quaking from this side of living. Wanted to steal it from Annie, take back what was mine, give back the name I died with—birth mother—trade it for plain Momma. But the choice had already been made for me. When they took my life, they took everything.
I’ve found peace in these years just watching and listening. I’ve swallowed the separation and been floating through this plantation, watching everybody, waiting, and hopeful that my baby’s death far in the future won’t be our first chance at reunion.
Truth is, I hadn’t always intended to stay.
I meant to leave that first night I was killed, wanted to go and find my own Momma since we was both dead. Had said my good-bye to living but it’s hard to leave when the person you saying bye to is still talking back. My baby was my hesitation.
There were things I still needed to tell her.
That she’s beautiful. That she’s loved. That there’s a God who loves her.
That there’s me.
But I cain’t tell Josey none of that now. All I have is this.
It was her cry the night I died that got my attention. Not the smell of gunpowder in the air or the bitter taste in my own mouth. I was still near the place that I died when I heard her. Could see my blood on a broken branch. The moon was still full and merciful. I was on my way to find Momma. I needed to tell her I was sorry. Tell her I shoulda loved her better in the living. I was wrong to want her to be somebody else. Wanted her to be like them other mommas who were thanking God every day that her babies weren’t sold and were kissing their fat cheeks. I wanted Momma to show me love that way, sloppy wet. I didn’t understand life then. What it meant to be wrung dry. But I never found Momma.
The crying found me first.
I followed it through the woods into a warm and humid space. A scattering of footsteps overtook me. It was a white man carrying my baby and she was crying out for me. The man was Bobby Lee, escaped from his cousins on the promise he’d turn my baby into a profit.
Instead, he went to Annie’s with her.
AFTER THE FIRST few weeks, I thought I’d leave Josey’s side when I knew she was safe. Then I decided I’d leave after I saw her lift her head for the first time. Then, after she’d rolled over, then babbled, then walked, then ran. Then when. Then when. Then when.
Then, it got easy to stay.
And Josey’s my reason.
Since daybreak, I been watching the sun shine on her seven-year-old body. Watched its light climb high to heaven, then pour itself over acres of green like spilling lemonade rushing to the floor. It drenched white plantation houses and seeped through trees and through me, splashed down on rows of chalky brown slave shacks, soaking through all of Tallassee, Alabama, and over the brown skins already busy in the fields. Bent over like broken stems, slaves are picking and washing and cleaning, chanting a melody of low tones and sopranos, a harmony set to the drums of palms, clapping. This is how I wait every day. Up in these trees watching the cool lips of morning kiss everything and start new.
This morning, the laughter of young children erased the echo of the bullet that took me. But trees don’t lie so the hole’s still there. My blood on its branches, long dried. Negro children are running past it, a group at a time, escaped from their fields, crunching leafs, swishing ground, and blending earth and the past together. The wind of ’em pass by me, their shapes come in glimpses and blurs—two boys, three girls, four boys, two girls, all of ’em seven-year-olds, all slaves, but the feel of ’em is free.
And there’s my Josey. Happy. Happy ’cause God gives all children laughter. A time for happiness. To be joyful. A time before they learn who they are and what it means to the world—a woman, a slave, black.
What you’ve missed of her life so far only matters to me.
Not you.
Not yet.
“Nobody likes to listen intently about somebody else’s child,” Massa Hilden said to Momma about his sister’s new baby. “Nobody care. Not unless it fucked up or it’s dead.”
Maybe Massa’s right. Not about the harm but the gist.
JOSEY TALKS IN her head sometimes. She pretends to be a boy sometimes, too. She once stood above the pissing pot, holding a short stick at her belly button, and just let her bladder go. It got all down her leg and around her thigh, stopped herself mid-flow to clean up after what girls ain’t supposed to do—stand.
Being a woman means always having to bend at the knees even for the simplest relief.
So she ain’t a bad girl. Just different, is all.
She don’t curse but she spit. Digs for bugs but not boogers. She make knives and doll babies, wear trousers under her dress. Considers things most girls wouldn’t. And certainly not at seven.
Even her singing voice is manly. She’ll puff out her chest and hit low notes like an old black man. She’s out in the field now singing “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” Notes as slow and as deep as she can manage. Her “chariot” sounds like “cherry-uh-uht.”
“Josey, please!” Ada Mae say, plucking the cotton from her ears. “Ain’t enough cotton in da world to keep dat dyin dog noise out dees ears.” Josey grins through her blonde strands and opens her mouth to start again, trying not to laugh or run out of breath before she gets the whole verse out.
I used to think she could see me.
I thought the both of ’em could.
Turns out Josey was just recalling the things her daddy had told her in the day and would repeat aloud like she was talking to somebody: “Read my lips,” she’d say. “No.” And, “Didn’t I say no?” And, “No means no.”
I was always near Josey then. Just a step away in her daytimes, and in her nights I’d be standing next to her bed, watchful. Waiting. Now I keep to the trees where I stay, mostly. Back in the corner of her room at night.
“Where’d you learn that horrible song,” Ada Mae say.
“This song? Swing looooooow. Sah-weet, chariot-ut . . .”
Josey chases Ada Mae, sucks in big breaths as she go, sending the air back out in song. They slip-slide on slick purple leafs and around a berry bush, scraping thin lines on their legs and arms from thorns. Ada Mae escapes in a twirl around a tree trunk. Her dress gathers between her legs from speed.
“Stop it, Josey! Promise me you gon’ quit it or I tell you the truth, I’ll leave you here and let the Witch of the Woods get you.”
“These are my woods,” Josey say. “Cain’t nobody find me here if I don’t want ’em to. And if you leave me here, you’ll be here by yourself. Honest, Ada Mae . . . who would carry you but me?”
Josey’s laughter becomes hard coughs. “All these negro children out here alone, about to get ate up,” she say, coughing through it. “But you safe, Ada Mae. The witch would need a big ole mouth to eat you.”
“Well, she ain’t gon’ eat you, neither. You ain’t a negro.”
“I’m black just like you!” she say. “Just not so colored, is all.”
“Fine!” Ada Mae say.
“I’m negro, too!”
Josey’s cough becomes barking. She squats where she is, hard-breathing like she just finished a long race. She closes her eyes and slowly lets air in and out of her throat. Swallows a few times. A whistle joins her exhale. I know these signs.
“You a’right?” Ada Mae say. “Need some water?”
Josey grabs her chest, clawing at it to squeeze a bit of air. Ada Mae pats Josey hard on the back, and each swat brings a short whistle. “You need some water?”
Josey’s eyes redden with strain. She fixes ’em on Ada Mae and they roll