JEWEL by BRET LOTT Page B

to give him cause to stop, glance at me.
    “Go on inside, ” he’d said, his mouth barely opening with the words.
    I’d had to turn, give up to him my child, my first girl, and head back to the house. I’d never struck any of them, always in my head the clear and polished picture of Missy Cook slapping my momma for no reason at all. The punishment was up to Leston, and I was glad for it.
    The boys started in on dinner as though nothing happened, the moment of Leston’s silent warning and the news they’d have another child to terrorize either lost on them or of no matter. I wasn’t sure how hard Burton and Wilman’d fall when the next one finally came on. They were too close together, but maybe that was better for them, they had each other, and if they chose to kill each other or to be best friends both of which they were willing to do at any moment of a day at least they’d have their own company.
    No, it was Annie, my baby Annie, I was worried most about. She was still looking up at me, only nibbled at the cornbread now, more crumbs than bread into her mouth. She held the bread with both hands, then let go with one, slowly reached above her shoulder and behind her, took hold of the blanket on the back of the chair, her eyes still on me.
    She blinked.
    I leaned toward her, brought my face down close to hers. I whispered, “Now don’t you go to worrying, Annie. You’re my baby girl. You know that.” I swallowed, the hurt of the possible lie I was about to tell her thick in my throat, the memory of my momma dying pushed too close to me so that I thought I might never breathe again, not after giving to her the same comfort I’d had to give each child when they found out they wouldn’t be the ceriter of my world anymore, “Momma will always be here, ” I said. “Just you don’t worry about me not ever taking care of you.” I reached a hand to her face, traced the perfect curve of her cheek, touched a finger to her thin eyebrow. “Momma will be here to take good care of you.”
    She smiled, slowly pushed a corner of the cornbread in her mouth, took a bite too big to handle. She let go the blanket, and brought that hand to her mouth, covered it while she chewed, her eyes on me the whole time.
    I sat back up, a hand still to her shoulder, and saw James staring at me, a smile on his face, too. His hands were flat on the table. He hadn’t touched the ham on his plate, nor the collards or cornbread.
    “James? ” I said, and Leston looked at me, then to James. Their eyes met for a long moment before Leston said, “Son? ” “Today is a fine day, ” he said, and looked down at his hands. He closed his eyes, shook his head. Then he looked at me again. “It’s a good day because you’re having a baby.” He paused. “It’s a good day because there’s a new one on the way to take the place of this old one heading out.”
    He quick looked from me to Leston to me. “Today’s a fine day because I signed up today. That’s why it’s a fine day.”
    Leston turned back to his food. He leaned forward, his forearm on the table, and forked up a piece of ham. He said, “You aren’t old enough.”
    Slowly James lost the smile. “I signed up to sign up today, ” he said.
    “It’s a new program the enlistment officer downtown let me in on. So when I turn seventeen next month, I’ll be in the Armed Forces.” He smiled again, this time even wider. He lifted one hand a little above the table, slapped it down. “Imagine that.”
    But I’d imagined this day all too much already, his news nothing of the surprise he’d figured on it being. Leston and I’d both known a day like this one would be coming, a war we’d taken our sustenance from all along now laying claim to our son like a bad debt we owed.
    Billie Jean sighed, let out, “I can’t wait to see you in a uniform.
    It’ll be so glamorous, ” and James laughed, shook his head again.
    I hadn’t moved, one hand on the small shoulder of my baby Anne,