Read Online Balm by Dolen Perkins-Valdez - Free Book Online Page B

him, but the colored woman was gone. Had she still been there to witness his fear, he might have fought harder to sober it. But with only the widow and those empty eyes before him, he allowed his aloneness to engulf him. His armpits dampened.
    â€œSit down,” she said, unceremoniously.
    It struck him that she did not startle at his appearance. His stockinged feet broomed the floor as he neared the chair. The band around his chest tightened. He sat. The soldier in the painting above her stareddown at him. Hemp immediately did not like the man and sensed the surliness captured by the artist’s brush to be a true likeness.
    â€œI saw you at the church,” he said, tightening his jawbone. “I’m looking for my wife.”
    Sadie held a flower beneath the table. Its juices slid between her fingers. She had not looked at it before the woman had pressed it into her hand just moments ago. A payment of something wild. Something picked from another’s garden. Sometimes that was all they had to give—a hasty bargaining.
    He was the first colored to come to her house, and the danger of it prickled her. But she recognized the desperation in his eyes and knew his intent was no different than any other visitor.
    She closed her eyes. A bright light. Then darkness. The spirit did not come at once so she waited. The table did not begin to shake so much as tremble. The natural light in the room took a turn. Something troubling. The spirit took hold of her like a chill. He didn’t speak to her, but she felt his uneasiness.
    â€œA mother and daughter?” Her lips moved with the spirit’s. Their voices were one. “Something happened. Something you don’t speak about.”
    Her eyelids fluttered open. She stared at him. Sweat rolled freely down the side of his face. His nose flared wide. She mistook his expression for rage.
    â€œIs . . . who . . .” He tried to speak but the words melted in his warm throat. The widow’s eyes were clear like water. He had not seen eyes that blue since looking into Mr. Harrison’s. She was Mr. Harrison.
    He rose to his feet slowly, keeping his eyes on her. He felt if he turned, she might claw him. He backed up. She did not move, did not even appear to blink. The soft lip of curtain parted behind him.

8
    W HEN SHE SAW H EMP WALKING ON THE SIDE of the house, Madge slipped out and followed. He did not walk as if he had somewhere to go, but it was not a casual stroll either, and it struck her as the pace of a man with awful things on his mind. She watched as he trawled the faces around him, worried he would look back and spy her, but he moved unwaveringly forward, heading south over the bridge into the city’s heart. He kept to the edge of the street, lifted his pants around puddles, averted his face when a horse stopped to relieve itself. She thought of stories her mother had told her about her own father, his ability to appear carefree when he carried around the weight of his hatred, and for a moment the man walking in front of her was her father, the lover of the root woman on the outskirts of town who cracked his woman’s toes and brought her handfuls of sweetspire.
    Madge counted the tenth block. He had not avoided the filthier streets, and her shoes were soiled. They entered the ward where thecity’s colored lived, and he turned into the yard of a frame house next to a snug alley. A woman was hanging laundry in the side yard. Hemp barely spoke a hello. Madge stood near the corner and watched as he closed the door behind him. On the line hung a man’s nightshirt. A pair of child’s trousers. The laundress worked nimbly. She stretched the clothes over the line so the little bit of sun that peeked into the side yard could move through. The line sagged in the middle with the weight of the garments. A wagon shuffled by, its wheel making a ticking noise as if about to roll off. A one-armed boy rolled a cart, yelling