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

Maman’s bifocals slid down her nose when she leaned toward Josephine. She caressed Josephine’s abdomen and said, “There’s no lie. Do you know who her mother is?”

Josephine shook her head.

“Then how can you lie about what you don’t know?”

“But I didn’t birth—”

“Ugh.” Maman slapped her thighs. “Josephine, I won’t hear any more of this. You’re going to have a very difficult life if you don’t get over this. Think about what kind of life she would’ve had otherwise. Her birth mother didn’t want her. There you go again with wallowing in your misery.” Maman returned her attention to her study and began sifting through a stack of papers on her desk.

Josephine stood up and started toward the door.

“Wait.”

Josephine turned around, her mouth slightly ajar and her eyes full of supplication.

“You don’t want to fix your hair before you walk out the door?”

Josephine touched the top of her head and felt the satin of a large, pillowy bonnet. Underneath that bonnet was crimped hair in twists that Maman had pinned to her head last night. But she was hungry, and she didn’t want to spend time getting her hair together in order to look presentable for her man. She couldn’t remember the last time Landon had seen her without makeup. There was never a justifiable excuse to get up from the postcoital bed and remove her mask. At the very least, she would have some rouge and apply some bronzer. After climaxing, she would go to her vanity, have her moment to cry or get lost in her mourning for all the children she couldn’t carry to full term, and retouch. She looked down at her right hand loosely hanging on to the doorknob and gave it a sharp twist.

The grease was popping loudly in the kitchen. Her mouth watered, and she licked her lips. When she turned into the dining room, there was a basket of fluffy yellow biscuits in the center of the table. Josephine could hear Hallow smacking her lips before she could see her small body behind the biscuit basket. Her mouth was smeared with grape jam and butter. Hallow looked up from her biscuit, and her eyes sparked. She did not say a word; she merely continued munching and smacking. Josephine held a finger up to her lips and tiptoed to the kitchen, where Landon was moving from the stove to the oven and back again. The grease from the bacon soaked the paper towels laid over a plate. The eggs were scrambling in one skillet, and the sausages were charring in another.

Josephine leaned on the wall with her arms crossed and said, “You’ve never done that before.”

Landon whipped around.

“Good morning.” Josephine smiled.

Landon beheld the dark circles around her eyes and the pockets of blemishes on her nose and chin. Her eyebrows weren’t as full as they’d been many nights prior, and neither were her lips. He shuddered, then became embarrassed that he could not restrain his surprise that he was looking at his lover for the very first time. She saw him watching her and curled a small nap at the base of her head. Its length was not enough to justify her spinning her finger around and around. Her right hand rubbed along her shoulders, and the stretching emphasized the long, arachnid veins circumscribing her throat. Her left hand crossed over her abdomen to brace herself for an insult about her looks. “Good morning,” Landon said. “You’ve never done that before either.”

“You’ve never seen me look this plain before, I know.”

“You could never look ordinary to me, Jo. Never in a million years.”

Josephine’s smile faltered, but Landon immediately changed the subject. “Please have a seat. I’ll make you a plate. What do you want on it? Everything?”

Josephine nodded and took a seat on the opposite side of Hallow.

“Where’s Helena?”

“I tried to get her, but she told me she’ll be down in a minute.”

“Hm. More for us.”

Hallow loudly gulped and wiped her mouth with the back of her wrist. “Mommy?”

“Yes, dear?” Josephine asked while pouring a glass of orange juice from the large glass pitcher beside the biscuit basket.

“Where were you last night?”

“With Maman.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Everything is fine, sweetheart. Sometimes mothers need their own mothers.”

Hallow chewed on the end of one of her pieces of bacon and asked, “Mommy?”

“Yes, baby?”

“Dad said that when I was born, you were on your knees like a dog and an old lady helped you and she was praying and whispering to me and you were dressed in blue and there were seashells and you were so tired from trying to have me. Is that true?”

Josephine’s eyes locked with Landon’s as soon as he entered the dining room with her plate. He halted at the head of the table and breathed heavily. Hallow’s eyes bounced between both parents.

What? Josephine mouthed to him.

She asked, Landon mouthed back. This was what Josephine was afraid of: the lies having to beget more lies, especially for a child as curious as Hallow.

“Yes.” Josephine cleared her throat. “Yes, it’s true. But I blocked so much of it out, Hallow. I was in a lot of pain, baby. I forgot all about it once you were born.”

“Are you going to have any more kids?”

“No.” Josephine shook her head. “No, Hal.”

“Why not?”

“Eat your food, sweetheart.” Josephine nearly swallowed her biscuit whole and quickly guzzled her orange juice so that neither Landon nor Hallow would say anything else to her until she was physically capable of responding.

Helena finally came downstairs with her nose buried in a book. She plopped down at the closest available chair and turned the page.

“Hello,” Landon said. “Don’t you think you can put the book down and have a conversation with us?”

“Sorry.” Helena put the book down. “It’s just really an interesting read. We were allowed to pick any book we wanted to write a report on, and I chose this.”

Hallow grabbed the red paperback book and read the title. “Push.”

“Mm-hmm. It’s about a girl who grew up right here