Caul Baby by Morgan Jerkins (read any book .TXT) 📕

it. In her innermost private thoughts, Maman wondered when and how Josephine would test her again.

Maman ran her finger along her own bare skin. Most of her caul had already been carved and sold. Fantasies of what it would be like to just rip those last few parts off—and, inevitably, welcome death—became more frequent and disruptive, appearing in and out of the back of her mind during the most trivial of activities. She was just tired, in every sense of the word. But that still wouldn’t relieve her of the problem of what to do with these cracks.

When the sun came up in the morning, there was another thing to be fixed. The damn moisture in the air spoiled the stone on the exterior. There were the costs to clean, patch, and replace the stone, upkeep the stoop, repair a ceiling leak after Helena forgot to stop a bathtub from overflowing. The cast-iron work needed updating—another several thousand dollars. The constant hemorrhaging of money concerned the repairmen. They asked why Maman kept repairing when all the money going into it could be used for another home. With the rising property taxes, where else could she go in Harlem? She refused to be displaced to Inwood, much less Washington Heights. But Maman and the rotating repairmen knew that it was only a matter of time before the roof would cave in. The foundation was rotten, the cracks too wide, the decaying roots too deep.

The pitter-patter of feet running up and down the steps reminded Maman that it was a Saturday morning. Helena, now a thirteen-year-old, would barricade herself in her room, as most teenagers did, and eight-year-old Hallow would be whining for her to come out and play. Saturdays were the only days Helena promised to grace Hallow with her presence for more than thirty minutes at a time. But not today. No. These two were going to have a purpose. Hallow would accompany Maman to a block association meeting. Since Laila’s stillbirth some eight years ago, Maman had been consistent in demonstrating her commitment to the Harlem community through these meetings, even though she still sensed that no one could trust her.

If they were lucky, Maman thought, perhaps there’d be another person there who had money to burn, though she hadn’t sold to a Harlemite, much less a Black Harlemite, in years.

Her six-foot-two-inch frame was more gangly than awe-inspiring, due to her sagging skin and gradual weight loss. Maman groaned as she hoisted herself to stand. But she would be damned if she had to use a crutch to move around from place to place. A metallic peg was unseemly, and a wheelchair was out of the question. She would continue to do what she had always done: drape herself with layers upon layers of embroidered wool so that no one could see just how many times her legs wobbled to support her. She stood in front of her long, oval freestanding mirror and pressed her fingers into her cheeks, stunned by how easily they sunk into her skin like putty. She pulled out a blunt and lighter from her desk drawer and pulled as hard as she could until a tingly feeling danced underneath her skin. In her brief daze, she could envision that red river clay was still embedded in the wrinkles around her eyes and hands. Her now bare skin allowed her to see her beauty for real. She liked it. Though she would never admit that to anyone.

Her self-indulgence did not pull her too far from the present to realize that she heard neither the pitter-patter nor chatter from outside her door. She walked out of her bedroom and over to the staircase to see Helena and Hallow both at the top. Helena was clasping Hallow’s arms, and Hallow was standing with her back to the staircase. Helena was rocking her back and forth, and Hallow’s fingers were fidgeting at her sides. When Helena’s eyes shot up to see Maman watching from down below, she pushed Hallow. In midflight, Hallow started screaming. The first part of her body to make an impact on a step was her elbow, and once that was turned inward, she rolled down the rest of the steps, banging both sides of her head and landing facedown right on her nose. When Hallow landed on the Persian rug, her limbs burned from the friction and her body turned limp. Instead of giving Helena the satisfaction of berating her, Maman pulled out some blankets from her bedroom and placed Hallow’s body on top of them. Then she sat in a chair and waited. Hallow wasn’t so shocked that she stopped breathing. Blood pooled around her widow’s peak and small drops dribbled from her nose.

“Lord have mercy!” Josephine dashed out of her bedroom and gasped when she saw Hallow lying on the ground in a contorted position. She slapped Helena on the behind and ran down the steps.

When Maman saw Josephine about to crouch down, she held up her hand. “Don’t touch her!”

“But—”

“I said, don’t touch her. Leave her alone so she can learn.”

Dejected, Josephine clasped a hand over her mouth and closed her eyes.

“She always does that. Always running after Hallow pretending she’s ordinary like me.” Helena crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot at the top of the staircase.

“It’ll be over before you know it, Hallow. Just watch,” Maman said.

In a matter of minutes, Hallow’s elbow straightened and the blood drawn from her face receded back from whence it came. The knots and bruises mounting on the sides of her face flattened, and her breathing became more even. She opened her eyes and blinked a few times. There was a tingling sensation throughout her whole body, and suddenly, the pain vanished. Hallow stood to her feet and cracked her neck by leaning it from left to right as far as she could.

“See? You always get better. The time it takes just depends on how severe the injury, but it