Swan Place by Augusta Trobaugh

them?”
    “They’re asleep.”
    “When they wake up? And I’ll help you with your work and when it’s all done, we can play!” That word again. That perfectly good but strange-sounding word.
    “I’ll go get the checkers.” Then she hesitated. “Is it okay?”
    “Is it okay for you to get the checkers?” I asked, a little confused.
    “No. I mean is it okay with you that I’m not white?” She separated the words, like they were stones she had to step onto, for getting her across something she didn’t want to fall into. And her question surprised me, because all I’d been thinking was that here was somebody else who knew what it felt like to lose your mama. I studied her hard then, realizing that this wasn’t some white child Aunt Mee was taking care of, but a very light-skinned black child. The face waited, all full of hope, with the eyebrows held high and the eyes wide and the mouth just waiting to break into a smile.
    “Of course I don’t mind,” I said. And that was true. Because it didn’t matter to me that there were some folks in our town who were against the black people. Mama had never been, nor Aunt Bett, nor Roy-Ellis, and that’s what I grew up with—knowing that you treat all folks the same.
    “You kin to Aunt Mee?” I asked.
    “Yes,” she smiled and the dimples carved themselves into her cheeks once again. “She’s my grandmama.” She lifted her shoulders in a hopeful shrug, and then she held out one arm and ran her hand over the brown-sugar/cream-colored skin. “Grandmama says I’m a throwback to some white folks who were in our family a long time ago.”
    I didn’t know what throwback meant, so I said, “Run on then and get the game, and we’ll get all the work done so we can play.” And just like that, she turned and ran off into the tall weeds. The scurrying sounds died away, and then there was only the hot silence of early afternoon, and the sun shining down on the clean sheets, and me thinking that, at last, maybe I had found me a true and loyal friend of my very own. Somebody who knew what it was like to lose your mama.
    I was washing up the lunch dishes when I heard a soft knock on the back screen door. “That you, Savannah?” I called.
    “It’s me!” came the reply.
    “Well, come on in.” I heard the squeak of the hinges, and in a moment, I saw her coming across the back porch almost on tiptoes.
    “Hi,” I said, and she froze to a stop.
    “Can I come in?” she whispered.
    “Of course.”
    She came into the kitchen ever so slowly, looking all around.
    I kept on washing the dishes while Savannah crept around, peering into the dining room and looking back at the porch, as if something unexpected might jump out at her, and she needed to be sure of a way of escape. What a strange little thing she was, creeping around on her long, thin legs and with her shoulders hunched up around her neck. I just kept washing dishes, but I was smiling because there was no way not to smile. Finally, after she had looked all around, she whispered, “You wanta play?”
    “There’s work to do first,” I said, and it startled me, the way I sounded just exactly like Aunt Bett.
    “Okay. What do you want me to do?” I gave her a damp rag and asked her to wipe down the table. Then I had her finish drying the dishes while I folded the clothes that had come out of the dryer.
    “What you hang out clothes on the line for, if you all got an electric dryer?” she asked.
    “I always hang out the sheets,” I explained. “Because the sunshine makes them smell so nice and fresh.”
    “We hang out all our things, ‘cause we don’t have a dryer,” Savannah said with a toss of her head that said she didn’t mind. Then she added, “When can I see the children?”
    “Soon as they wake up.” And right at that moment, as if on cue, Molly appeared in the kitchen doorway, wearing only her panties and with her face in the deep pout that was her usual after-nap expression.
    “A-h-h-h!”