is my sister. i swallowed her blood right along with my mother's milk. the first thing i heard afternot hearing anything was the sound of her crawling up the stairs. she was my secret company untilpaul d came. he threw her out. ever since i was little she was my company and she helped mewait for my daddy. me and her waited for him. i love my mother but i know she killed one of herown daughters, and tender as she is with me, i'm scared of her because of it. she missed killing mybrothers and they knew it. they told me die-witch! stories to show me the way to do it, if ever ineeded to. maybe it was getting that close to dying made them want to fight the war. that's whatthey told me they were going to do. i guess they rather be around killing men than killing women,and there sure is something in her that makes it all right to kill her own. all the time, i'm afraid thething that happened that made it all right for my mother to kill my sister could happen again. idon't know what it is, i don't know who it is, but maybe there is something else terrible enough tomake her do it again. i need to know what that thing might be, but i don't want to. whatever it is, itcomes from outside this house, outside the yard, and it can come right on in the yard if it wants to.
so i never leave this house and i watch over the yard, so it can't happen again and my motherwon't have to kill me too. not since miss lady jones' house have i left 124 by myself. never. theonly other times — two times in all — i was with my mother. once to see grandma baby putdown next to beloved, she's my sister. the other time paul d went too and when we came back ithought the house would still be empty from when he threw my sister's ghost out. but no. when icame back to 124, there she was. beloved. waiting for me. tired from her long journey back.
ready to be taken care of; ready for me to protect her. this time i have to keep my mother awayfrom her. that's hard, but i have to. it's all on me. i've seen my mother in a dark place, withscratching noises. a smell coming from her dress. i have been with her where something littlewatched us from the corners. and touched. sometimes they touched. i didn't remember it for along time until nelson lord made me. i asked her if it was true but couldn't hear what she said andthere was no point in going back to lady jones if you couldn't hear what anybody said. so quiet.
made me have to read faces and learn how to figure out what people were thinking, so i didn'tneed to hear what they said. that's how come me and beloved could play together. not talking. onthe porch. by the creek. in the secret house. it's all on me, now, but she can count on me. i thoughtshe was trying to kill her that day in the clearing. kill her back. but then she kissed her neck and ihave to warn her about that. don't love her too much. don't. maybe it's still in her the thing thatmakes it all right to kill her children. i have to tell her. i have to protect her.
she cut my head off every night. buglar and howard told me she would and she did. her prettyeyes looking at me like i was a stranger. not mean or anything, but like i was somebody she foundand felt sorry for. like she didn't want to do it but she had to and it wasn't going to hurt. that itwas just a thing grown-up people do — like pull a splinter out your hand; touch the corner of atowel in your eye if you get a cinder in it. she looks over at buglar and howard — see if they allright. then she comes over to my side. i know she'll be good at it, careful. that when she cuts itoff it'll be done right; it won't hurt. after she does it i lie there for a minute with just my head.
then she carries it downstairs to braid my hair. i try not to cry but it hurts so much to comb it.
when she finishes the combing and starts the braiding, i get sleepy. i want to go to sleep but iknow if i do i won't wake up. so i have to stay awake while she finishes my hair, then i can sleep.
the scary part is waiting for her to come in and do it. not when she does it, but when i wait for her to. only place she can't get to me in the night is grandma baby's room. the room we sleep inupstairs used to be where the help slept when whitepeople lived here. they had a kitchen outside,too. but grandma baby turned it into a woodshed and toolroom when she moved in. and sheboarded up the back door that led to it because she said she didn't want to make that journey nomore. she built around it to make a storeroom, so if you want to get in 124 you have to come byher. said she didn't care what folks said about her fixing a two story house up like a cabin whereyou cook inside. she said they told her visitors with nice dresses don't want to sit in the same roomwith the cook stove and the peelings and the grease and the smoke. she wouldn't pay them nomind, she said. i was safe at night in there with her. all i could hear was me breathing butsometimes in the day i couldn't tell whether it was me breathing or somebody next to me. i used towatch here boy's stomach go in and out, in and out, to see if it matched mine, holding my breathto get off his rhythm, releasing it to get on. just to see whose it was — that sound like when youblow soft in a bottle only regular, regular. am i making that sound? is howard? who is? that waswhen everybody was quiet and i couldn't hear anything they said. i didn't care either because thequiet let me dream my daddy better. i always knew he was coming. something was holding himup. he had a problem with the horse. the river flooded; the boat sank and he had to make a newone. sometimes it was a lynch mob or a windstorm. he was coming and it was a secret. i spent allof my outside self loving ma'am so she wouldn't kill me, loving her even when she braided myhead at night. i never let her know my daddy was coming for me. grandma baby thought he wascoming, too. for a while she thought so, then she stopped. i never did. even when buglar andhoward ran away. then paul d came in here. i heard his voice downstairs, and ma'am laughing,so i thought it was him, my daddy. nobody comes to this house anymore. but when i gotdownstairs it was paul d and he didn't come for me; he wanted my mother. at first. then hewanted my sister, too, but she got him out of here and i'm so glad he's gone. now it's just us and ican protect her till my daddy gets here to help me watch out for ma'am and anything come in theyard. my daddy do anything for runny fried eggs. dip his bread in it. grandma used to tell me histhings. she said anytime she could make him a plate of soft fried eggs was christmas, made him sohappy. she said she was always a little scared of my daddy. he was too good, she said. from thebeginning, she said, he was too good for the world. scared her. she thought, he'll never make itthrough nothing. whitepeople must have thought so too, because they never got split up. so shegot the chance to know him, look after him, and he scared her the way he loved things. animalsand tools and crops and the alphabet. he could count on paper. the boss taught him. offered toteach the other boys but only my daddy wanted it. she said the other boys said no. one of themwith a number for a name said it would change his mind — make him forget things he shouldn'tand memorize things he shouldn't and he didn't want his mind messed up. but my daddy said, ifyou can't count they can cheat you. if you can't read they can beat you. they thought that wasfunny. grandma said she didn't know, but it was because my daddy could count on paper andfigure that he bought her away from there. and she said she always wished she could read thebible like real preachers. so it was good for me to learn how, and i did until it got quiet and all icould hear was my own breathing and one other who knocked over the milk jug while it wassitting on the table. nobody near it. ma'am whipped buglar but he didn't touch it. then it messedup all the ironed clothes and put its hands in the cake. look like i was the only one who knew rightaway who it was. just like when she came back i knew who she was too. not right away, but soonas she spelled her name — not her given name, but the one ma'am paid the stonecutter for — i knew. and when she wondered about ma'am's earrings — something i didn't know about — well,that just made the cheese more binding: my sister come to help me wait for my daddy. my daddywas an angel man. he could look at you and tell where you hurt and he could fix it too. he made ahanging thing for grandma baby, so she could pull herself up from the floor when she woke up inthe morning, and he made a step so when she stood up she was level. grandma said she wasalways afraid a whiteman would knock her down in front of her children. she behaved and dideverything right in front of her children because she didn't want them to see her knocked down.
she said it made children crazy to see that. at sweet home nobody did or said they would, so mydaddy never saw it there and never went crazy and even now i bet he's trying to get here. if paul dcould do it my daddy could too. angel man. we should all be together. me, him and beloved.
ma'am could stay or go off with paul d if she wanted to. unless daddy wanted her himself, but idon't think he would now, since she let paul d in her bed. grandma baby said people look downon her because she had eight children with different men. coloredpeople and whitepeople bothlook down on her for that. slaves not supposed to have pleasurable feelings on their own; theirbodies not supposed to be like that, but they have to have as many children as they can to pleasewhoever owned them. still, they were not supposed to have pleasure deep down. she said for menot to listen to all that. that i should always listen to my body and love it.
