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Authors: Hilda Gurley Highgate
Tags: Fiction
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peeking inside. Just what she expected to find, she was not certain: some clue, perhaps, to the domestic environment maintained by a woman of the sort that Prince could love; her interactions with her children; a glimpse of the room he had slept in. Or perhaps she hoped to find out some habit of Sister’s, sinister or bizarre, that it would give Queen Marie satisfaction to know. Perhaps Sister had a man, the husband of a sister or friend, that Queen Marie could discover if she approached with sufficient silence. Always, she dismissed the idea of such blatant voyeurism, and walked away ashamed of her own behavior. Yet something always drew her back—back to the people that Prince held dear, and their house, where he had once lived.
chapter 4
LICKSKILLET, NORTH CAROLINA
MAY, 1879
Her name was Queen Marie. Daddy’s girlfriend.
It had been the school’s commencement day, a fine and sunny day, turned suddenly into rain, splashing red mud, and commotion as the ceremony ended.
The one-room school, run by do-gooder white folks from the Methodist church in Warrenton, was still housed by the Negro Bull Swamp Methodist Church. It only went to eighth grade, but the students and proud parents were grateful for it.
Sister was proud, in her white dress formerly reserved for Sundays, now rarely worn at all; and Lilly was proud to see her baby brother march the distance from the plywood platform, hastily erected each year for this occasion, to the makeshift podium, there to receive handshakes from kindly teachers, affluent benefactors, and the pastor of Bull Swamp.
The brassy witch had approached Lilly as she emerged from the outhouse, following the ceremony’s hurried benediction.
I’m yo’ daddy’s girlfriend,
she had told Lilly, smiling with self-satisfaction.
I’m Miss Queen
Marie,
and Lilly had wanted to gouge out those smug brown eyes aflame with wickedness.
But she had not. Lilly had been taught, by her aunts in light of her mother’s backslidden state, to love her enemies, and failing that, to pretend. So she had stepped around Queen Marie, lifting her skirts above the mud as she ran to meet her mother at the front of the church. She did not mention Queen Marie as they strolled silently home.
But it was harvest time, and Lilly and Prince Junior had cotton to pick at the great field a county away. Cotton-picking was therapeutic for Lilly, a time when neighbors, usually chatty and loud, fell silent and intent on their labor. Occasionally, someone hummed a tune. Mostly, people worked, surrounded by their peers, but each alone with her own thoughts; in Lilly’s case, thoughts of Daddy and Mommy and Queen Marie, and other daddies and mommies and why; confused thoughts, and painful.
She could not imagine what had made of the genuine affection her parents once shared such putrid disdain and bitterness. Her mother rarely spoke of him, and when she did, it was with contempt or indifference. For years, Lilly had pondered how she might bring them together, but had come up with no viable plan.
Prince Junior did not share her concern. But Prince Junior had been an infant. He could not remember the days when their parents had been loving and affectionate toward each other. By the time he was a toddler, their parents had become cordial. Later, their mother would vacillate between overt anger and a greed for Prince that cut into her attention toward her children. But Prince, as far as Lilly could see, never changed. It seemed to Lilly that he had always remained gentle and attentive, a near-mute teddy bear of a man who bore his wife’s wide mood swings with patience.
Yet her mother had become increasingly disgusted with him, finally driving him to the likes of Queen Marie—nasty, obnoxious Queen Marie—shameless wench with no more decency than to impose herself upon her lover’s family; and on what should have been a happy occasion, shared with their father.
And where had he been, anyway, on the day of his son’s
chapter 4
LICKSKILLET, NORTH CAROLINA
MAY, 1879
Her name was Queen Marie. Daddy’s girlfriend.
It had been the school’s commencement day, a fine and sunny day, turned suddenly into rain, splashing red mud, and commotion as the ceremony ended.
The one-room school, run by do-gooder white folks from the Methodist church in Warrenton, was still housed by the Negro Bull Swamp Methodist Church. It only went to eighth grade, but the students and proud parents were grateful for it.
Sister was proud, in her white dress formerly reserved for Sundays, now rarely worn at all; and Lilly was proud to see her baby brother march the distance from the plywood platform, hastily erected each year for this occasion, to the makeshift podium, there to receive handshakes from kindly teachers, affluent benefactors, and the pastor of Bull Swamp.
The brassy witch had approached Lilly as she emerged from the outhouse, following the ceremony’s hurried benediction.
I’m yo’ daddy’s girlfriend,
she had told Lilly, smiling with self-satisfaction.
I’m Miss Queen
Marie,
and Lilly had wanted to gouge out those smug brown eyes aflame with wickedness.
But she had not. Lilly had been taught, by her aunts in light of her mother’s backslidden state, to love her enemies, and failing that, to pretend. So she had stepped around Queen Marie, lifting her skirts above the mud as she ran to meet her mother at the front of the church. She did not mention Queen Marie as they strolled silently home.
But it was harvest time, and Lilly and Prince Junior had cotton to pick at the great field a county away. Cotton-picking was therapeutic for Lilly, a time when neighbors, usually chatty and loud, fell silent and intent on their labor. Occasionally, someone hummed a tune. Mostly, people worked, surrounded by their peers, but each alone with her own thoughts; in Lilly’s case, thoughts of Daddy and Mommy and Queen Marie, and other daddies and mommies and why; confused thoughts, and painful.
She could not imagine what had made of the genuine affection her parents once shared such putrid disdain and bitterness. Her mother rarely spoke of him, and when she did, it was with contempt or indifference. For years, Lilly had pondered how she might bring them together, but had come up with no viable plan.
Prince Junior did not share her concern. But Prince Junior had been an infant. He could not remember the days when their parents had been loving and affectionate toward each other. By the time he was a toddler, their parents had become cordial. Later, their mother would vacillate between overt anger and a greed for Prince that cut into her attention toward her children. But Prince, as far as Lilly could see, never changed. It seemed to Lilly that he had always remained gentle and attentive, a near-mute teddy bear of a man who bore his wife’s wide mood swings with patience.
Yet her mother had become increasingly disgusted with him, finally driving him to the likes of Queen Marie—nasty, obnoxious Queen Marie—shameless wench with no more decency than to impose herself upon her lover’s family; and on what should have been a happy occasion, shared with their father.
And where had he been, anyway, on the day of his son’s
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