Massa came out, wrapped his hands around Olivia’s hair and
pulled. She followed neck churned in an ungodly fashion. All the slaves on the
plantation stopped for a moment of prayer. There was no movement besides Becka
tearing through the field screaming, “No, Massa, no! Don’t take my baby way,
please!”
But she was afar off and by time she had reached the spot
where the little girl’s hair was wrenched, Massa was in the shack behind the
main house. The other women gathered round Becka and told her everything was
gonna be alright. They was lyin’ of course. But they didn’t have any vocabulary
beyond a lie and a truth, and this was Becka’s first time experiencing
something worse than her own rape.
Massa emerged and went back inside the main house for a cool
glass of lemonade.
Becka and the women pushed open the door of the shack and
saw Olivia rolled in a ball so many times after that day it seemed to be deja
vu. They would rap her in a blanket and carry her back to the slave quarters. The
women would clean the girl up best they could, finding unsoiled patchwork
scraps to dress any exposed part, softly brushing the long coils into two pig
tails that spoke loudly; I AM A CHILD.
But that was a lie too. Becka wiped away tears where there
were none, and said, “Hush now, chile, Mommas here,” to whimpers non-existent. In
the midst of Becka’s prayers, Olivia would just get up and walk out to finish
her chores.
Becka didn’t get dandelion bouquets, the chance to kiss
booboos on scraped knees, or a warm hug after singing a lullaby. Becka tried
hard to bring back the girl who giggled in her sleep, hummed non-stop, and hung
close to the other girls, eyes shut tight, beseeching God, when Massa came out.
Now she could stare the Devil down.
Becka never understood how Martha could mutter under her
breadth, “Killa, killa dead,” at the site of her newborn. Some said she evil. Others
said she virtuous.
The elders say, “Naw, she just be a mother.”
Olivia was early delivering. Her eyes lit wide with hope,
she grabbed her Momma’s hand and wouldn’t let go, “Pray, Momma, pray.” But
Becka couldn’t stop crying long enough to say one single word to Jesus. Crying
cause the feeling of being a mother after three years rushed in on her all at
once; crying for all the tears Olivia couldn’t shed herself. The women smacked
the baby on the behind and it wailed nicely.
“Hell, naw!” Olivia spat venom when the women tried to take
the baby off to get cleaned and wrapped up. The women turned back with the baby
so Olivia could see what she and her Daddy had created. Straightaway, the life
seeped from Olivia’s small frame. The infant looked healthy, but only time
would tell.
The women exhaled, and turned back to get the baby cleaned, but
Becka stopped them this time. Two days later, Becka wrapped the stillborn in
the pretty blue quilt Olivia had scrapped together. She laid her in the box
with her Momma.
The elders say, “She just be a grandmother.”
