As we entered, Miss Lula sat rigidly in her chair. I followed her eyes, expecting them to sicken at the sight of our dirty shoes on her pristine floor, or for her to insist Jesse place the wardrobe near the window instead of the bed, or near the mirror where she could reach it more easily, or just over by the cabinet as that location made the most sense to anyone with half a brain. Yet she displayed no annoyance at all and made no sound of disappointment. It was completely silent as both Jesse and Silva inspected the wardrobe and dresser for any nicks or handprints the Missus might discover in her persistence. I made myself busy arranging the clothes. This went on for several minutes when I suddenly turned to the Missus out of fear of that continued calm.
“Silva,” I called with my sights set on the Missus. “Look.”
Silva turned. The Missus remained stock-still with her eyes placed in a vacant stare, her body stuck like some wood carving lettered and trimmed by a fishtail spade.
“It’s okay, Miss,” Silva said.
Silva soothed the Missus, stroking her gently.
“She’s goin’ to be alright,” Silva added to us, speaking with a softness that brought life once more to Jesse’s face. “She’s just having a seizure. She’s goin’ to be just fine.”
As if given permission to finally let go, Miss Lula began to convulse and shake with the protection of Silva’s guiding arms around her.
“Bernice,” Silva commanded in full control, “you get that side. Just make sure she don’t hit nothing.”
Beside the flailing child I stooped with my arms out, not necessarily sure of what I was guarding against. It was long, this one, longer than any other fit I’d seen the Missus have, which made that day appear all the more cumbersome in comparison to other days in the fields, where not much happened besides the cotton and the heat as we picked and chopped and sang and grunted the repetition all day long. What seemed an eternity was no more than a minute, although the Missus’s body remained a trembling wreck that still hinted of the fit she’d endured. Over the chaos of her involuntary spasms and kicks and screams, which still emerged every so often, came the sight of Jesse’s face tucked far in the distance, his warm eyes awash at sea and panicked, a timidity in him I had never seen before, although I knew it to always be present in children.
The convulsions lasted for several more seconds before they finally ceased for good, and the Missus fell limp to any cause. Silva then eased the Missus back in her chair, Miss Lula’s arms falling over its supports as her head reared back like that of a drunk. When the Missus did finally open her eyes for the first time by her own cognizance, she looked about the room wildly.
“It’s okay,” Silva insisted, holding the Missus’s shoulders and soothing her gently.
“Silva,” the poor woman called out wretchedly. You couldn’t help but feel sorry for her.
“Yes, Miss,” Silva said.
Silva turned to Jesse and whispered sternly, “Jesse, you gets back to your duties.”
And like that, just as Jesse turned to leave, I saw it, that momentary fix they had on one another, which Silva did not see, that chance meeting of their eyes as Jesse and Miss Lula encountered each other for the first time in years, separated by only a decade or two, excited like passing puppies on the street. Jesse noticed my attention on him and left the room quietly without another peek, his feet much softer than they had been when he’d first entered the house.
Silva later described to me the regularity of those attacks as we sat alone inside the kitchen. She told me they were brought on by stress and that the Missus often skipped her pills, which increased their frequency. There was no need to inform Mr. Kern, Silva insisted, adding that he would only blame the staff for his wife’s misdealing. That these attacks happened every now and then but were nothing to go panicking over. That we could pretend it never happened, and so we did. Then, possibly to ensure my silence, Silva spoke freely about the Missus in a manner that she had never spoken in before, gossiping to me, and I did not turn her away.
“She tolds me about the attacks,” Silva said in a whisper. “Said she ain’t never felt something so strange before in her life, but that it’s always been there since she was little. Said it’s a feeling like she’s far away and she can’t get to herself. Said it’s like death, she could only imagine. She swears that when she comes to, she’s more relieved than she’s ever been to just be back in the land of the living and see and taste and hear things again. She thinks every time it happens, she’s finally gonna die. Said nothing like it in the world.”
Silva nodded her head with these last words as I nodded back my reassurance that she could indeed trust me. Neither Silva nor I mentioned the attack to Mr. Kern and neither did the Missus, who would surely be chastised by the old man for having forgotten to take her medicine.
Only Floyd mentioned the mishap when he complained about Jesse’s absence in the fields just before Silva and the boys left for home.
“He’s all yours tomorrow,” Silva assured him, waving Floyd off, as was her way, I soon discovered—that hand a welcoming or dismissing entity, to say the least.
CHAPTER 4
The next day was just as busy as the day before, and it would be that way for several weeks to come. The cotton sat high on the horizon, yet so did the dried bristles from the pickers’ work as that once-colorful spectrum shrank to mere quadrants of the fields. The heat that had worsened over the summer did not fade as everyone hoped and instead lingered in the plastered walls of the kitchen following breakfast and the baking of biscuits. It sat stout in certain hallways that allowed in such boisterousness from the sun with their uncurtained windows, and it particularly bothered the Mister’s parlor, which seemed to be hotter than the actual outdoors.
The Missus was smart and avoided these areas, whereas Mr. Kern foolishly walked directly into them, his temper roused and heavy with curses that fell from his lips like the running of bathwater when that tub would at first be too hot to sit comfortably, but later the water would mellow if just left alone.
Silva and I located outside tasks to complete during his riots, finding joy in the trimming of hedges that seemed to grow each second of that summer or the milking of cows, even if they protested our frequency. There seemed to always exist this trade-off between the Mister and Missus that when she was content he was angry, and with his joy came her sorrow. Nonetheless, these weeks saw her in considerably higher spirits as she took her needlework to the porch for days at a time, which allowed a slight color to return to her face and natural highlights to dance upon her golden locks. From her position, she could see the workers in the fields, although she rarely looked up for more than a fleeting glance in their direction. She’d often smile when Silva brought glasses of lemonade or other delicacies, which the young woman accepted then continued without a fret in the world. Her beauty during those days was how I imagined her to be when Mr. Kern first married her, her cheeks of a certain color and her face animated to a smile by more than chance alone.