The Loom (27 page)

Lou struggled to sit up on her forearms, failed, and collapsed back on the mat. The sound of her heavy wheezing filled the room.Lydia’s hands traveled from Lou’s forehead to her cheeks, then traced the swollen fingers she brought to her heart. She prayed until sleep fell on everyone, until her own head nodded, but she fought it and nestled into her grandmother.

“I’m here, Grandma, I’m here.”

Lou stirred.

“Don’t move. You don’t have to say nothing. You’re going to be all right, Grandma. I prayed. I’ve been praying and God’s gonna do it. Just rest.”

There was a draft. Lydia drew the quilt at her grandmother’s feet up over her waist. When she knew Lou had fallen asleep, she twisted around on her back and stared at the cracks between the logs in the roof. She turned to John. He looked like a young boy sleeping, curled up into himself, his mouth a perfect circle. They were so far apart. No matter how close they wished to be, life had set their place. Like logs trying to block out the cold, the cracks remained and the chill always broke through.

Lydia squeezed closer to Lou and shut her eyes tight. Please, seal the cracks.

Lou couldn’t breathe. She tried to flail her arms, kick her legs. She grasped for Lydia. The girl was no more than a few inches away.

Lydia! Her reach fell short. She panted, wanted to scream, but had no air for sound. Lifting her head—it felt so heavy—she scanned the room. Everybody sleeping deep like she wasn’t dying.

She settled back, settled down, and slipped in and out of consciousness. So be it. She hated the thought of breathing her last breath in this place, but at least she wouldn’t die alone.

Visions of the past clouded Lou’s mind like a bad storm, looming, threatening to destroy all signs of peace. Isaiah’s murder,

Lydia’s tears.

Smells bombarded her, from the fresh scent of newborn skin to the musk of blood and sweat in open wounds. Steaming okra stew to the hum of neediness. Oh yes, indeed. There was a smell to poverty, sure as there was a sight to it. The crowding, huddling of a burdened people could produce a stench of hopelessness, and if it wasn’t fought off, it killed instantly, clung to skin, and embedded itself deep into pores. She’d never forget the smell of despair or the odor of her own flesh.

Life had been hard. More suffering than joy filled her days, but the good shone like stars in a blanket of darkness. She clung to those moments she would soon live forever. See her mama and papa again. Her children. Her baby among them. Isaiah. Her baby boy with her again.

Lydia stirred at the break of day as John stepped outside the cabin. She watched him pull the door closed behind him. Funny how it felt like nothing had changed. Like he was meant to be here with her. Like she had never walked away.

She was the only one awake when she returned to her grandmother’s side. She sat, legs crossed, watching, waiting for the Lord to move. She placed Lou’s head in her lap. Flickering eyes.

“Grandma?”

She blinked.

“I love you.”

Double blink.

“I know you don’t feel it, but you’re going to make it.”

Lydia caressed her face, brushed back sparse eyebrows with her fingers.

“I couldn’t lose you. Not now. I need you, Lou.”

Lou’s lips parted. No sound.

“I already know, Grandma, everything you want to say. I know you love me. Just rest and get your strength. Rest, Grandma, all right?”

Tears slipped down the sides of her face. Misty hazel eyes here then gone. “Don’t cry, Lou.

Don’t cry.”

The weeping further labored her breathing. Lou twisted Lydia’s skirt in her fists.

“Lay back and rest.” Lydia tried to pry the clamped hands from her skirt but her grip was strong. A good sign.

Lou’s lids slowly began to close like night falling, her moles like stars.

“Stay with me, Grandma.”

“Lydia.”

“Grandma, don’t talk. Rest. You’ll heal faster.”

“Lydia…” Lou’s eyes focused on her. She frowned, continued. “I want you to…”

“What?”

“Lord, have mercy.”

“What, Grandma?”

Lou’s weeping overwhelmed her, turned her face red, blue, purple.

“Stop it. Stop crying! You’re making yourself sicker.”

“May God show you.”

“Show me what?”

“The truth. My dear God…”

“Grandma.”

Lou coughed hard. Couldn’t stop coughing. And coughing. Lydia rubbed her head and prayed with all her strength. Please, God! She prayed until her words were gurgled, saturated in tears, until only she and He understood. The coughing stopped.

“Stay put.”

“Stop talking. You’ve got plenty of time to tell me whatever you want to say.” Lydia rested her hand on her forehead. Lou pushed it away.

“You stay put and let me go. Let me go.”

Lydia shook her head. “Stop.”

“Let me go, now.”

Lydia stared at the life in her lap. Her grandmother, who had made her tea cakes and braided her hair and never complained about the stiff branches that sprouted from her hands. Lou had shown her what it was to be a woman, had explained the ways of a man when no others would dare speak of it. Had even giggled with her at some of the parts. There was only one Lou. Only one who had believed in her beauty and taught her to love her difference. It was Lou who had told her she’d always be all right because someone would always be there to lift her up. Lou was the one who saw beyond the surface to the bone and marrow of all people and loved them anyhow. She was the one who loved her.

She was leaving, already giving up the fight. This woman was lifeless, only a shell of what she had been, though she still breathed and moved and whispered.

But Lydia refused to believe it. She lifted her grandmother, cradled her head against her chest, and begged, pleaded for her healing.

“Lord, please, I can’t do this again. Lou, I will die if you leave me. I won’t make it.” She sobbed into her. “Please, I need you.”

Lydia heard the door creak open and the footsteps that followed, but she continued to rock Lou until she was surrounded by love. John rubbed her back and whispered peace.

“Please, God.”

“Lydia.”

“Please.”

“Lydia…Lydia!”

Lydia looked up at the stricken faces on all sides. Abram reached over to Lou, uttered a prayer, and closed her eyes.

She wanted to scream, to run. Again. It happened again.

“She’s gone, Lydia.”

“But, but I prayed…”

“Yes, baby.” Ruth nodded. “You just prayed the wrong prayer.”

Lydia slid Lou off her lap, rose slowly, and drifted out of the room. Another loss. The world was spinning, whistling a solemn song. Staggering, she reached for a withered oak—I need my daddy—and collapsed into the dead leaves of dawn.

John carried his wife to their old cabin, at first cradled in his arms like a child, then over his shoulder, his arm wrapped around her knees. The trek through evergreen and oak seemed days long with the extra weight. He laid her on their bench, studying her thin frame. She was no heavier than his heart.

A pang of guilt shot through him as he stretched red circles and purple diamonds over her, thankful the gift he had purposefully left behind was still here after several days.

“Lydia, I want you to sleep. Get some rest. You hungry?”

She shook her head.

“Lydia…I know you’re tired. Try to sleep.” He kissed her softly on her head and sat beside her. “You’re going to make it through this. You know that? You believe me?” He stroked a wispy curl around her ear. Tears glistened. Hers. His.

“I’m going to see if I can get you something to eat.”

Thirty minutes later, he returned. John stepped into the cabin, scanned the room.

She was gone.

“I’m going to meet Jesus. Going to meet Jesus. Yes, I’m going to meet Jesus. Going to meet Jesus after a while.”

Lou’s song whispered in Lydia’s head like the wind. Going to meet Jesus…

Her hair had fallen loose from the pins that held it in place, and in the afternoon breeze, it swarmed around her. She tucked it behind her ears and walked closer to the water. Her thin cotton dress, lifting and bending as it rode the waves of the wind, hung loose on her sunken shoulders. She shook off her shoes. What normally would’ve caused her to shiver had no effect.

Going to meet Jesus. The One they all left her for. Her father, right here. His body right in this place.

Lydia gathered the hem around her knees and stepped closer, closer to the riverbank. Mud slid between her toes. She would wash it away. The water tossed around her calves, her knees, her thighs.

Going to meet Jesus. Wash it all away.

She swayed—water splashed above her waist—and yielded to the matter that engulfed her.

Lydia…

Lydia…

“Lydia!”

She turned when she heard him, but she staggered under the pull.

“Lydia!” John screamed, swimming, splashing to her, his eyes wide. “What—What are you doing? Lydia…” He grabbed her and waded with her back to the muddy bank, stepping on and ripping the corner of the blanket he tried desperately to wrap her in.

Out of breath, he collapsed beside her, and then he cried.

Lydia drew up, wrapped her arms around her legs, laid her head on her knees, and rocked. Every ache in her heart flowed through her, moved her. Until she heard him.

John’s weeping stilled her. She looked at him shaking, his large hands covering his face above quaking shoulders. She watched for several minutes, then crawled near, the strip of blanket in her hands. She placed it in his. When he spoke, she listened.

“I’m here, Lydia, I’m here.”

If only for the moment, he was here. Right here with her.

What had she done?

John held her in the broad sunlight; on the brisk winter day they were free. If only for the moment.

Outside the manor, Lydia coughed her lungs clear and waited until her breathing steadied and her mind refocused. She had a role to play.She had sobbed at the thought of Lou, how she wouldn’t be able to attend the funeral, the burial of the one she loved, then she caught herself, dusted off the soot of sadness with the back of her hand, and reined her tears in tight under a clear head and a thin smile. Never would she end her days as the others who came before her. Never would she allow herself to die at the loom. She would do what needed to be done. She would walk the fields with a confident stride, stand in the path with her head high, and sit in the seat pulled out for her, for Lou, for Isaiah, for all who were stripped of the right.