that came to her ankles and a matching cloth coiled around her head. She looked tall and resplendent standing there.
“Well, if it isn’t our Hottentot queen,” said Kat, waving to her. She laid her hand on my arm. “Jessie, if your mother says fish fly, just nod and say, ‘Yes, ma’am, fish fly.’ Don’t argue with her about anything, all right?”
44
s u e m o n k k i d d
“Some fish can fly,” said Benne. “I saw a picture in a book.”
Kat ignored her. She kept her eyes on my face. “Don’t upset her.”
I pulled away. “I’m not planning on upsetting anybody.”
Hepzibah met me halfway on the porch steps, trailing the aroma of okra gumbo, and I knew she’d made us dinner. “We glad fa see oona,” she said, lapsing into Gullah the way she used to whenever she greeted me.
I smiled, looked past her at the window lit from within. I stared at the wooden frame, how it was splintering a little, at a little smear glowing on the pane, and tears came, just enough so I couldn’t hide them.
“Now, what’s this about?” said Hepzibah, and she pulled me into the dizzying designs on her dress.
I stepped back from her. It struck me as a ludicrous question.
I might’ve said, Well, for starters, there’s a mayonnaise jar in the house with my mother’s finger inside it, but that would have been rude and undeserved, and besides, it wasn’t my mother I was thinking about. It was my father.
The last time I’d seen Joseph Dubois, he’d been sitting at that window peeling an apple without breaking the skin—a minor stunt in his renowned repertoire of tricks. He was making a whirly girl. I’d sat on the floor that night in a puddle of lamplight and watched the irresistible way the peel had spun off the blade of his knife, nervous over whether he would make it all the way to the end without breaking it. I’d risen up on my knees as he’d come to the last turn. If he made it, I would get to hang the red spiral in my bedroom window with the other whirly girls he’d created, all of them suspended by sewing thread, bobbing at the glass pane in various stages of puckered decay.
t h e m e r m a i d c h a i r
45
“A whirly girl for my Whirly Girl,” he’d said, calling me by his pet name and dropping it into my open palms.
Those were his last words to me.
I’d dashed to my room without looking back, without letting him know that what I loved best about this ritual was the part where he called me his Whirly Girl, how I imagined myself one of his perfect creations, the apple skins in my window a strange still frame of self-portraits.
Seeing my tears, Kat clattered up the steps in her heels and hovered over me with her arms flapping around her sides. She reminded me of a clapper rail, one of the noisiest birds in the marsh, a big hen of a bird, and I felt my anger at her melt before she spoke. “Jessie, I talk too much and can’t keep my damn foot out of my mouth. Of course you wouldn’t go in there and upset your mother. I—”
“It’s okay,” I said. “It wasn’t that. Really.”
Benne plodded up the steps, lugging my suitcase. She set it at the door. I thanked them all and said they could go, that I would be fine. I said the tears were because I was tired, that’s all.
They drove away in the golf cart, lumbering over a series of tree roots—“island speed bumps,” Kat called them. I told myself I should go inside, but I stood on the porch for a few minutes in a breeze that had chilled and darkened and smelled of the marsh, finishing whatever had come over me earlier—that little baptism of sadness.
C H A P T E R
Six
pq
Brother Thomas
He lay prostrate on the floor of the church with his arms stretched out on either side in the shape of the cross, punishment for the things he’d written in a small, leather-bound notebook. Father Sebastian, the prior at the monastery, had found it on the counter inside the abbey gift shop, where he’d left it for a few moments while he pointed
“Well, if it isn’t our Hottentot queen,” said Kat, waving to her. She laid her hand on my arm. “Jessie, if your mother says fish fly, just nod and say, ‘Yes, ma’am, fish fly.’ Don’t argue with her about anything, all right?”
44
s u e m o n k k i d d
“Some fish can fly,” said Benne. “I saw a picture in a book.”
Kat ignored her. She kept her eyes on my face. “Don’t upset her.”
I pulled away. “I’m not planning on upsetting anybody.”
Hepzibah met me halfway on the porch steps, trailing the aroma of okra gumbo, and I knew she’d made us dinner. “We glad fa see oona,” she said, lapsing into Gullah the way she used to whenever she greeted me.
I smiled, looked past her at the window lit from within. I stared at the wooden frame, how it was splintering a little, at a little smear glowing on the pane, and tears came, just enough so I couldn’t hide them.
“Now, what’s this about?” said Hepzibah, and she pulled me into the dizzying designs on her dress.
I stepped back from her. It struck me as a ludicrous question.
I might’ve said, Well, for starters, there’s a mayonnaise jar in the house with my mother’s finger inside it, but that would have been rude and undeserved, and besides, it wasn’t my mother I was thinking about. It was my father.
The last time I’d seen Joseph Dubois, he’d been sitting at that window peeling an apple without breaking the skin—a minor stunt in his renowned repertoire of tricks. He was making a whirly girl. I’d sat on the floor that night in a puddle of lamplight and watched the irresistible way the peel had spun off the blade of his knife, nervous over whether he would make it all the way to the end without breaking it. I’d risen up on my knees as he’d come to the last turn. If he made it, I would get to hang the red spiral in my bedroom window with the other whirly girls he’d created, all of them suspended by sewing thread, bobbing at the glass pane in various stages of puckered decay.
t h e m e r m a i d c h a i r
45
“A whirly girl for my Whirly Girl,” he’d said, calling me by his pet name and dropping it into my open palms.
Those were his last words to me.
I’d dashed to my room without looking back, without letting him know that what I loved best about this ritual was the part where he called me his Whirly Girl, how I imagined myself one of his perfect creations, the apple skins in my window a strange still frame of self-portraits.
Seeing my tears, Kat clattered up the steps in her heels and hovered over me with her arms flapping around her sides. She reminded me of a clapper rail, one of the noisiest birds in the marsh, a big hen of a bird, and I felt my anger at her melt before she spoke. “Jessie, I talk too much and can’t keep my damn foot out of my mouth. Of course you wouldn’t go in there and upset your mother. I—”
“It’s okay,” I said. “It wasn’t that. Really.”
Benne plodded up the steps, lugging my suitcase. She set it at the door. I thanked them all and said they could go, that I would be fine. I said the tears were because I was tired, that’s all.
They drove away in the golf cart, lumbering over a series of tree roots—“island speed bumps,” Kat called them. I told myself I should go inside, but I stood on the porch for a few minutes in a breeze that had chilled and darkened and smelled of the marsh, finishing whatever had come over me earlier—that little baptism of sadness.
C H A P T E R
Six
pq
Brother Thomas
He lay prostrate on the floor of the church with his arms stretched out on either side in the shape of the cross, punishment for the things he’d written in a small, leather-bound notebook. Father Sebastian, the prior at the monastery, had found it on the counter inside the abbey gift shop, where he’d left it for a few moments while he pointed
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