Read Online Solemn by Kalisha Buckhanon - Free Book Online

man whose face used to be plumper. Now it looked square and stern, like his big light boots come up to his calf. She pulled out mint-green and beige crayons to try to put him down on paper in an outfit she was seeing more and more of these days, but it wasn’t working out.
    â€œYou never had bad dreams before,” Bev told Redvine. He stared at her like she was a stranger. She scooted to the edge of the couch. She removed his socks, squeezed the toes of one of his feet in both hands. He relaxed and drifted on back: “It’s so much commotion around here now, my head is banging and banging … The crib is empty.”
    With the police having set foot on Singer’s and neighbors standing outside in summer air to speculate and complain, it had been busy. They were all hot and prickly, on edge. Of course they were disturbed by a child— an innocent child, have mercy —so neglected and carelessly handled. Drowned. And not one of them heard the scream or did a thing about it. What did that make them? Heathens or monsters or a combination? Well, least they knew who did it. Wasn’t nobody on the loose ready to snatch up one of theirs, kicking and screaming with bloodied fingernails at the tip of that there well.
    So Solemn heard her parents say.
    A white man’s feet crunched gravel at their door. Bev and Redvine looked back and forth at each other. She started up, but he shook off his distraction and struggled off from the couch to go see who it was. Solemn put down her crayons and followed him.
    â€œGood day,” the white man said. He gave his hand. Redvine straightened his back and did the same, wondering how much a blue Jeep like this one here now cost a man.
    â€œI’m Brett Singer,” the man said. He was stout, wild hair and cat-green eyes.
    â€œYes?” Redvine said.
    â€œFrom Singer’s,” the man continued. When Redvine was blank, he said, “You know, the owners of this here land?”
    â€œOh,” Redvine said. His mind raced. He paid his plot dues that month.
    â€œYeah, I ain’t been around too much. So, you probably know the others more than me. I’m back on with the family business, so might be seeing me from time to time…”
    Redvine thought he must be late on his dues, to have a white man come this far out for him. But Bev never missed a beat insofar as bills were concerned. But the crib was empty … Maybe the mail was late, too.
    â€œYou get our dues?” Redvine asked.
    The young man wiped a stream of sweat from around his temples.
    â€œOh, well, the office would know about that,” he told Redvine. “I wouldn’t know.”
    â€œWell, what can I do for you, sir?”
    â€œI’m just coming along to check on y’all folks out here,” the man told him. “Considering all that’s gone on and everything.”
    Bev went to the kitchen to listen in. She nodded at the man.
    â€œWhat’s gone on?” Redvine asked him, Solemn watching behind.
    Mr. Singer looked shocked.
    â€œLeast so far as we’re concerned,” Redvine said.
    â€œW-w-ell,” the man stammered, “with the baby and the well and the news, we just checking in with all you folks. Making sure everything’s all right.”
    In all the six years or so since the Redvines had been out there on those fields, just one of about five dozen trailers or mobile homes or manufactured digs or vans with no hard addresses (and even a few tents once in a while), no one from town or Singer’s or anywhere really had ever checked on them before.
    â€œWe’re fine,” Redvine said. “But we thank you kindly for your concerns.”
    â€œYou know the family, the parents?” the man wanted to know.
    â€œWe don’t know anybody out here,” Redvine answered. “We keep to ourselves.”
    The man stood still.
    â€œI don’t know what you want me to say,” Redvine