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

mimicked Josephine, but once she got her period, her mannerisms—from her stride to her manner of speaking—echoed Amara’s.

Whenever Hallow would ask for him to pass the butter at mealtime or straighten her back and speak with the air of a diplomat about the minutiae or highlights of her day, he would have to do a double take, beam at her with pride, then find a quiet moment alone where he would seek a soothing word from the Book of Common Prayer. He thanked God that Josephine never asked questions about whatever became of Amara Danville and Laila Reserve, but that might soon change. He wouldn’t know what to say, where to start. After the birth, he hadn’t heard from his goddaughter Amara. She hadn’t been to St. Philip’s since she fell down those steps. He would call intermittently throughout the years, but whenever they would speak—always over the phone—her voice was erratic and rushed as soon as he said hello. She never gave details about her life and kept the conversation short and superficial.

But Pleasantville did seem nice, and the suburb was just outside of the city. He had been there twice for its hiking and cycling routes. He imagined a two-level colonial custom home with French doors, a sweeping staircase, and a dazzling chandelier that the neighbors could see on their evening walks with their partners or dogs. They could go to 125th and Park and take the Metro-North train and be there in less than an hour. Under any other circumstance, twenty-six miles is not enough distance to escape, but he was certain that neither her mother nor his wife would follow them. In fact, they both might be relieved in their absence. Valerie had her nice home and packed social calendar, and Maman had Hallow. The ease with which they could pull this off scared him. But that glimmer of excitement burned into ash once he also realized that the ease with which they could pull this off was due in part to his thinking his child was disposable. That’s how he knew that he was not and never would be her father.

He readied himself for bed alongside a sleeping Josephine. He thought to pull the sheets off her body or unfurl her onto the floor. He looked at himself, looked at her, looked at them both, and experienced one of those subtle yet beautiful epiphanies that together, they’d gotten what they deserved. He could move with her to Pleasantville, file for divorce, and make her happy until they re-created this home and brought whatever they were running away from with them. Didn’t he see now what he could not see before? They were in an amorous entrapment, sentenced to comb through the same problems in different seasons over and over again. Yes, her soul was withering away, and he along with her, to furnish a love that never produced anything, grew anything, or moved anywhere. The only thing that flowed between the two was money, and perhaps that was the most useful part of their relationship. He didn’t know what Josephine liked. He didn’t know what kind of woman she was outside of these four walls. Maybe, he thought, it was better if they parted ways, though he loved her tremendously. But he wasn’t sure if that love could override his exhaustion. He didn’t know what he would do in the meantime. He hadn’t thought that far ahead.

When he opened the bedroom door, he decided to creep down the stairs to get one last look at Hallow before leaving, but the air felt tampered with. There were footprints on the cotton rug covering the staircase, but not on every step. The last three steps were clean, like whomever was there had jumped over them. He closed the door and walked toward Josephine’s trunk. There, he got on his knees and started to fold her clothes piece by piece.

11

Hallow did not hear every word exchanged between Josephine and Landon, but she heard enough from her bedroom, where she eavesdropped. Usually, she couldn’t care less what Josephine and Landon did. In her eyes, she didn’t know what they were doing together. They weren’t considerably affectionate, and any conversations they had were stale and repetitive. Their joint effort of putting up a guise of a nuclear family in Maman’s brownstone was laughable. No one had to say anything. Hallow knew that he had other obligations that rivaled those at West 145th and Frederick Douglass Boulevard. She imagined him to be a criminal, but she knew he couldn’t lie through his teeth to pull off a misdemeanor. She thought he could be an in-demand businessman, but he never made mention of any meetings or coworkers. Nevertheless, she felt that if he was her father, and the three of them were a family, why couldn’t he be here all the time?

There was nothing on television that was compelling enough to overshadow the gravity of Josephine’s confessions. Hallow chuckled at the thought of Josephine making her way down the staircase, much less leaving out the front door. If Josephine wanted to, Hallow assumed, then she would’ve already done it. Besides, neither Josephine nor Landon was a match for Maman. They were flowers that leaned toward Maman’s blazing energy. Every time Maman entered a room where they were already present, they turned to acknowledge her arrival. Every time she spoke, they maintained strong eye contact with her out of respect and fear. In short, they weren’t going to do shit, and they were fooling themselves playing make-believe like children.

But Hallow could leave. For a few hours. She could grab her coat and walk around the corner with no destination in mind and smell that sweet, sweet air again. She was tired of regular cutting, the sound of the caul being severed from her skin, the parts held between Maman’s fingers and packaged away in wax paper and cute bows for some buyer whom she did not know. There was no