma chérie?”
Sarah knew it was time to tell, but her lips felt stuck together, and her tongue was swollen thick in her mouth. She’d planned out what she would say, down to promising Mama Nadine all the eggs in the henhouse if only she would come. But with the storm so fierce outside, Sarah suddenly felt certain the witch-lady would laugh at her. Or worse, she might put a curse on her, if there weren’t one already. After all, a curse was probably the reason all the bad things had happened so fast.
Papa got sick first, on Monday the week before. He came back from the fields complaining he had a fever and a backache, and he worked only a half day on Tuesday before he dragged himself home. Sarah and Louvenia gave him wet rags to keep on his forehead like Mama said to, but Sarah was shocked when she touched the skin on Daddy’s face and felt how raging hot it was. Hot as burning kindling, it seemed. It looked swollen, too. And even though Papa was sweating, he was shivering on his pallet as if it were the middle of wintertime.
Fever, Sarah knew. And maybe, just maybe, whispered a voice far in the back of her head, Papa had Yellow Jack. She went to bed at night praying Missus Anna hadn’t brought Yellow Jack to Papa.
Then Mama got sick, too. One morning Mama just woke up retching on the floor. She said she wasn’t strong enough to go to the fields, but she was scared of losing wages, so she sent Louvenia with Alex instead. Louvenia complained about it so much, sticking out her lip, that Sarah wished she could hit her. Sarah would have gone her own self if she could, since she hated Mama and Papa to be worried about wages when they might have Yellow Jack, but she knew she was too weak for listing. So she stayed and nursed Mama and Papa.
Yellow Jack. The word played in her mind constantly, and two days, then three, went by without either of them getting better. In fact, truth be told, they seemed to be getting worse. Sarah gathered firewood and boiled water for oatmeal, but neither of them could keep any food in their stomachs without throwing up. They were always thirsty. And since they were both too weak to go to the outhouse, Sarah brought them a bucket to use for a toilet, and she cleaned up after them if they made a mess like she did some nights when she woke up with a full bladder and discovered she was spilling warm urine all over herself. Late at night, Mama would wake up calling out the names of people Sarah didn’t know.
But this morning had been the worst of all. This morning, when Mama threw up, the sickness that came out of her mouth was black. And after Alex and Louvenia had already gone out to the fields, Papa sat up for the first time in three days and told Sarah she’d better go get Mama Nadine. He said he knew this wasn’t an ordinary fever like the chills they got sometimes in the summer when they stood out in the rain too long. He said they had Yellow Jack for sure, and he’d had a dream Mama was about to die.
Go on, Li’l Bit. You know where Mama Nadine at. You follow that road, then veer off by where that big tree done fell, an’ walk straight ’long the creek ’til you see her house.
And Sarah had done just fine until the rain, but then she’d started running and nearly lost her way, and all she could think about was Mama at home dying because she was out lost in the woods. But she’d found the house, sure enough. She’d made it.
“Devil he took your tongue, chérie?” Mama Nadine said, still combing.
“M-my mama and papa sick,” Sarah said, finding her voice. “They gots Yellow Jack.”
Mama Nadine stopped combing, giving Sarah her full, wide eyes. Sarah felt the man behind her take a step away from her. He coughed gently into his hand as if he were embarrassed because she’d said a cussword.
“How you know this for a fact, little one?” Mama Nadine said at last.
And so Sarah told her everything, about the fevers and the sweating and the black sickness from Mama’s stomach. But, more important, she told Mama Nadine about Papa’s dream.
At this, the woman nodded and sighed. “That sound like the fever to me,” she said. “Where your brother?”
“Plowin’ them cotton fields,” Sarah said. “Him and my sister both.”
“Nobody with your maman and papa but you?”
“In the day,” Sarah said, sniffling again. “An’ sometime Missy Laura, my mama friend, she bring food by. But she gots to work, too.”
Mama Nadine made a clicking sound with her teeth and sighed again. Sarah’s heart thumped, because she was afraid Mama Nadine was about to tell her to go back home, that there was no help for her here. “You m-made a p-potion fo’ Missus Anna,” Sarah reminded her.
“Missus Anna ask me for potion, yes. But like I say to her at her big, grand house, it not that simple. Not that simple, belle. This fever has a demon’s ways. You want Mama Nadine to go to your maman and papa?”
Overjoyed, Sarah nodded her head vigorously. Water shook from her hair into her face. “Yes’m,” she said. “We g-got eggs what to pay with.”
Mama Nadine nodded, barely listening, as if she heard voices somewhere else in the room. “Maman and papa both malade. That very bad, chérie. Very bad. This a hungry fever, but we try to keep one parent for you, eh? Every girl need at least her maman.”
Keep one parent for you. Mama Nadine’s words raked Sarah’s stomach. What did she mean by that? She needed her mama and papa both!
“I give you some red snakeroot I get this spring, full of sap. You take that home, you boil it, make tea. Both you parents drink tonight. They drink as much tea as you make. Tonight, I light my altar and pray. I come morning-time to you. I come.”
Sarah nodded, feeling a sharp twinge of disappointment. She was grateful for the tea-root, but she wished Mama Nadine’s remedies sounded more powerful. Sarah had been praying night after night herself, and praying hadn’t helped a bit. What if morning was too late?
“Bertrand, ride her home when the rain is finished,” Mama Nadine said. “But you don’t go in that house, no? You don’t go near that fever.”
“No worries, maman.”
The girl with the straight black hair was gazing at Sarah with her head to one side, the way someone looks at something that breaks her heart. The girl’s gaze made Sarah feel angry, then petrified. What if she would never have another chance to sit between her mama’s soft thighs and have her own hair combed and plaited again? Sarah’s scalp always burned and itched in the sun, and only her mama’s combing seemed to help. In that instant, Sarah hated the girl and everything about her, especially her Indian hair that hung down past her shoulders.
“My mama and papa ain’t gon’ die,” Sarah told the girl defiantly.
The girl’s pitying expression didn’t change.
“With the help of the gods, we see, chérie,” Mama Nadine said. “We see.”
Papa drank two cups of Mama Nadine’s root tea before he went to sleep for the night, but Mama took only two sips and then shook her head. “Cain’t,” she whispered.
“Mama Nadine tol’ you to,” Louvenia said.
“Please, Mama?” Sarah said, squeezing her hand. Mama’s hand felt damp, and her lip had split open so that it was peeking blood through the crack in her skin. In the lamplight, her mama was beginning to look like somebody else, like one of those old ladies who sat at the riverbank and tended babies while the younger women worked. Right before sunset, Missy Laura had brought some briers she’d strung together and hung around Mama’s neck, saying it was a remedy for fever she’d learned from her grandfather, but the brier
s didn’t seem to do anything except make Mama scratch weakly where they touched her skin.
“I’se gon’ drink it by an’ by,” Mama said in the same tiny voice.
Sarah was aching to tell Mama about Papa’s dream and how she would die for sure if she didn’t drink the tea, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it. If she actually said it, she reasoned, that might make it come true. Sarah decided she would just wait until Mama started mumbling nonsense words like she had a few hours ago, and when her mind was asleep, she’d give her the tea. She’d drink it and wouldn’t even remember.
Suddenly Mama stared up at them with frightened eyes. She clung to Louvenia’s dress. “Lou? Sarah?” she said, as if she was afraid they would walk away. “That y’all? I thought y’all was both here befo’, but then the thunder came, an’ wasn’t nobody here ’cept me. An’ Owen, but he was ’sleep.” Speaking seemed to make her breathe harder, and Sarah heard a gurgling from Mama’s chest she’d never heard before. The harsh sound nearly stilled Sarah’s heart.
“We here now, Mama,” Louvenia said.
“Lord,” Mama said, amazed. “Lord, seem like I been gone. Seem like I don’ know where I’m at no mo’.”
“You at home,” Sarah told her cheerfully. “And Lou and Alex and Papa, too.”
“It’s day or night?” Mama asked.
“Night,” Louvenia said. “I made supper.”
At that, Sarah made a face; Louvenia had tried to make supper, but she’d overcooked the green beans, and she’d burned the biscuits besides. Sarah was still hungry. She’d felt a little hungry ever since Mama got sick, except when Missy Laura brought a basket of corn bread and fried chicken for them. She wished Missy Laura had brought them some food today when she brought the necklaces of scratchy briers, but she hadn’t.
“Oh, Lord, Lord.” Mama gasped. “Owen still sick, too? We losin’ wages.”
“No, we ain’t, Mama,” Louvenia said, although that was a lie. Mama always told them never to tell lies, but Sarah figured it was all right now. Lies would make Mama feel better, maybe. “An’ Papa gettin’ better. He ’sleep now, but he was sittin’ up today.”
That part, at least, was true. Papa had even felt well enough to argue with Missy Laura when she put the briers around his neck, telling her he thought it was an old wives’ tale.
“Lou,” Mama said, licking her dry lips, “you go run an’ find me that Bible-book Ole Missus give me.” This time she almost sounded like she wasn’t sick at all.
Louvenia must have forgotten Mama was sick, too, because she sucked on her teeth just like she did anytime she was asked to do something she didn’t feel like doing. Except usually Mama would cuff her if she did that, and now Mama didn’t do anything except lie shivering on her pallet. “I don’ know where that ol’ book at,” Louvenia complained.
“Chile, go find it. Quick, now, ’fore …” Mama paused for a long time, then she sighed. “… ’fore I forgit.”
“I’ll find it, Mama,” Sarah said.
Suddenly Mama’s hand was tight around Sarah’s arm. The grip was so strong it almost hurt, and Sarah was shocked Mama still had so much strength. Maybe Mama was putting all the strength she had into holding on to her, she thought, and that thought made Sarah feel better. “No, Sarah. You stay. Stay.”
The way Mama was looking at Sarah reminded her of the doleful gaze from the girl sitting between Mama Nadine’s legs, with her eyes full as if she were seeing something big, terrible, and sad, something she wished she didn’t have to see. Tears sprang to Mama’s eyes.
“The baby … Ain’t even quite seven years old …” Mama whispered, then she began to speak so quickly that Sarah almost couldn’t keep up with her words. “Seem like you was talkin’ ’bout as soon as the midwife slap you to life… . You could ’member all them words an’ numbers … ’an you could make Owen laugh, chile… . You brighten that man life so … yes, you did … time you took that stick in yo’ hand, wavin’ it an talkin’ … you ’member? You was so little… .”
Sarah listened as hard as she could, but she was afraid Mama’s mind was going to sleep again. She didn’t understand what she was talking about. Then, just that quickly, Mama seemed to be praying. Her eyes drifted away.
“Lord, I promised I’d learn to read all them words in yo’ Good Book … or one of these chillen would read it to me … an’ I thought it’d be Sarah, ’cause seem like she could do it … an’ me an’ Owen talked an’ said we’d take her out the field … put her in one of them freedmen schools … but we needed her back ’fore long. Lord, we ain’t have the chance. Fo’give us, Lord… .” Mama’s eyes snapped back to Sarah’s, seeing her. “Sarah … you hear me?”
“Yes’m,” Sarah said.
“When Lou bring that Bible-book … you keep it, hear? That’s the Lord’s book. All them words in there … I want you to read ’em. I want you to read His word… .”
Sarah didn’t know anybody who could read, except for white folks, or maybe Mama Nadine and her son with the Creole name. She’d learned the letters in her name when Mama and Papa let her go to the school in the woods when she was little, but that was all. She’d stayed in school for only three months, then she’d stopped because Mama needed her help. Sarah had flipped through the pages of Mama’s Bible many times before, but the tiny symbols on the pages were a mystery. “Mama, how I’ma … ?”
“Shhhh,” Mama hushed her. “You go to school. Tell Alex and Lou I say you goin’ to school, hear? They gon’ take you out them fields … an’ you gon’ learn to read all them words. Jus’ like I promise God … Jus’ like I promise … You hear me, Sarah?”
“Yes’m,” Sarah said. “I’ma read all them words.”
“An’ then you come read ’em to me. You come back, hear? Come see me.”
Come see her? What did Mama mean by that? Was Mama sending her away? Even though Sarah suspected Mama was speaking foolishness again, she felt flames licking inside her throat. Her eyes burned, too.
“The par’ble of the seed and sower, like Preacher say …” Mama said, her whisper more faint. “One seed. Owen say seem like you the seed, Sarah, an’ I knowed it, too. I always knowed it, chile.”
Then Mama closed her eyes, breathing fast. She let go of Sarah and clutched at the briers around her neck, trying to pull them away.
“Don’t do that, Mama,” Sarah said, taking Mama’s hands gently. “Missy Laura say that gon’ make you well. An’ you gots to drink this tea now, jus’ like Mama Nadine say.”
But Mama had gone to sleep. Sarah watched the rising and falling of her mother’s chest, terrified it would stop like the sick goat they had when Sarah was little. When the goat’s stomach stopped moving up and down, Papa had stooped over and said, He dead, Sarah, even though Sarah had been staring straight into the goat’s wide-open eyes and was sure he would jump back to his feet at any moment. But he hadn’t. That was how Sarah learned what dead meant.
Up and down. Sarah sat at her mother’s side, watching her breathing, listening to the menacing gurgling sound from deep in her chest. Up and down. Was Mama Nadine praying for Mama and Papa right now in her brick house, kneeling in front of her candles? Sarah hoped so. Even after Louvenia came and quietly slipped the black Bible-book in the crook of Mama’s arm, Sarah was afraid to let her mama out of her sight.
Mama was still breathing when Mama Nadine came to their cabin with the morning light. But Mama was in a deep sleep, and she wouldn’t wake up even when Alex shook her hard and Mama Nadine said her name so loudly that her shrill voice rang from end to end of the cabin. Mama Nadine sighed and said she was very disappointed Mama hadn’t drunk the tea, then she lit four candles, two at Mama’s head and two at Mama’s feet. With her eyes closed and her face vacant, she began to chant words Sarah didn’t know.
Papa woke up then. Much to Sarah’s surprise, he brought himself to his feet and walked very slowly out of the front door without saying a word to anyone. He wobbled when he walked, but he never lost his balance. S
arah followed him, and she found him sitting on the porch in his rocking chair, fumbling to light his pipe. His hand was shaking so much he nearly dropped the match. The brier necklace from Missy Laura still hung from his bare neck.
“You well now, Papa?” Sarah asked, relieved despite her worry for Mama.
He shook his head slowly back and forth, finally reaching the pipewith his match. The tobacco in the pipe lit up in red, and smoke floated from Papa’s nose. “Crazy woman makin’ all that noise …” he muttered. “Cain’t sleep.”
“Mama Nadine ain’t crazy. She makin’ Mama well!” Sarah said.
“No, she ain’t,” Papa said flatly, his voice full of knowing, and Sarah felt like he’d just hit her in the stomach as hard as he could. “She sho’ ain’t.”
Sarah walked around to stare at Papa’s face then, to see if he was awake-Papa or asleep-Papa. His eyes were dark red, and his face was angrier than Sarah had ever seen. He’d lost weight since he’d been sick, because she could see his sharp cheekbones above his beard. He was slumped so low in his chair that he looked like he might slip out of it and crumple to the floor.
“I ain’t gon’ let it …” Papa said, muttering again.
“What, Papa? You ain’t gon’ let what?”
He nodded curtly, taking another draw on his pipe. He coughed this time, but he stubbornly kept the pipe in his mouth. “I ain’t gon’ let it take me,” Papa finished finally, although he was looking out toward the fields instead of at Sarah. “Not like this. No, suh.”
Let what take you? Sarah was going to ask him, but stopped cold because she realized she knew perfectly well: Yellow Jack.
Owen Breedlove sat on his front porch all through the day, and even after it got dark, when Alex and Louvenia came out crying, telling him their mama’s breathing had stopped. He wouldn’t come inside to look at his wife’s body, even though he’d jumped the broom with Minerva Breedlove nearly twenty years ago, he’d cried in her arms without shame when he heard the news that no man owned him but himself, and he’d never touched another woman in his life.