Balm by Dolen Perkins-Valdez Page B

shut. Why couldn’t it be easy? Why couldn’t they just lay it down and leave it all behind?
    â€œI’m sorry. Hey, look at me.” He touched her chin.
    A squall of wind rocked the carriage. She leaned into him to steady herself, and when she looked back up at him, her lips touched his.
    She felt his warm breath on her face as he whispered: “My wife.”
    â€œThat woman is the past.”
    â€œNot nearly.”
    â€œThen why we here.”
    The voices of the sisters rose in her ears. Just remember. Ain’t no healing brew between your legs .
    Surely Hemp was different, even if he did have a wife lost somewhere in Kentucky, even if he did do something terrible with a daughter that wasn’t even his own. All Madge’s healing knowledge, all her gifts that seemed so powerful in the forest, failed to tell her what to do with this man. All her life she had been unlovable. He couldn’t be any different. Couldn’t be. Something moved in the street, a twist of leaves shuddering. She turned to look at him, but now it was his turn to stare through the window on his side. She tucked a loose hair back into her braid, her hand shaking as the carriage glided slowly over the lakefront street.
    T HE DAY THE HOTEL MANAGER told Hemp he was no longer needed, she was the first person who came to mind. There had been too little time to relish the bright little buttons of the uniform, the cap that barely fit his head. News of blacks campaigning for office. Talk of legislation that would right the wrongs against his people. He should have remembered. He had drunk too deeply from this newfound freedom, too easily forgetting the cracked pots he’d left behind.
    We are one hostler too many.
    Even in this free world, white men handled his fate as loosely as seeds thrown into a dirt row. He swallowed a desire to plead with the brown-eyed man, even though begging was not beneath him. He turned away, thought of running, turning south again to see if there were any pieces of a life to be salvaged.
    â€œI got to look for work,” he said to Madge once he had made it past the wilting flowers outside the back door. Madge nodded as she sweptthe kitchen. It was difficult for either one of them to wrestle with what it meant to be out of work.
    The next day, Hemp went back to the docks, but a fight broke out between the white and colored men and Hemp left. He watched construction workers nail boards together, considered approaching them until he noticed there were no dark men among them. He was not yet desperate enough to go to the reverend, fearing the man would think he had done something unrighteous to lose his job. A sharp point jabbed him in the side, and he heard the hiss of a man demanding his coat. For a moment, he considered resisting, but the image of Annie alone in the world made him hand it over. As his coat walked off, he felt a weight settle into his shoulders, heavier than he’d felt since coming to the city. He smelled meat cooking and followed the scent. He dug in his pants for a coin and sat on a stool to wait for a sausage covered in wet strings. He bit into it, the taste burning his throat. Oil streamed down his hand. He sucked at his wrist bone. Heat warmed the counter, and he regretted eating so quickly. He jammed his hands in his trouser pockets. As men passed, he eyed them, thinking how easy it would be to twist their little necks. Taking another man’s coat would do him no good. He was too large. But a hat might fit. Gloves might stretch. A tall-enough man walked by. The alley beckoned. Just one push and he could take hold of those arms thin as rabbit legs. Go see Tennessee wearing fur-lined boots and clutching a pocket of gifts. Here, woman. Would she ask or would she quietly accept his offerings, believing that the desperation of his circumstance permitted a breach or two?
    His left ear rang as he crossed the bridge. The damp had frozen the stops of his hair. Now he stood in