The Land by Mildred D. Taylor

she laid into me with that strap. I was taller than she was by now, stronger too, and I could have ripped the strap from her hands, but I would never have disrespected my mama in that fashion. Instead, I moved quick, so she only got a few licks on me; still, she kept on flailing that strap. I supposed it was the principle of the thing with her. I had disobeyed her, I had disrespected her, and she wouldn’t tolerate that. After all, as she said, she always had been, and always would be, my mama, and I knew that was true. There was no changing that, and in truth, I didn’t want to. I remember that whipping in particular, because that was the last time my mama whipped me.
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    The next day and the days that followed, I refused to eat in my daddy’s house. In fact, I wouldn’t even enter his house, not even to see my mama. But after a week my daddy changed that. He ordered me back to his table. “You might not like it,” he said to me, “but when I sit down to supper with just my family, I expect all my children on this place to be sitting down at the table with me.”
    â€œCan’t make me,” I said.
    â€œI’m your daddy,” he said. “You want to test me on what I can do?”
    Needless to say, I sat at my daddy’s table, but I never forgot why I had been sent from it.
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    By the time I was dealing with all my realizations about my two families, my sister, Cassie, had moved to Atlanta and was married. At first she had gone to school there, and later she met Howard Milhouse. After their marriage when Cassie was seventeen, she and her husband, who was nearly some ten years older, set up a little store and they were now living in back of it. Since Cassie had married, she had come home only a few times, and I missed her terribly. After that day I’d gotten so upset about not being allowed at my daddy’s table, I wrote to her and told her my thoughts, for I figured only she could truly understand how I felt. Cassie didn’t write back; she came instead.
    â€œYou know, Cassie,” I said when we were alone, “there are times I don’t feel good about our mama . . . I mean, for being with a white man.”
    â€œYou’re talking as if you think she had a choice about the thing.”
    I was silent.
    â€œPaul, she was his property, just like everything else around here.”
    â€œWell . . . I know at first she didn’t have much of a say—”
    â€œ Much of a say? What about no say?”
    â€œBut that was nearly twenty years ago, before you were born. Why’d she keep on being with him after we were free? What’s she doing with him now?”
    â€œYou ever thought maybe it’s because she loves him? Besides, it’s her life now.”
    â€œI asked her once, you know.”
    â€œAsked her what?”
    â€œIf she loved him, and if she didn’t, then why’d she stay with him?”
    â€œAnd what she tell you?”
    â€œSaid she supposed she did love him and, besides, if she ran off and took me with her, he’d come after us.”
    â€œDon’t you think he would?”
    I shrugged. “I suppose.”
    â€œHe’s our daddy, Paul.”
    â€œWell, sometimes I wish he wasn’t. She raised his family, both sides of it, and what does she have to show for it? This house and this little bit of ground he lets her stay on, while she’s still up there taking care of his big house and him.”
    Cassie studied me before she spoke again. “Paul, you’re sounding awfully resentful.”
    â€œGot a right to be. I been picked on all my life ’cause of him and her, and don’t tell me you don’t know how it feels.”
    â€œI’ll tell you this, little brother. I won’t stand for you disrespecting either one of them, not our daddy, not our mama.”
    I met her eyes and looked away.
    â€œNow, what they done and what they feel, it’s their business and