For some reason, I felt embarrassed and tried to remember all the things I’d prayed about since James died. I might have closed my eyes for a second, but I don’t think so. In the next instant, he was standing by Canaan’s crib, and I tensed up all over, thinking that if David or Laura woke up, we’d be in a mess. James knelt by the crib and looked at the baby. A part of me was scared for James to touch him. A part of me didn’t want Canaan to miss his touch.
I walked away because I didn’t want to know what would happen. I worried for an instant that James might not have been in Heaven at all.
But I didn’t go back inside. Because behind the church, I saw Jesus and the cross again. Once more he had the dying azaleas in his hand, and I decided that if I was really awake, if James had really visited me and if Jesus was really crucified in the yard next to the church, I didn’t want to miss it.
I headed for Jesus, half-scared that Canaan would be gone the next morning, kidnapped by his ghost-daddy. I told myself I was dreaming. I figured I needed to pray.
But there was something wrong with my sense of distance. The cross was right in front of me, but I walked and walked and couldn’t get there.
I started to wonder if James was really James or if James was really Jesus answering me with James’ face. Then I wondered if that’s all God ever is—somebody who loves you enough to come back from the dead to visit every now and again. Or if that’s all other people ever are—different faces of God walking around.
I wondered if it mattered if I was dreaming.
If all things work out in the end, if all things have a purpose, then I wondered if we needed a God at all. I wondered, walking to Jesus. Would I go to him anyway if I thought he did nothing but watch?
A cross, Jesus in a loincloth, the crown of thorns, azaleas, the blood, all right there, watching me. I studied them as I got closer, one at a time. It took me a while to see that this Jesus wasn’t nailed to his cross. He was bound to it.
By the time I reached him, he was fading. He was sinking, the cross being swallowed by the earth even though my own feet held steady. I stood so close his toes brushed against my nightgown, slid down between my breasts, his thighs parting them. The virgin on the cross, beaten and humiliated, sliding between my breasts. Don’t go, I tried to tell him, but he could only shake his head from side to side. When he opened his mouth, I could see his tooth was chipped in front, maybe from a blow. He sunk so low that his mouth passed across my forehead, nose, scratching me with his thorns, across my mouth, neck. He crossed me at my breasts, dampening his mouth with Canaan’s milk, and going lower, lower, until he wasn’t there at all. He left me standing at the place where he had been, which is, perhaps, all we can ever ask of our gods.
Nanna always said that Grandpa Herman would die in the pulpit, preaching himself right into Heaven. I think he would have liked for his life to end that way, so wrought with the power of God that even his muscles and skin couldn’t hold him. But that’s not what happened.
That next Christmas Eve we were all celebrating. The children of Fire and Brimstone had just put on a play, our standard reenactment of the birth of Christ. And that year I was Mary and Canaan was Baby Jesus. Barley played Joseph, and Mustard was a wise man, and Pammy was a common shepherd, her red bob covered with a belted towel. We’d walked down the aisle of the church one at a time while Aunt Kate and Uncle Ernest played Christmas tunes on their guitar and banjo, and then when we were all on stage, we began singing carols with the whole congregation. Right in the middle, Canaan started crying, and when I picked him up, he nudged my breasts in front of the congregation, but nobody noticed.
Afterwards, we had special Christmas treats in the fellowship hall. We even had a tree, for the very first time, covered with ornaments the youngest children had made in Sunday school, but we didn’t have flashing lights on the tree because Grandpa Herman said they were of Satan.
Everybody fixed their plates and settled down at the tables freshly covered with white sheets for the occasion. There were tiny branches from holly trees on each table, and I fingered a red berry until it came loose and rolled free.
After a while, David said, “Grandpa, ain’t you gonna read us the Christmas story?” and to everybody’s surprise, Grandpa said, “Why don’t you do it, son. I believe I’ll sit back and listen this time.”
There was something about his voice that sounded a tiny bit unfamiliar—like he had a piece of candy stuck in the back of his throat, like he was trying not to cough.
So David went up to the podium, opened his bible, and began to read. People turned their attention to David, but from where I was sitting, it was easier to look at Grandpa Herman. Something about his eyes looked like James’ did on the day I said I was pregnant. I didn’t think he had anything to be afraid about, but didn’t know what would make his eyes so electric.
I looked back down at the holly branch, began to pluck off other berries, and then glanced back at Grandpa. His face was pulling to one side, and his mouth gaped open like a squirrel hole in a tree.
From the front, David’s voice rose up. “And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings ...”
I reached over to Mamma to get her attention. Then right in the middle of the Christmas story and decorations, the nut cake and costumes, Grandpa Herman fell sideways from his chair, knocking into Nanna and thumping them both onto the floor.
Daddy rushed over and pulled Nanna from beneath him. Other people moved in closer, but I held back, shocked and pressing holly berries into the sheet.
“Everett, get the truck,” Daddy hollered. “Do you want to go with us to the hospital, Leila?”
Nanna paled and hobbled off to get her coat.
“You know he wouldn’t want to go to the hospital,” David tried.
“Do you want him to die?” Daddy said sarcastically, and David, who knew at least to honor his father and mother, shut up.
We all stood around, looking at Grandpa laying there so blank. His eyes were open, but it was like he didn’t even know us. Mamma threw a tablecloth over him to hold in his heat and leaned up against the wall with her hand over her mouth.
“Herman?” Daddy called. “Can you hear me?”
“Slap him,” Mustard whispered. “Knock him out of it.”
But Daddy just shook him. “Herman?”
Our mighty Grandpa was drooling.
Then we heard the horn blowing, and Mamma said, “Ya’ll get out of the way,” and shooed off the children. There were stains and bits of holly berries all over my fingers and Virgin Mary robe.
Uncle Ernest helped Daddy pick Grandpa up, and Olin supported his back. They had to carry him like a heavy feed sack, and without Olin there, he might have drooped right out of their grip.
That first night Daddy stayed at the hospital with Nanna and Grandpa. When he came home the next day to sleep, he said there were tubes in Grandpa’s nose and mouth.
“You know he wouldn’t have wanted that,” Laura lamented. “He would have wanted to be left in God’s hands—not in the hands of some doctor who has strayed so far from the Bible that he tries to become God.”
“Just who are you to be judging the doctor?” Olin argued. “Do you even know the doctor’s name? Do you know a single thing about that doctor?”
We were all sitting in the fellowship hall. It was Christmas day, and we had a big meal prepared but nobody was eating except for Mustard, who Pammy said would be eating during the rapture, hanging onto that chicken leg even after his clothes fell off.
There were unpoured cups of ice on the counter and un-sliced pies on the shelf. All around the room, people were gathered to hear what Daddy had to say about Grandpa’s condition.
“And for that matter,” Olin attacked again, “why don’t you show me one place in the Bible where God says people shouldn’t use doctors?”
“Okay, I will,” Laura shouted. Then she stormed off, presumably to consult her handbook, though I had my doubts. She yanked up Canaa
n and took him with her.
“What’d they say, Liston?” Mamma asked, while Daddy took off his coat.
“It’s too soon to tell. He’s had a major stroke.”
“How’s Leila?” Great-Aunt Imogene piped in.
“Ornery as a wet setting-hen,” Daddy laughed. “She needs some sleep, but I don’t reckon she’ll be getting none soon. I tried to get her to come home and rest. Told her I’d take her back whenever she wanted to go. But she wouldn’t leave.”
“Is she in the room with him?” Wanda asked.
“No. He’s in intensive care. She’s in the waiting room. But the nurses let her go in every hour.” Then he turned to Mamma and said, “Will you fix me a plate, honey? I ain’t had nothing all day.”
“I believe I’ll go sit with her,” Olin said.
“I’ll ride with you,” Mamma offered. “Just give me a minute. I want to fix Mamma a plate too. She must be starving.”
“Not really,” Daddy laughed. “She’s been working them snack machines they have at the hospital. She’s eat ever kind of sweet thing they sell in them things.”
“Well, good,” Bethany replied. “She needs to.”
Grandpa Herman stayed in the hospital for six days before they let him come home, and even after he got back, he didn’t know where he was.
He came home on a Sunday. I half expected him to walk in thumping his bible and giving us all a sermon because we weren’t in church.
I went to visit him, and he was sitting in his chair. I leaned over to kiss him, and he kissed me too hard, like he’d missed me or something.
“Herman, that’s Ninah,” Nanna explained in a way that was almost like scolding.
“My sweet Ninah,” he said, and laughed. He didn’t have his dentures in, and his breath smelled like cold-sore balm.
When I tried to walk away, he wouldn’t let me go. He held onto my arm with a grip that surprised me, considering he’d almost died.
“Look, Grandpa,” I tried. “Pammy came to visit you too.”
Pammy held back like a cough.
“Ninah, take me home,” Grandpa said.
“You are home, Grandpa.”
“No,” he replied, and then he started crying.
“Look,” I said. “Pammy’s here.”
“No,” he said, choking on that short word, tears dribbling down his face so unashamed that it made me feel shamed for him. “No. Take me home, Ninah,” he pleaded.
“Herman, I’m gonna fix you some grits,” Nanna said.
And even though Grandpa Herman had always loved grits, demanding them for breakfast even when that wasn’t what everybody else was eating, he said, “I don’t want no damned grits. I ain’t never eat grits in my life.” Then he looked back at me and said, “Take me home.”
David said that what Grandpa Herman meant was that he belonged in Heaven now. He said that “Take me home” was his way of demanding to be allowed to die.
Laura said we should all go into that church and have a service because that would be the one thing that would make Grandpa happy.
So we went. We sang some songs and Everett said a nice prayer asking for Grandpa’s recovery, then amending his request, asking that God’s will might be done. But nobody preached and nobody stayed, even though David wanted us to have a testimonial time.
Later over black beans and rice, David stood up and said that he was disappointed in the community, that we should be continuing God’s ministry and that everybody who had backslidden at Fire and Brimstone by participating in excessive music or by skipping prayer partners or by private blasphemy should be sleeping on nettles. He claimed the reason such sickness had fallen on Grandpa Herman was our unconfessed sins. He said he was going to dig a grave for anybody who wanted to sleep in it, and he asked for volunteers to help him dig it. By the time he was finished speaking, he had tears.
“I’ll help you,” Everett offered. “But you won’t find me sleeping there because I don’t think I’ve done nothing wrong by saying my prayers when I feel like it and by singing at night.”
I rolled my eyes at Pammy, who rolled her eyes back, but that afternoon, I was surprised at how many people had their shovels in the soil. David and Everett and Barley and Jim Langston from the other side and his son Joshua.
I hoped that nobody would sleep there. It was January and so cold. But I watched from my window as Great-Aunt Imogene limped her way across the lawn, slowly bent to the ground until she could sit there, edged her legs against the side of the hole, and then plunked off like a penny out a window.
One afternoon after school, I went to get Canaan to take him with me to the pack house for an hour or so while I worked on Ajita’s rug. Laura was making candles at her little stove, and she’d left Canaan in his playpen, unhappily sitting without even a toy.
“Hey,” I said. “I just came to get Canaan.”
“He can stay here today,” she said, without even turning around. “It’s too cold for him to be outside.”
“He won’t be outside, Laura. He’ll be in the pack house. I took a space heater out there. He’ll be as warm there as he will here.”
“I don’t want him to go.”
“Why?”
“He’s busy,” she claimed.
“Doing what? He can’t even play with his toes, for God’s sake.”
“He’s praying. And don’t you swear in this house, Ninah Huff, or you won’t ever touch my baby again.”
“Pardon me,” I started, “but I’m the one who had him, and you know I wouldn’t let him get hurt or cold or anything like that....”
“I think you’re a bad influence on him,” she said, turning for the first time away from her liquid wax, then returning quickly to her stirring.
“Laura!”
“You heard me. He ain’t going today.”
“Well, can he go tomorrow? I’d like to spend some time with him.”
I was so mad that I thought I might cry. I don’t think I was hurt, but I might have been. Mostly I was angry, and the madness clabbered around my vocal cords until I was scared to try to say anything else.
“I don’t want to be rude to you, Ninah, but I think you’ve strayed from the path of righteousness. And I don’t think you appreciate Canaan for what he is.”
I know I should have stayed. I should have sat right in her house and played with Canaan there. It would have made Laura uncomfortable, and I didn’t wish her anything better. But I had to leave.
In the barn that day, I wept like an orphan, but I finished Ajita’s rug. I wove desperately, my fingers flicking and twisting, knotting Pammy’s hair and sliding rows of tobacco leaves and twine against it, feeding through strips of flannel and bits of a ripped-up diaper and a torn-away feed sack. I paid no attention to the pattern at all—because I was too busy stewing and mourning and figuring ways to get Canaan back.
But when I was done, I’d crafted an azalea right in the center with Pammy’s bright hair that contrasted so wildly with the brownness and paleness of the other fabrics. I thought that maybe azaleas were the flowers on Ajita Patel’s Indian pants, and that even if they weren’t, she, of all people, might appreciate the uneven blossom I’d sewn.
Inside I felt like kudzu vines running wild. Even winter couldn’t kill kudzu. It might turn brownish for a season, but it never died. It grew in spite of cold weather, expanding to mock all natural rules and overrunning everything in its path. Kudzu on a building could grab on so hard that it’d tear the walls away from the foundation. Kudzu on a tree could smother the life out. I felt it twining around my bones, threatening to slip out through my ears and mouth and nose. There was more to it than just Laura not letting me keep Canaan.
There were leaves sprouting just because the community was in shambles, with everybody disagreeing about what to do at Fire and Brimstone. There were vine shoots angling off because I missed James, because nobody could even say he’d killed himself, not even Olin, and because rather than acknowledge that he’d died by his own han
d, nobody mentioned him at all. There were buds sprouting because people couldn’t make up their minds, because one day Mamma’d be carrying the Fire and Brimstone torch, telling me that she’d been praying for my rededication and the next day she’d be tangoing around the kitchen in a pair of Daddy’s overalls and saying she might take herself shopping in town to buy store-bought underwear rather than having to fashion such narrow pieces of elastic.
I feared that the vines would extend from my body at night and stretch so far beyond me that they could wrap themselves around somebody’s neck in their sleep. I didn’t want to strangle anybody. Not literally anyway.
One day at lunch, Ajita Patel told me that when people came over from India, they had something called culture shock. She said it was hard for the new families to get used to the customs of a whole new society, but that in time, they learned to fit in.
I wondered if we’d ever fit in. It seemed to me that we had the ultimate in culture shock hitting all at once.
Pammy got invited to spend the night at a friend’s house, but Bethany said no.
Mustard got invited to go fox hunting with some boys from Mossy Swamp, and Olin said yes. But Olin didn’t tell Bethany about it until he’d already dropped Mustard off miles away. When Pammy found out, she came to my house and cried on my bedspread for a long, long time.
On the third afternoon when I wasn’t allowed to keep Canaan, I went over to talk to Nanna. I didn’t want her to fix anything. I knew she had too much on her mind. But I wanted her to tell me a story that I could make come true.
I walked right in, like always, but what I heard was yelling. It was Grandpa Herman, calling out from the bathroom, “All you damned women. Treating me like a—not treating me like a man. Where’s Leila?”
“I’m right here,” Nanna said.
“You ain’t Leila, you old bitch,” he demanded. “Get me Leila.”
The bathroom door was closed. I thought maybe I should leave before they knew I was there, but I didn’t.