Grace (28 page)

40
/ FLASH

Conyers, Georgia, 1848

A
LBERT
'
S BEEN LOOKING
different around the face since he got burnt up twelve weeks ago. Thick scars have risen from under his skin like it's been burrowed through. Other skin is yanked back in some places, slanting his eyes and spreading his bottom lip wider than it should be. The hairs left on his head are long and in thin bunches while the rest of his head's got shiny bald spots, like flat rocks in high grass.

Albert got his name from iron even before the fire. Before he was born. Iron is
black
metal.
Smith,
a craftsman. A blacksmith. But right now, Albert is just iron. I been doing the smithing. “Don't be afraid of the metal,” he said. “It won't hit you back.” But metal is not what I'm afraid of. I suspect he know that, too. He's been asking me to start the coal fire in the forge for him and it amazes me how forges can hold the greatest heat inside 'em. Like brick ovens, they are, turning the blackest iron orange-hot. Inside it, wild fire can be controlled. Bellows send large flames lapping and can send the same fire to a low burn. But if you get it wrong, there's only a bucket of water nearby.

Albert asks me to place the iron evenly in the fire pot, not on the coal. Asks me to give him his hammers, but some of 'em three pounds. “Don't be afraid,” he said. But fire's already changed everything.

Albert made me give him a piece of mirror the other day. He stared at hisself, turned his head slowly from side to side, raised his hand to touch his face. He told me, “No use in crying.”

And that time, I didn't stop myself crying for him.

I cried because I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have the face I was born to make.

I cried because being negro is hard enough.

I cried because I wished I had his courage. And because, in that moment, I was certain that even if he didn't want for me to be his family, I wanted him to be my friend.

Cynthia once told me that a man and woman could never be friends. Said, “Sex'll always get in the way 'cause men are lazy. A woman friend is what you call
convenient.
”

But Albert ain't lazy.

And me and him rely on each other now. Every day and in most ways, we do. For things most men and women not related or married would never have the pleasure to share.

There ain't many secrets between us now.

That's my fault because I thought he was a dying man when I spoke to him honest and open about my regrets. And I figure his secrets are gone now, too, since I spent the first three weeks working on his toileting. “Life is funny,” he said. “When the shame goes, what's left to do?”

I sneak up on Albert and slowly reach for a bunch of his hair with my scissor blades open. Before I can snip it, he spins me around, holds both my wrists in one of his hands, laughing. He say, “You trying to take away my power, Delilah?”

He crisscrosses my arms in front of me, making me hug my own seven-months-pregnant belly and he scratches in my armpit. “What you gon' do now, Delilah?”

“Let me cut it,” I say. “Just a little off the top. Even it up.” He keeps flicking his finger in my pit. We laughing. We take care of each other.

And this morning, he took care of me.

I had lost my voice in the night and had gone to bed speechless. I don't know if it was my talking too much that done it, or being out in the cold, or the coughing, but I lost it and Albert wanted to heal me.

I pretended to be 'sleep while I watched him tiptoe around our new living area. His back was against the stone wall he just built floor to ceiling to separate our new space from his shop. Ours is ten feet by ten feet, the ceiling is eight feet high to match his shop. “Mostly fireproof,” he said, except for the doorway in the wall that leads to his work.

We both sleep on the same side of the door even though we ain't married. I sleep on my bed mat on the floor, and Albert sleeps across the room in a padded chair next to the oven. We eat and sleep on this side now.

And this morning, I was watching him go across the floor on the balls of his quiet feet. He started bothering his “secret” stash of liquor behind the box where he keeps his spare tools. This hiding place wasn't his best kept secret since all the bottle necks of his liquor stick up and over the box—a line of sight from my pillow—so I cain't say (and be honest) that I've never took my liberties with 'em. That's why when he woke me up this morning and only gave me a stingy swallow of his expensive Talisker whisky, I had to gag on it a little to pretend it was new to me.

“It's strong, isn't it?” he said. “Burns. But it's the best around. Tastes a little woodsy?”

“A bonfire in a glass,” I said.

“And I already know I'm gon' regret giving you a taste.”

“'Cause now I know where you hide your costly whiskey?”

“Naw, 'cause now I gotta hear you talk.”

I
LIKE THE
way we think of each other—sister and brother. Adopted, maybe. It's like I can read his mind and know what he wants to eat
or drink before he's hungry or thirsty. And he thinks of things I need before I even want 'em. Like the bag of candy he brought back from town this morning. He came in the door popping a piece of it in his mouth. The smell was clean lemon. He didn't even ask if I wanted some 'cause that's the difference between us—I give it freely and he wants me to ask. Teases me. “Sure is good,” he said.

I wasn't gon' ask.

I tried not to pay him no mind. Instead, I focused on greasing my feet. Took the grease jar from under the bench and twisted it open. I scooped two fingers in it like a spoon, pulled back a clear wad, smooth as jelly, then warmed it by rubbing my hands together. That's when he got louder with his sweets, clicking that rock candy against his teeth, slurping sugar slobber.

I laughed, “Let me rub some of this grease on your face. It'll loosen your scars.”

“Can't you see I'm working my mouth to enjoy this tasty treat?”

“Suit yourself,” I said and widened my legs so that my big belly could fit between 'em. I swiped the grease on my right foot, then my left, took a deep breath and collapsed back on the bench, exhausted 'cause bending over winds me now.

“Why your feet need greasing again anyway?” Albert said. “You just greased 'em this morning.”

I laid back, took some deep breaths. It's like I grew in a half second. “Albert,” I said. “Come and rub some grease on my feet.”

“I ain't touching your feet.”

“I wiped your ass.”

“Thank you,” he laughed.

“You said it yourself, I'm eight months pregnant. I cain't do everything I used to. You could help me.”

“Fine. But let this be the first and only time.”

He came over and got down on one knee, lifted my foot to his thigh. He dug a finger in the grease pot and hesitated to touch my foot, said, “I don't think I can do this.”

I wiggled my toes and smiled.

He closed his eyes and touched the grease to my foot, gentler than I woulda thought. He cupped my whole foot in his palms and rubbed his thumbs along the ridge.

“There,” he said and dropped my foot. “Give me the other one.”

“Thas all you gon' do?” I said.

“Fine,” he said and lifted my half-greasy foot to his thigh again.

He buried two fingers in the jelly, rubbed it around both hands, slid 'em over my foot, then underneath it, kneading his knuckles firm but gentle into the flat of it. He twisted a hand around my heel turning it like a knob and moved up to the ball of my foot, then through my toes. They separate easily for him.

He ran two fingers up each toe, one at a time, a soft pinch over the bulgy tip, then back down again.

I didn't want him to stop.

But he grabbed my other foot.

He took his time with it. More time. Like he was discovering every crease. Gave me the chills.

He put my foot down softly and said, “Where'd you get this grease from?”

My voice quivered, “Bernadette said it'll make my feet look young and smooth.”

“Don't make no sense . . .” he said.

I stuck out my leg to see my feet, told him, “Ain't everybody gotta walk around ugly as you.”

He cleared his throat, got up from the floor, and sat up on the bench.

He wouldn't look at me.

I put my hands on his forearm and shook him. “Albert? Don't be like that.”

He kept his head down.

“I don't think you're ugly, Albert. Albert?”

For the first time since the accident, tears dripped from his eyes. Just one at first.

“Albert, I'm sorry. You ain't . . .”

“I know what I look like, Naomi. We've come too far to start lying to each other.”

That's when I kissed his face. And kissed him there on the side of his lip, scabs and all—so rough on my lips. He stopped talking for my kisses and sat up straight.

“Not ugly, at all,” I said.

And I kissed him again. Kissed his bottom lip that time. Gently. Felt it soft and unburnt, let him feel me soft, too. My lips were wet and I held myself there. I whispered, “I'm sorry.”

S
OMETIMES, WHEN
nothin
happens between friends, it changes everything. Like them Charleston earthquakes Cynthia describe. She say the
happening
is over before you realize something went wrong. Just a tremor along the porch at first. Like somebody was walking up the stairs—the beams sway, the wood creaks, and by the time you bother to look and see who's coming, nobody's there, the quake is already over, and the damage is done. But it also leaves you uneasy, knowing you was part of something big and missed it at the same time. It's what happened between me and Albert when I kissed him.

I'm guilty.

I started the quake that changed our normal—my kissing him and the way I let myself feel when he rubbed my feet. Those
innocent
things damaging us.

He's different now.

More different than what the fire did to him.

So I been avoiding him. Hard to do in this place so small. Three days and I already miss our card game. We cain't play no more. The way he looks at me makes me shy. I lose my words in his glances. I just want to get out of his way.

I hardly took a breath until a few hours ago when he went to town for Cynthia.

He'll be back soon and we'll start our strange dance over again—he'll step forward, while I'll step back. He'll go right and I'll go left. Yesterday, he bumped into me in the space between our sleeping quarters and his shop. Started us both rambling off apologies. For a second I thought he wanted to say something more but before he could, I took off into the shop. I thought, maybe I could clean something in there.

In this shop is where I spent last night sleeping and didn't get up this morning 'til I heard him go out the side door next to me.

T
HE SIDE DOOR
jerks open.

I make myself look busy in the shop. I grab my broom and start brushing the metal scrapings across the floor. I can feel him staring at me.

I don't say hi and stay busy, turn my back to him, hear him walk into our room. From the corner of my eye, I can see him holding a sack of potatoes. A few seconds more, I hear 'em thud against our cutting board in our bedroom area. One, two, three of 'em. We need five. Five potatoes for stew. And before I think to stop myself, I walk my broom over to the doorway and fix my lips to say, “We need five if the stew's gon' turn out right.”

But when I get to the doorway, he's already walking straight to me. No dance.

Damn.

He say, “We cain't keep doin this, Naomi.”

I sweep. I keep sweeping. I swing my broom over the edge of a thin piece of metal that's melted and froze to the floor.

“Naomi?” he say. “You listenin?”

He grabs my broom from my hand and I don't stop him. Instead, I look around to see what else needs doing.

He say, “I don't want to keep playing these games.”

I think I'll start the kettle for tea.

I go in our room for the kettle. He follows behind me.

“When I come in,” he say, “You go outside. Or you go out before I'm up.”

I pour pitcher water in the kettle and go back to the shop, set it on the grates near his furnace.

“We cain't keep going around and around like this.”

I think the dust on the windowsill needs wiping down.

I take a cloth and wipe the sill.

“Is this about the kiss?” he say.

Ain't that somethin. All of that dust came off in just one wipe.

“Naomi?” He's too close to me.

“Get away from me!” I say, harsher than I shoulda. “I just don't want nobody touching me!”

“You mean you don't want me touching you?”

“I'm going outside to stretch,” I say and grab my coat off the hook next to the door, reach for the doorknob, but he reaches around me and holds the door closed with the flat of his hand.

“Open this door, Albert.”

“Why'd you kiss me?”

“Step away from this door, Albert. This baby . . . this baby . . .”

“Just stop avoiding me and listen . . .”

I don't want to.

I cross my arms over my belly. “I need to go outside and walk for this baby.”

“Just be honest with me,” he say. “Tell me why you kissed me?”

“Why'd you rub my feet like that?”

“Like what?” he say. “How am I supposed to rub somebody's feet? I just did what you asked me . . . I don't know.”

“Then I don't know, either.”

“You do know. Tell the truth.”

“How can I?” I say. “There's a lot of questions in just that one. If you don't know why you touched me different, I don't know why I kissed you.”

“I want to spend the rest of my life with you,” he say.