Six

One day in the field, I saw my brother standing right next to me, his face cut and bruised purple, and the sharp edges of his rib boned through his chest.  I leaned over in the field and vomited brown bile.  My stomach turned over and over.  My head spun.  The sun beat hotly on the back of my neck.  I picked cotton until the ends of my fingers were numb.

My mother was near me in the field too.  She sang Mbube, Mbube, the song from the game we had played in the school yard just a short time before.  I heard her singing the song with her sweet, strong voice.  She chased after me, like the lion after the goats, right there in the field.  I worried the master would catch us being silly.  She hugged me goodbye in front of our house in Africa, and sent me off to school. 

“Be good,” she called after me.  “Listen, and do what they tell you.” 

Then I was running, far behind Akin and his friends, trying to catch up with the boys who were already halfway to the schoolyard.  Akin looked back and stuck his tongue out at me.  I was far behind him, and I couldn’t catch him.  It was the rainy season, and I was running in thick, wet mud, and my legs were so slow.  Then we were all dancing at Uncle’s wedding.  Loud music and drums played, and I danced in circles with my mother and father, Akin, and all my aunts and cousins.  I looked down at my dress, and it was covered in shit and muck. 

Something cool was on my forehead, and I was lying in the field back in Alabama.  My lips tasted salty.  The other field hands gathered around me, peering down at me lying on the ground.  I looked up and saw my father walking across the field towards us.  In his broad, strong arms he carried a bundle of grasses, leaves, and flowers he had brought back from his travel.  He had bones from a slaughtered animal in the pack on his back.  He had been gone only a few days on a short trip across the countryside.  He went into the house where would greet my mother and ask her to boil water so they could cut and pound the plants he brought and cook them down to make into herbal medicine.  

“Baba,” I called weakly after him and waved my arms to get his attention, but he didn’t answer back or turn around to look.  I squinted into the sun.  A shadow passed in front of my eyes and someone slapped my face.  I saw Momma had come down from the big house.  She had come to see me.

“She’s seeing things,” she told the others. 

She held my face, and opened my mouth to peer inside.  She held a cup of water for me to drink as she looked me up and down.  I tried to sit up, but my head spun.

Three strong men carried me up to the big house.  Inside it was cool and dark out of the bright sun.  Momma fixed me a bowl of grits and a cornmeal biscuit to eat.  I drank a big cup of water and still felt the dry scratch of my tongue inside my mouth and on my dry, caked lips. 

“She looks like she is with child,” said the old woman rocking in the corner, darning socks.

I looked down at my belly.  My dress had grown tighter around my middle since I had arrived in Alabama.  I had wondered what that fluttering feeling inside was.  It had grown stronger with each passing day.