Sapphire's Grave by Hilda Gurley Highgate Read Free Book Online Page B

her mother. She lay down, but only when directed to—no antics in the field; and she did not smile. She flinched when they raised their fists. She cried only when she was alone, when she was sure that no one heard.
    No one ever knew.
    Only Eshe had learned to cry. Beg. Retreat. Somewhere along the way she lost sight of her Self. She survived, barely, not for herself, but for her children. She was her mother’s daughter.
    They gave her children, and her grandchildren, nice names. Lilly. Jasmine. Mercy. Grace. Comforting, nurturing names. Still, they were too dark for the big house. Lovey. Sister. These girls fought back their sadness, had angry, tearful rages, but later, among themselves. Eventually, they seasoned their discontentment, fried it in cornmeal and chicken fat, consumed it as it consumed them. Their cheeks grew round, their bodies fat and greasy. Peaches. Big Dessa. They called them “healthy,” these women who ate their anger, their grief. They called them Strong; and the women, fat with their own anger and grief, believed themselves strong. After all, they outlasted the others, had more babies, lived to lose their teeth and go through the change.
    Still, as each generation succeeded the next, they missed their sisters, the ones they had outlasted, the ones who had been killed, or sold away from them to other places, other circumstance. They searched for each other in sullen, shackled groups as they passed through the marshes of South Carolina; along the red clay roads of North Carolina; across the bayous of Mississippi. They looked for legacies of one another in the features of the new ones brought from other places, other circumstance.
    Binta?
    Adero?
they questioned, leaning forward to peer into uncomprehending faces.
    They looked for one another in their children, in each tiny newborn face.
    Nyallay? Sister? Are you there?
    And in St. John’s Parish, in Warren County, each first born girl became Sister. One generation, and the next, then the next bore this question, this hope upon her face.
Sister?
The eyebrows arched.
I’ve lost you. I so
miss your face . . .
    And all this because they had not cried, only stood stoic, dry-eyed and strangely alert as their mother was returned to the earth. She was their mother, after all. It was unnatural, unreal. Who ever heard of women not mourning, women’s eyes not closed in pain or fear, trembling? Little women, at that, not doing as women do? It was dangerous, ’s what it was. Why, what if they had children, and they had children—girls named Con-stance, Courage, Njeri, daughter of a warrior; unnatural, unwholesome children, who came from dreadful places where the women never cried, not even in prayer?
    LICKSKILLET, NORTH CAROLINA
    AUGUST, 1874
    Sister was surprised to hear that she had only been absent from her own time for six days, six days during which she had thrashed about on her mother’s mattress made of chicken feathers and quilts, babbling incoherently or gyrating wildly, barely accepting small portions of water or grits. Toward the end, she was told, she had sweated and shivered and cried aloud for her children. Finally, Sister had sat upright in bed, apparently unable or unwilling to respond to her surroundings.
    Word had traveled quickly: Sister Yarborough had lost her mind; proud Sister, finally driven by that Prince of hers to madness, babbling, yelling epithets, and making indelicate gestures. People had stopped by, ostensibly to show concern for Sister and regard for the family. In truth, curiosity and a need to verify Sister’s plight had been the motivation. For in Warren County, proud home of robust former slaves, people were seldom on their backs, and never lost their minds. A real live crazy person was a tantalizing spectacle. People came from Henderson and as far away as Oxford to visit the pitiable Sister whose mind had so departed, leaving her unable to speak or hear or do for herself.
    Prince had come, sheepish and contrite, only to be