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

seat and was smiling so hard that Hallow thought her face would get stuck like that. She was confused as to why Josephine was assuring her that this deal needed to happen for their home’s sake when she looked like she was in the process of leaving. Josephine’s ulterior motive was only a harbinger of things to come that evening.

Hallow expected that when she and Josephine entered the Oak Room, they would be allowed to talk with the other guests, as Robert mentioned, to convince them that he was a good business partner—not immediately whisked away to a room down a narrow hallway off to the side, where no one could see them. She also didn’t expect that as soon as they entered that room she would be offered a glass of absinthe even after she told Robert and Jillian that she was only twenty.

“Pfft,” Robert said and shrugged his shoulders. “We won’t tell if you won’t. Loosen up.”

Josephine had already helped herself to the bottle of cabernet sauvignon in the bucket next to the green velvet sofa where they sat opposite the Epelbaums. The three sets of eyes on Hallow made her begrudgingly swallow the entire glass of that bitter alcohol, and Jillian promptly poured her another serving. She coughed again into a handkerchief while taking her seat on the sofa opposite the Melancon women, and Robert patted her on the back.

“You’ll have to excuse my wife; she’s very sick.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Josephine said. “Are you all right, Mrs. Epelbaum?”

“No, I’m afraid I’m not,” she replied, and dabbed at the sides of her mouth. “I have rapidly advancing stage-four lung cancer. Chemotherapy is a mess, and I hate it.”

“I’m sorry,” Josephine said.

“So am I. But not for long.”

Hallow leaned forward and soothed her forehead, but Josephine snapped, “Sit upright, dear.” Hallow did as she was told despite her having a splitting headache.

“What—” Hallow cleared her throat. “What do you mean, ‘not for long’?”

Robert and Jillian smiled at each other and Hallow shot a glance at her glass. She hated the taste but appreciated how loose her body felt, so she drank a little bit more.

“Ms. Melancon, do you know why we wanted you here, hmm?”

“To socialize with other guests and get to know your circle so that we could negotiate this deal?” Hallow asked.

“Yes, well, my wife is a part of that circle, and like she said, chemotherapy is a mess. Wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. Now, the offer still stands for the deal, but I want to know that I’m getting what I’m paying for.”

“You want to give a piece of caul to your wife? That’s fine.”

“Ah.” Robert raised his finger and clicked his tongue. “That’s not it either. I want to see if this caul can really heal as you all and Landon purport it to do.”

Josephine slapped Hallow on the arm.

“Ow!” Hallow yelled. “What are you doing?”

Josephine tugged Hallow’s arm toward the Epelbaums and pointed. “You see how quickly the redness clears?”

“No, that’s too easy. That could be because of youth and elasticity. Trust me, we’ve thought long and hard about this, and we wondered, what could really—and I mean really—damage the skin? A slap? No. A punch? Mm-mm. Maybe a cut or a stab—a little bit too messy. We don’t want to bloody your beautiful dresses. But then we thought . . .” Robert reached deep into his pocket and pulled out a lighter. He ignited it and continued, “It’ll be very simple. We just want to see.”

Before Hallow knew it, she’d screamed and knocked over a glass vase as she ran to the nearest corner. Crouching down in the fetal position, she whimpered then hyperventilated. Josephine was still sitting on the sofa with her upper half facing Hallow, and she was mouthing for her daughter to get up through clenched teeth and bulging eyes. Jillian was affectionately rubbing Robert’s back, and he sat upright watching the flame flicker. Hallow closed her eyes, and her splitting headache splintered her thoughts into incoherent shards until they coalesced into her most visceral memory about fire: she was back in Harlem in the basement of that Presbyterian church on her block, and Maman held her finger under the fire until it became charred and unrecognizable. From that moment on, Hallow promised herself that she would never be put on display again, but it was only now as a young woman that she realized her life’s work as a caulbearer was no different from that of an exhibitionist; she would always be a spectacle. There was no reconciliation. All the caul that was cut and sold from her body, all the initial conversations with vendors—there was no pocket of space to preserve her body and name it rightfully hers.

There in that corner, Josephine helped Hallow to her feet as she stumbled (an aftereffect of the absinthe) and said, “She needs a moment. Hallow, why don’t you go to the bathroom and freshen up, hmm?”

Hallow stared blankly, and Jillian chimed in, “Of course. Right at the end of the hall—you can’t miss it.”

In the bathroom, Hallow was able to get herself together not through her own strength but by her disgust at the violent retching coming from the occupied toilet. She thought of asking the woman if she needed help, but the sound was so loud that she wasn’t sure if the woman would hear her anyway.

When the bathroom stall door opened and Amara snapped her head back to move her hair away from her face, Hallow was surprised by how much they resembled each other. The woman didn’t seem real. If only she could’ve touched her, Hallow thought, and pressed her finger into the woman’s flesh to see if a dent would remain once she pulled away. If only, Hallow thought, she could’ve said something to the woman to hear what she sounded like. Regret swarmed in her head on the Melancon women’s ride back home. Both she and Josephine were silent and either distracted with their