Balm by Dolen Perkins-Valdez Page A

standing in the second-story library window. Madge could have sworn she saw worry on the woman’s face. The feeling shook her because she could not remember the sisters ever worrying about her. When she looked again, the widow was no longer there.
    Hemp walked closely enough beside her that his jacket brushed her dress. He smelled of cedar, and she wanted to inhale him like a pocket of air. They turned a corner. A park lay on the east block, and the wind cut at her cheek. They crossed a swing bridge into the second district of the city. A tall-mast ship on the river moved silently by, and the moon lit their path.
    â€œIt’s just a piece more.”
    She stumbled. He grabbed her arm to steady her. She slowed, turning an ear up to hear the syrup drip when his lips moved.
    â€œYou like working for that hotel?”
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œThat hotel?”
    â€œGuess so. Better than farm work.”
    â€œWell, I sure am glad to hear you don’t mind it. I sure don’t mind working for the widow. Finding a good house make all the difference in the world,” she said, repeating something Olga had said to her, but Hemp looked puzzled by the statement.
    â€œYour feet hurt? You need me to wave down a wagon?”
    â€œYou know they don’t call it no wagon up here, Hemp. They call it a carriage.”
    He looked down at her and smiled. “What you know about carriages?”
    â€œNot much.”
    Just then, a carriage pulled up in front of them, and a liveried colored driver emerged. He opened the door, and Hemp offered her his hand.
    â€œWhat’s this?”
    â€œSince you know so much about carriages . . .”
    She took Hemp’s hand and climbed inside. The driver shut the door behind them. Madge looked out the window at the lake, whitecaps rippling along its dark surface.
    â€œYou sure are something. Where we going?”
    â€œIt’s a nice night for a ride. Feel good, don’t it.”
    â€œSurely do.”
    Madge squinted. She had never been out with a man before, and the realization quieted her for a few uncomfortable moments.
    He cleared his throat. “So you say you like working for that widow?”
    â€œShe take good care of me, I guess,” she said. “Better than them three women I live with down in Tennessee.”
    â€œThree women? You mean your aunts? The sisters?”
    â€œAll three. Not mine, though.”
    â€œIt’s something about your hands, ain’t it. Something blessed.”
    â€œTell me something. How you give birth to something and then turn your back on it?”
    â€œI don’t know. I never give birth to nobody.”
    â€œAll I ask for was one good-bye. A be safe. A God keep you. I didn’t get nothing, not even a kiss-my-foot.”
    â€œWhat you say to them? You bless them?”
    â€œI don’t understand family. We supposed to help each other, not tear each other up.”
    â€œEven a bad family a good one,” he said.
    â€œI ain’t never done nothing to them women.”
    â€œBetter than no family at all.”
    â€œWhy I got to be born to them? Why I can’t be born to a mama and a daddy?”
    â€œSound like you need to make peace with some folks.”
    She turned to him. “What are you talking about?”
    â€œI’m saying this city is a dream, Madge. It ain’t real.”
    â€œWhat’s real then?”
    â€œFor you, Tennessee. For me, Kentucky. I had a life before this one even though I couldn’t lay claim to it. Now all I got is this air biting at the back of my neck.”
    â€œYou didn’t have no life, Hemp. Everything you ever done while you was a slave was a wish. I ain’t never known love and neither has you.”
    â€œYou wrong, Miss Madge,” he said quietly. “I known love and I known hate. I known a lot of things.”
    She looked through the window. Her eyes felt tight and small, as if they wanted to swell and