By eleven o'clock in Marcus Patterson's two-room house--clean as your hand and all but sizzling from the little iron stove he boiled the corn on--we pushed ourselves back from a good many bare cobs, a bowl of country b.u.t.ter that we'd raided severely, a cut-gla.s.s salt cellar and the crumbs from a dozen or more ham biscuits. For all the kind black people I'd known since a black midwife brought me into this world, I'd never eaten a meal in a black home--or been asked to eat one--until that night. Sadly it goes without saying that no black person had ever sat

down in mine or Palmer's dining room, however much work they'd invested in every bite we swallowed.

So while I'd been a little off balance in the past two hours of Marcus Patterson's attention, I sat back feeling both pleasantly filled and immeasurably grateful. It would be decades before, looking back, I could fully comprehend the dreadful rigging of the scales of justice that made such an evening's gift both graceful and somehow--once it was offered--so easy to take and deeply satisfying and yet so depressing.

Why would this almost surely never happen again in mine and Palmer's lives? (it never did and hasn't to this day with me in a house lived in by only one other human, a fine black woman.) Even at the time though, July of '23, I stumbled to say some version of the rich grat.i.tude I felt. I said "Mr.

Patterson, you have made our trip." I'd never heard a white human being address a black man as mister and wouldn't again for many more years.

Palmer cut his eyes around on me, not harshly but keen. He wanted me to know he was clocking my feelings as they moved into words way beyond any depth I'd waded before. He even said a calm "Amen" to my brief speech. And when Marcus Patterson got up from his chair beside the stove-- he'd watched us eat, not partaken himself--and deftly gathered up our plates, Palmer leapt to his feet, took the plates from him and carried them over to the galvanized tub that seemed to be Mr. Patterson's sink.

I doubt that Palmer Slade had carried a single plate but his own more than three inches in his whole life till now. When he'd set them down, he reached in his pocket, brought out a silver dollar, held it out slightly, said "Much obliged" and laid it on the nearest shelf. A dollar at that time was more than handsome payment even for the ample amount we'd eaten. You could buy a week's worth of groceries for a dollar.

Marcus Patterson's face went grim as a hawk's. Then he smiled and said "Don't ruin it now, Son."

Palmer took back the dollar and gave a low bow which sweetened the air.

So with all the mystery of my young husband's not

touching me still there in my mind, I told myself again to remember to thank G.o.d or Fate for this high watermark in my life. I don't know why I thought G.o.d hadn't been reading my thoughts by the fascinating instant, which He's famous for doing in my Bible anyhow whatever's the case in the actual universe.

At maybe four o'clock that night, two hours before dawn Palmer turned toward me and laid his broad right hand on my hip. I'd been deep asleep and when I came to, what surprised me most--it actually rushed up in me like shame-- was the realization that till that moment I'd scarcely thought of August our son in two whole days. So when Palmer's hand stayed there heavy on me and made no further immediate request, my throat filled up with bitterness. And I finally said "Palmer, if you need Roxanna Slade on a regular basis, please find a way to say so. Or send her home where others can use her."

He was quiet a long time. Then his fingers moved on up to my waist, and he pressed them slightly inward on me. I was still a little slack there from my first pregnancy. Then Palmer said "I haven't felt good enough for you. Not always clean enough for someone fine as you."

I said "I thought you knew me better than that. I keep secrets badly. If I didn't feel you were more than sufficient, you'd have been the first to know."

He said "All this day I've thought about Larkin --Larkin that last afternoon in the river."

I said "Me too. But Palmer, swimming was your idea, not Roxanna's. And you came through fine." I still felt as if I had nothing to give him here and now, but I offered him one more plain true sentence. "You were good to watch."

He said "Good as Larkin?"

I said "Beyond a doubt," and I knew I meant it.

That tripped something deep in Palmer's body. He rolled to his own side facing my back and touching me down the length of my frame.

I could feel his readiness growing against me, and I had to ask myself if I could stand whatever he chose to offer me next. Then I thought You lie still and let him ask.

But he'd never asked in words before and he

didn't now. He was slower and gentler than in the past, but he pulled me over to lie flat beside him, and then he went about taking again his almighty need.

I've mentioned how you couldn't turn on TV in those days and get free instructions on the most private skills or read any one of a thousand books on the subject of how to please a mate. But by then I wasn't exactly a fool on the vast dark subject of freely giving another body a joyful moment and taking your own sweet pleasure in that. And there in our white room in Wilmington as day broke on us--the day we'd have to retrace our steps toward home and our duty-- I discovered I seemed to know as much as any seasoned wh.o.r.e we'd pa.s.sed on the streets of this seaport.

I also thought, when Palmer was calmer and snoozing again, that tonight in the hours with Marcus Patterson, my husband had shown me a mystery I'd never seen so clearly--a welcome ease with all the world or all I'd seen him encounter till now. By the time dawn seeped through the waving curtains, I felt again that I was lucky.

We'd reached a real peak and could never deny it.

That was late July as I said. The rest of the summer and early fall went peacefully. The baby thrived and Palmer spent even more time than usual working at his mother's or elsewhere. I stayed busy just keeping up with a growing child, keeping our tiny apartment in shape and doing whatever I could to help Muddie who was showing more and more signs of the ailment that would bring her down soon, some apparent kind of slow kidney failure.

Part of the trouble started in late August when Leela suddenly decided that maybe she truly wouldn't marry after all--n.o.body was asking her--and that she'd better give thought to training herself for some paying job other than childbearing and cooking forever. In the weeks when she was contemplating the actual move to a teacher's college for the two years of work that would give her a license, she took more than one occasion to hint that public instruction-- which was what she called teaching--was in every way a n.o.bler calling than wife and mother.

I told her in no uncertain terms that my chosen career was at least as hard as coal mining (and was more confining--miners can generally sleep through a night) and that it required the mind of a general, a

nurse and a saint, not to mention other needs. Anyhow Leela departed with the luggage of an infantry division for her teacher's college in Greenville. That left Muddie alone in the house too much of the time brooding on her health and what she'd begun to think were her failures of love and devotion to her husband and children.

So I'd take August to visit most afternoons and play two-handed bridge with Muddie or let her tell me what occupied her mind. Right to her deathbed she never stopped telling the stories I loved and would ask her for. I sometimes felt I was witnessing my mother bleed to death--she'd have that much stored up in her mind that needed to pour out even if I'd seen her the previous day. (ferny had found a job in Raleigh, at the State College Library. And Muddie didn't see him nearly often enough. n.o.body did, not at home anyhow. My older brother was all but officially a lost sheep now, and it pained Muddie greatly. Ferny did as well, though at least she could see Fern occasionally however far away he'd seem, even right in the chair beside you on the porch in reach of your hand.)

That way the month of August crept by and all of September. And it wasn't till the night of October 5th that Palmer quietly mentioned after supper that, if I could find it in my power, he'd like us to visit his mother on the weekend of the seventh and take the baby with us. I well recalled the pain he'd administered the last time I failed him; and the eighth of course would be my twenty-third birthday, the third anniversary of Larkin's drowning.

I hadn't laid eyes on Miss Olivia since August was born and I left the Slade place, and I had no desire to see her now.

It was not just the common chill that lies between wives and their husband's mothers. No mother-in-law elsewhere in my vision approached Miss Olivia for bristling strength. But I'd vowed "for richer, for poorer" to Palmer. So sure, I told him we'd make the trip with him. I told myself we'd all be on our best behavior, not to mar the memory of as fine a boy as Lark.

And it very nearly worked out that way. Palmer's original idea had been that we'd drive up on

Sunday the seventh, spend the night and be there for the anniversary as well as my birthday on the Monday. Since it didn't much matter what days of the week Palmer did his work, I told him that I wanted to disrupt August's schedule as little as possible. And I made the one condition that we not spend the night. We'd go on Monday morning and come back that evening. Palmer agreed to that a little slowly. And I planned accordingly with a growing dread that I tried to conceal. The fact that, on the night of the seventh, we had the earliest frost I recall--a hard killing frost--only deepened my apprehension.

But the drive went as smoothly as drives could then. August slept through all the b.u.mps and was in a calm mood when we got to the Slade place in time for the noon meal. By then the boy could sit up in the old highchair that Miss Olivia told stories about. It had seated children since before the Revolution. Or so she claimed. She'd make the same claim for an old brown bottle she found in the yard too that everybody knew was six months old. But n.o.body ever corrected her. Things seemed easier for Miss Olivia to bear if she thought they were old.

Anyhow we were all but finished with Coy's chess pie when we heard the sound of a car pulling in, and Palmer went to the window to look. It took him awhile to recognize the driver, but then Palmer turned back to me as if I were responsible for who it was. "It's Ferny Dane," he said. "Do you know why?"

I was at least as surprised as Palmer and said as much.

It was Miss Olivia who finally told Palmer "I a.s.sume he's come for the day itself. We all know how much he prized your brother."

Palmer flushed dark red which he seldom did. But for the moment Miss Olivia had silenced any other complaint he might have. The pressure was high though.

And I was left wondering what was so wrong about Fern turning up? If he'd managed to get a day's leave from his job and driven all the way up here from Raleigh, then of course it was right for him to be here--as much as me anyhow. Fern had known Lark longer and better than I. But whose was the car? By then I'd gone to the window too, and could see Fern walking alone to the house.

He opened the front door without a knock, and

I watched Palmer grit his teeth at that. By the time Fern reached the dining room door, everyone in the room was tensed and braced in varying degrees.

At the sight of Fern's smile, Miss Olivia said "You're an answer to prayer."

Palmer gave a deep grunt that we all ignored.

Then Fern stepped in to kiss Miss Olivia. Next he turned to August in his highchair. "Boy, you have grown."

August laughed outright for the first time that day and threw his spoon halfway toward Fern.

I was still by the window, but I blew a kiss toward him.

Fern looked exhausted from the trip and older still, but he blew me a short kiss back and beamed his best smile.

Palmer was standing near to me--no smile at all, no welcoming step.

As Fern stooped to get the boy's spoon, he looked up at me.

Like a great fool I could only think to say "Who'd you steal the sporty car from?" It came out sounding stingy hearted.

Fern caught the sound. He rubbed the baby's spoon dry on his pants leg and laid it on the table. "I bought it Sat.u.r.day to see you today. Happy birthday, Roxanna."

Palmer had said the same words at daybreak, but Miss Olivia and Coy hadn't made any reference to my birthday. I must have blushed too.

That sent Palmer further down the slope he was on. He said to Ferny "Where'd you get so much money?"

Easygoing as he generally was, Fern clearly felt Palmer's new sharp edge. He smiled his best smile. But he said "Since you're so much richer than me, I don't mind telling you. Your own dear daddy gave me a piece of money just before his last stroke. I hung onto it and it paid the down payment."

I'd never known that and a.s.sumed Palmer hadn't.

But he said nothing then.

Miss Olivia said "Ferny, you earned every penny. And you don't owe anyone a word of explanation."

n.o.body spoke for the longest time, so I tried to break the lock by taking up the last thing Fern had

said to me. I told him "I've quit having birthdays now--an old married woman with a thriving baby."

Fern nodded. "I'll try to forget it hereafter. Yes ma'm, you are moving on, beyond a doubt."

For whatever reason that fanned Palmer to a quick high flame. "We're moving through life with little help from you, Slick." Slick then was not a complimentary nickname. And it was also the last thing Fern had ever been.

Miss Olivia said "Palm, I think you need air." When he stood on pale in his place by the window and said no more, his mother said again "Go walk up the road. It'll settle your food."

Palmer went, still silent and quiet on his feet as any black cloud. Even the loud old heavy front door made no sound at all when he shut it behind him.

Miss Olivia stood, pointed Fern to his place at the table and said "Come on, Anna. Let's feed this guest."

As I pa.s.sed my brother, I bent to the crown of his head and kissed him. He smelled as clean and good to know as in his young boyhood when I'd wash his hair. I whispered that Palmer was under a lot of strain--not knowing what I might mean, just hoping to save the day.

Ferny said "I think I know." Though he had his arm out holding August's left hand, Fern's face was as bleak as when he looked up at me in the first crisis of that long day three years ago with Lark just drowned a few moments beyond us.

As I moved toward the kitchen, those words felt odd and harsh in my mind. What on Earth does Fern think he knows?

In the kitchen five minutes later, Miss Olivia left me alone with Coy while she took hot corn fritters to Fern. So I had a minute to tell Coy again how much I thanked her for her help with August's birth and what a satisfactory child he'd been from the start.

Coy nodded at the stove but never looked up to speak.

In the face of her silence, I drifted on with stories about how soundly the boy slept, how well he'd been, how hard he was already trying to talk.

Coy kept on nodding and finally said "He bound

to be smart with the blood he got."

I couldn't tell if she meant my blood as well as the Slades', but I laughed and said again "I couldn't be gladder that the little fellow's mine."

That turned Coy around. Her big wood spoon poised in the air before her. Then she shook it at me like a preacher's warning. With her free left hand, she wiped her top lip that was shiny with sweat. Then she whispered to me with fierce deliberation, "You hang on to August. You need him this minute and the rest of your life. Need him bad right now."

I'd heard enough craziness from Coy in recent years to think this was normal foolishness from her. But once I'd laughed and started to tell her I was fine on my own, I saw Miss Olivia framed in the doorway.

She was nodding agreement to Coy not me. That bit into me worse than the freeze that had killed every leaf and vine last night, every moth or squirrel pup caught above ground and insufficiently shielded.

I went back to the dining room, picked up the baby who snoozed off at once and sat while Ferny ate his meal.

As ever he ate like a pack of hyenas with excellent manners, though he hadn't put on a pound of flesh since he turned sixteen.

I sat still beside him, enjoying his eyes in the moments alone.

Miss Olivia had stayed back with Coy in the kitchen.

Ferny asked little trifling questions about my days and doings, about Muddie and Father. He was still on awkward terms with Father for leaving his job in the store and going to Raleigh, so he hadn't seen our family in recent weeks, and he plainly missed Muddie and Leela anyhow.

I was so haunted by the way he'd changed that in a few minutes I'd lost any sense that something peculiar was loose in this place. Something against me was here in the air like an ill-meaning bird, but what I mainly noticed was my sadly changed brother.