Читать книгу The Bernice L. McFadden Collection - Bernice L. McFadden - Страница 42

Chapter Thirty-Two

Months after that incident, Tass was in the basement one morning, loading the washing machine with clothes. Fish was in the kitchen finishing his breakfast, excited about the day he and the family were going to spend on Belle Isle. He was eager to see the boats coasting across the water with their white sails flapping in the wind.

He was smiling at the thought when death closed its dark hand over his heart.

Downstairs, the roar of the washing machine masked the sound of Fish’s body tumbling from the chair to the floor. So when Tass stepped into the sun-drenched kitchen and saw him stretched out with his good hand clutched to his chest, her heart jumped into her throat.

His eyes were open and a glistening stream of saliva spilled ominously from the corner of his mouth. He was still smiling, not because of the vision he’d conjured of Belle Isle, but because his people were there. All of the family and friends who had transitioned ahead of him had encircled him, and were weaving his name into an ancient chant.

Fish’s foot began to bounce to the rhythm of the song, and he was consumed by a tenderness he had never felt before.

Standing just outside of the circle of ancestors was a person who Fish did not recognize. “Who you?” he asked.

Tass was now on the floor cradling his head in her lap, stroking his cheeks and weeping all over him. “It’s me, baby. Tass.”

His head lolled to one side and he was gone.

Tass sat there for a long time, holding him, stroking his arms and running her fingers through his hair.

She didn’t know how long the telephone had been ringing before she finally heard it. Pulling herself up from the floor and carefully stepping around Fish’s body, she picked up the receiver.

“Hello?” Tass sniffed.

“Hey, Mama,” Sonny’s voice rang from the opposite end of the line. “I’m headed over now. Y’all ready?”

Pulling the coiled telephone cord as far as it would allow, she stepped out into the hallway, cupped her hand over mouth, and whispered, “He gone, Sonny, he gone,” as if trying to keep the truth from the dead man himself.

Other than the sound of the clock and Tass’s own steady breathing, the house was quiet. The funeral had ended hours ago, but Tass was still dressed in her black skirt suit and pillbox hat with the studded veil. Sitting on the corner of the bed, she leaned forward and folded her hands into her lap. For a long time she just sat there staring at her hands, contemplating the soft wrinkles and brown blemishes. How smooth and pretty her skin had been when she said, I do, forty-eight years earlier.

“Forty-eight years,” she said aloud.

Now, looking back, she realized that forty-eight years had run off like water.

“Not when we were living it though,” Tass chuckled. “There were some days when I didn’t think we were gonna make it.”

She glanced over her shoulder at Fish’s side of the bed, then reached her hand around and patted the place where his feet would have been.

“But we did,” she sighed.