pots, pans, bed linens, drapes—all was loaded onto Smith’s wagon.
Vesta shuffled out of the house and plopped down onto the top step of the porch. Her head was bowed, and August knew that her eyes were swimming with sadness.
His heart tugged.
Ann stepped out, pressed her fists into her hips, tilted her head toward the sky, and took a deep breath. She had never looked happier.
“Is this it?” Smith asked.
Ann nodded. “Yes, it’s all I want.” She looked down at Vesta. “We are going to be fine, you hear me? Just fine.”
August would forever look back on that day, when his wife and child climbed onto that wagon and rolled out of his life, with great sadness and shame.
So you ask, why did he not leap from his hiding place, fall to his knees, and beg Ann to stay? While I know many things, there are many more that I do not know or understand. But I will speculate that in that moment, what was more important than his family or his reputation was his desire to bring his dreams to fruition.
After the wagon disappeared down the road, August went to sit on the porch steps. He sat until the sun was high in the sky and the flies took shelter in the shade. He sat until a rustling sound inside the house summoned his attention. He rose, stuffed his hands into the pockets of his trousers, and walked into the house. Doll was seated in his favorite chair, wearing nothing but the brown skin she was born with. Her legs were open and the dark pyramid was split in two, revealing a glittering pink star.
He was aware of the sound his boots made as he crossed the wooden floor. It was so loud he thought the entire world could hear him walking. When he reached her, he fell to his knees, grabbed hold of Doll’s waist, buried his face in her stomach, and began to weep.
The girl stroked his hair and patiently waited for him to unload his sorrow.
Afterward, of course, there was the suckling of the pink star, the heat and pulse of it against his tongue, and Doll’s moans, squeals, and writhing.
Poor August, a man of God, but still just a man, and now a doomed man.
After the coupling, the bursting into wild brilliant lights, August declared that he would follow Doll to the ends of the earth. Sorry to say that the only place she would lead him was to hell—which turned out not to be the fiery underworld he preached about, but right here on top of the world with me.
He say his wife gone back home.”
“Gone back home?”
“That’s what he say.”
“And nothing else?”
“Nothing else.”
“He don’t say why she gone back home? Sick relative maybe?”
“You need your ears cleaned out? I say all he say is she gone back home.”
“Hmmmmm.”
“Sound to me like she left him. Did she take the girls with her?”
“The girls? Ha, they ain’t had but one between them.”
“Awww yeah, I forgot about that. But that Doll been with them so long that she started to favor the younger one.”
“Uh-huh, strange how that happens, ain’t it?”
“I’ll tell you what’s strange!”
“What?”
“I took a casserole over to the house, ’cause you know menfolk don’t know nothing about cooking, and—”
“But the girl, she old enough to cook.”
“Well true, but I wasn’t thinking ’bout—”
“What you make for him?”
“Shepherd’s pie, but that ain’t what I’m trying to get at.”
“Sorry, you were saying?”
“I was standing at the screen door, knocking. I knocked a good long time and then I went on in—”
“You just walked on in the reverend’s house?”
“I was knocking for a really long time. Yes, I just walked in and was gonna leave the plate in the kitchen, on the stove, but soon as I got my foot good in the door, there she was.”
“She who?”
“Doll. Like she just dropped from the ceiling—”
“Like a spider?”
“Yep, but I ain’t see no web.”
“You know that child always been peculiar.”
“Peculiar? Her mama claimed she was possessed by Esther.”
“Esther Magnolia?”
“No, girl, Esther the whore.”
“You don’t say?”
“Yep! So anyway, Doll standing there in her slip, hair tussled, cheeks flushed—”
“In her slip? What she say?”
“She don’t say nothing and so then I said, I brought y’all a shepherd’s pie, and then I hear the reverend calling from the back room—”
“What? Wait … she was in her slip?”
“Now you’re with me.”
“Oh my God!”
“Mine and yours! And so I hear the reverend say, Doll, Doll baby—”
“Doll baby?”
“Yeah, Doll baby, what you doing out there, bring that star back on in here.”
“Star? What in the world?”
“After he call to her, she smiled, raised her hand, waved bye-bye, and turned and walked off.”
“In her slip?”
“In her slip!”
“You think the reverend is laying that girl?”
“More like she laying him.”
“But sister, what star he talking about?”
“I only know about the ones up in the sky. Do you know of any others?”
“No, ma’am, I do not.”
He would have married her without the talk, without the eyeballing, without the men of his congregation showing up unannounced to remind him what was proper and what wasn’t.
“Look here,” one man said, “we men, so we understand.”
They did understand because they left their Bibles in their wagons, tucked their religion into the back pockets of their trousers, and placed a bottle of Jack Daniel’s right at the center of the kitchen table.
Doll was in the bedroom, trying hard to contain the excitement the men walked into the house. Her skin was on fire and she began to spin to cool herself. When August came into the bedroom she was in the middle of the floor, whirling like a cyclone.
He caught her by the arm. “Here’s a quarter. Go to the store and buy yourself something.”
The men stood when Doll entered the room. She dusted them with her gaze, giggled, and then hurried out of the house. She was gone, but her scent hung as thick as mist in the air. The men inhaled it and swallowed.
“See, it’s like this August …”
They passed the bottle between them.