Natashia Deon

Grace


Скачать книгу

tion>

      

      Copyright © 2016 Natashia Deón

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is Available

      Cover design by Elena Giavaldi

      Interior design by Megan Jones Design

      COUNTERPOINT

      2560 Ninth Street, Suite 318

      Berkeley, CA 94710

       www.counterpointpress.com

      Distributed by Publishers Group West

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      e-book ISBN 978-1-61902-772-5

       For Ava

       and Ash

       and Lee

       my sister, Katrina

       Momma and Dad

       and You.

       The stars we are given. The constellations we make.

      —REBECCA SOLNIT

      Contents

       12 / Flash

       13 / 1860

       14 / Flash

       15 / October 1862

       16 / Flash

       17 / 1862

      Part III

       18 / Flash

       19 / April 1863

       20 / April 1863

       21 / April 1863

       22 / Flash

       23 / April 1863

       24 / April 1863

       25 / Flash

       26 / May 1864

       27 / Flash

       28 / May 1864

       29 / January 1865

       30 / Flash

       31 / Flash

       32 / June 1865

      Part IV

       33 / Flash

       34 / June-November 1865

       35 / May 1866

       36 / Flash

       37 / Flash

       38 / Flash

       39 / 1870

       40 / Flash

       41 / Flash

       42 / 1869

       43 / Flash

       44 / Flash

       45 / Flash

      Part V

       46 / Home Coming: 1869

       47 / Judgment

       48 / The Rigor

       49

      Acknowledgements

       Part I

      I AM DEAD.

      I died a nigga a long time ago.

      Before you were born, before your mother was born, ’fore your grandmother.

      I was seventeen.

      Still am, I reckon. And everyone that was there that night is dead now, too, so it don’t matter that I was a nigga.

      Or a slave.

      What matters is I had a daughter, who had daughters, and they had theirs. Family I could’ve saved a whole lot of trouble by tellin ’em the things that I know.

      But there are some stories that mothers never tell their daughters—secret stories. Stories that would prove a mother was once young, done thangs with men she could never tell, in ways she could never tell, and places she should never. Private stories where love, any ’semblance of love, would lead a person like me to the place I was that night in 1848. When I died.

      FOR TWO DAYS and two nights we been running.

      Me, and the child inside me.

      Pain is trying to get me to stop, make me push away the pain but I won’t push.

      My pretty yellow dress is stained red and brown now. Not by the blood of the man I killed, like they think. It’s mine.

      The dark of night’s been hiding my running for a while, muffling the sounds of my chest gushing in and out from my own hard breaths. Every few steps, the blue light of the moon sneaks past the treetops and strokes my face, urging me on—the only mercy I get in these hot Alabama woods. The devil’s coming and I have to keep moving, for this baby, for me. But the pain’s burning so bad now, I cain’t hardly do nothing but fall against this old tree, hands slip-sliding down its trunk, stinging.

      Barking from the hunting dogs is shooting across the air, bumping around inside me. I have to move faster, run like Sister once told me to.

      I beg my belly, “Hold onto me. It ain’t time.”

      But this baby got a plan. Its head’s at my opening spot, burning hot, ripping my hips wide apart, carving a way out.

      I hold in my screams and bow over hard in the dirt, knees first. A man’s voice shouts, “This way! She’s up this way.”

      I want to live.

      Want this baby to live.

      But she’s betraying me. Every muscle in my body’s slamming shut so I push. She’s tearing through me. I push. I don’t want to, but I push. Screaming mute deep inside myself, pushing so hard but hollering so low they cain’t hear me.

      A wave of warm pours out of me, carrying my joy and deep sorrow. Before God and this oak tree, she come. And she don’t cry. I guess she want us to live, too. I move her into the triangle of moonlight that sets my arm aglow. She see me and I see in her the good part of love.

      The