Judith drags her nails back and forth across her flaking chest, standing over her mother as she runs hot water in the tub. It's eight-fifteen in the morning, and Rembrandt is at the bar in Darlington, per usual, while Stevie and Vera are sleeping off their fevers.
Judith's baby hairs stick to the skin around the circumference of the edge of her head, just above her large forehead. She's sweating the way her father used to yet shivering as if the bathroom is cold.
Sheryl turns the knob to shut the faucet off, then drags her fingertips above the water, leaving trails of wrinkles.
"Okay, you can get in now." She shakes her hand dry before rubbing her fingers against the side of her floral dress. Judith trudges closer, and Sheryl takes her hand to guide her into her tub. "Hopefully, this helps. Otherwise, I'll have to go to the pharmacy, and I'm too busy for that. I'm trying to get everything packed for New York."
"When – are you leaving," she shudders through her question. Sheryl opens the box of plain oatmeal leaning against the tub on the floor as Judith lays her head back. The cloudy, milk-infused water gradually turns cinnamon brown as her mother shakes the oats around her shivering body.
"I don't know. I'll think more about it when you three are better." She forces a smile to ease her daughter's concerns. She darts her eyes onto the door, and her mother crumbles the wrappers near her kitten heels. "When do you plan to head to Morehead? Will I have to drop you off?"
"I don't know, and I doubt it." Sheryl swirls the water against her hand, forming a whirlpool of specs of grains. "Kacey really wants to go, and I think she'll be upset if I don't take the offer. She says I'm the face of this – idea, and if I change my mind, it'll ruin things for everyone involved."
"Do you wanna go?" Judy solemnly looks at her and nods. "Then what's the issue?"
"The kids," she starts to say, but her mother interrupts.
"Enough. I'm the parent, and whether you believe it or not, I have their best interests at heart. You're nineteen, Judy. No kids, no husband to tie you down, and nineteen eighty is right around the corner," Sheryl reminds her. She takes a deep breath with her chin to her chest, calming herself when she overexcites herself. "Did I ever tell you how I met your father?"
Christmas 1954
"Here's a letter from Oakland, California." Sheryl sits a dingy envelope on the counter, and the white man in front of her slides it towards himself.
He's wearing a green and white striped shirt tucked into his white shorts, black suspenders holding them in place. He stands with a hunched back and a cold gleam in his icy blue eyes.
She watches him lean forward to support his weight on the counter, and he rips the envelope open with his thumbs. Sheryl peers over his head at the three others waiting— a white woman and man are standing together, and a black man is far behind them— then back to the elder reading his letter.
"This says it was sent three weeks ago." She takes her eyes off the last customer. "Why wasn't it in my hand before now?"
"We've been trying to find you since it arrived, but," she stops herself when he lifts his bushy, blond brow. "I'm sorry, sir."
"You're sorry? My daughter's telling me in this letter that her mother's dying, but she's probably gone already because you nigger women don't know how to get a letter out quick," he raises his voice. She bounces her eyes onto the couple behind them as they look at each other with concern. "Hello? Are you hard of hearing?"
"I'm sorry, sir. If you'd like, I can go get my boss, and he can," she stops again but sucks a breath through clenched teeth when he bangs his fists on the counter.
"I don't want no 'nother wench to get here and tell me sorry," he yells. The couple walk out of the line with the man guiding her to the exit, his arm around her waist and her hands on her stomach.
"Sir, I'm the only colored woman working tonight. He's a white man, and he's in the back room right now if you'd like me to get him," she calmly tells him, and he shuts his eyes, taking a breath.
"I'm going home to call my daughter. If her mother's dead, you'd best pray your way to heaven because I'll be here with a gun and a rope." He slams a nickel on the counter as his final act of intimidation, a glare practically engrained across his peaches and cream face.
He turns his back to her and looks Walter up and down, then strolls past him. Walter watches the ornery man leave the quaint post office with the envelope and paper bending in his tight grasp, and Sheryl slides the nickel onto her side.
"I'll always commend you women. I think we men are more emotionally driven in times like this." Walter approaches the counter with his dirt-stained hat in both hands in front of his abdomen. She glares over the top of her small glasses, and he smiles. "You know, I always found your eyes to be as beautiful as the big tree near Lincoln lake."
"You must think I was born yesterday. I know you've probably told that same line to every woman you came 'cross," she assumes after sucking her teeth. "Listen, hotshot, give me your name so I can see if you have any mail."
"I don't. I just come here to see you." She rolls her eyes, confident she's heard it all before. He looks over his shoulders then leans against the counter when he sees they're alone. "What time you heading home?"
"I got fifteen minutes left." She straightens her posture and scans him with his eyebrows lifted in skepticism. "What you asking for?"
He grips the left of his suit jacket and pulls it back, showing his silver flask tucked in his pocket. Finally, she grins and looks him in the eyes.
For the remainder of her shift, she hands boxes and envelopes— love letters, messages of sick family members, and cash the recipients would walk across the dirt road to the bank— and Walter sat near the door watching her with a grin, confident he's found someone special.
He walks her out of the door, and as the wind lifts dust storms, she tosses her arms around herself. He flings his hat on his head then draws his coat off his back. He sits it on her shoulders, and she blinks back, scrunching her face.
"Jesus, what's that smell?" She drops her arms and slides the jacket into her arms, staring at him in disgust.
"Most likely, my sweat." Her expression shifts to neutral, and she shoves his suit jacket against his chest. He holds it in his arms and watches her walk away, then he follows her.
The sky is dark, the full moon is high, and only one star paves the road with a faint white glow. They reach a small neighborhood of rustic houses with shattered windows and broken storm doors, chipped siding, and dogs barking in the distance.
Sheryl peeks over her shoulder when she hears gravel crunching, stops in front of a yard with grass that reaches her knees then turns to him.
"Listen, I don't know what you want from me," she begins, her voice quivering as she trails his thin frame with her bouncing eyes. "But I'm not interested, okay? I had a long day, and I just wanna be left alone."
"I thought we were gonna drink a little and talk," he says with a questioning undertone, trailing off in speech. His eyebrows are furrowed, and he watches her hug her chest. "I understand wanting a moment to think. I work long hours, and when I get home, I go straight to bed."
"That explains your smell." Walter emits a closed-mouth chuckle, hanging his head and watching his boots. "What, you waiting on your shoes to take you on home?"
"What if I take you out to eat," he suggests, and she rolls her eyes then folds her arms under her chest. "What? I know a fancy little place that lets our folk through the front door."
"I got three kids," she blurts out, hoping it'll drive him away like the others. The crickets and owls take over for them when they let the silence suffocate them.
"Oh," Walter's voice trails off, and he lowers his head in thought. She begins to turn to her yard but stops when he says, "Well if they're polite, I can get us into a show."
8:57 pm
Young Stacey, Wayne, and Michael are sitting oldest to youngest on Sheryl's left, leaving Walter in the aisle seat. They're at the top of the theatre, overlooking the white viewers alongside their black peers.
"So, where you from," Walter asks Sheryl in a low voice, and she turns her head to him on her right. "You talk all smooth, but you got a northern brogue."
"Funny you should say, I was thinking the same about you." He lets out a light chuckle, and she smiles. "I'm Georgia bred and New York raised. Maybe that's why I sound funny to you."
"I don't think you sound funny. Different, very, but I can get used to it." Sheryl twists her mouth to the side and glances at Michael under her arm.
"So, where you from?" She looks at Walter again, and he lifts his hands, motioning around them.
"Montgomery. Never been no 'nother place besides here," he softly confesses to avoid disturbing those watching the film — White Christmas — but someone sitting rows behind them shushes him.
He and Sheryl peek into the darkness behind them, searching for the faceless person then they smile at each other.
"Guess we'd best be quiet," she mumbles over a suppressed laugh, and he lowers his eyebrows humorously.
"Guess they'd best calm down," he playfully argues. "This picture ain't that interesting."
"Then why'd you choose it?" Another person to their left practically hisses over their finger, angrily hushing them. Sheryl cranes her head to look past Stacey, and she opens her mouth to speak, closing it back when Michael wraps his arms around her. He lays his head on her chest, and she hugs him closer.
"It's the only show I figured your kids would enjoy." Sheryl looks at him as he responds. "Frankly, I'm not much of a theater man."
"Why not? Don't you have kids," she asks, and he quickly shakes his head with his lips pursed and his eyebrows drawn together. He hums no.
"I just got me and my ol' guard dog," he says, relaxing his mouth. He watches Michael doze off at the sound of his mother's slow heartbeat against her burgundy dress. "Never found the time to settle down. Booze and partying kept that out of my head, then I met you."
"Listen, whatever problems you got, I'm not in the business of fixing them. I got these three to worry about, and I don't need nothing else," she defends herself, staring sternly into his gentle eyes. He raises his hands.
"I understand, and I wouldn't put that on you. Let me finish," he says in the form of a question. She takes a breath, and when he sees her shoulders relax, he slowly lowers his hands. "I saw you working with every kind of white folk around, and I don't know. I was angry. A woman like you shouldn't have to take no talk like you did earlier."
"Save your breath. I'm used to it." Sheryl tosses her gloved right hand at him dismissively. "Don't matter how much we boycott busses, we'll never change nothing."
"Keep talking like that, and you'll be right." She listens to him, her lips parted. "Honestly, I don't believe we'll change anything either – that's where the youth come in. They say children are the future, blessed with a purity that puts them closer to God. All we got to do is educate them with what we know and watch them – with more time on this Earth than us – change it for the ones after them. Who knows, we might even share a bathroom with white folks someday."
"What you say your name is," she asks him, and he answers. "Well, Walter, answer me something: if you could choose, what would you do for the rest of your life? Be a blacksmith, elevator attendant, what?"
"Honestly, I wouldn't do a thing but be there for my kids," he tells her, and her expression sinks. She notices how genuine he is when he speaks, and to her, it's off-putting. She's used to liars and swindlers, men looking for one thing, then leaving when they get it, but staring into his eyes, she doesn't see any of it. "I can't quite think of a man who'd work himself to the bone if he had a say."
***
"He didn't have much, but he loved the four of us dearly," Sheryl wraps up her story, tears flying down her face. Judith watches her wipe them off. "I didn't believe anything could change America's understanding of Black people until Stacey rioted on the very campus you did. Before then, sometimes now, I wonder how life would've turned out if I had married someone else. Someone my parents picked out for me like they did my sisters."
"Why didn't you," Judith asks, her teeth chattering. Her skin that's submerged in the cold milk and oats are withered, which Judy noticed before speaking.
"Because money doesn't buy true love." Sheryl wipes her tears with the back of her hands and sniffles, staring at the tissue folded in her hands. "Choosing David, your father and I only wanted what was best for you. Being with him wasn't easy at times. Some months I would spend working and tending to the house, practically doing what I was doing before but with another mouth to feed."
"So you figured as long as I ignore him beating me and making me feel dependent on him, it would be okay so long as I marry him for his money," Judith asks, and Sheryl rolls her misty eyes onto her daughter's mirror above the sink.
"Judy, I've apologized for that," she begins to say, but Judith scoffs.
"No, you didn't," she interrupts her. "In fact, you never wanna talk about it. Even when I'd come home with scratches, bruises, visibly hurting when I walked, you and Dad would ignore it."
"I'm not apologizing again over something stupid." Sheryl jumps to her feet, and Judith stares at the ceiling, disbelief and sadness hidden under her stoic exterior. "I'm gonna check on Vera, then get breakfast started. Dry yourself off and join us when you're doing sulking."