Sugar (14 page)

People wandered in and out of the area, moving around restlessly as they awaited word of a loved one’s condition.

Sugar sat stone still. She was tense and wary of everyone and everything around her. She’d never been in a hospital and after tonight, didn’t want to have to return to one. Mercy was in a fitful sleep on her lap; a blanket encircled the two of them like black butterflies emerging from a cocoon.

The ambulance had come quickly. Sugar cursed herself for not having thought of calling for one. A boarder named Jonah heard the screaming coming from his landlady’s apartment and rushed down to see what was happening. He was the one to call for an ambulance. It would be him that Mary would have to thank for saving her life . . . if she lived.

“Is there someone here with Mary Bedford?” a tall, white, wiry-looking man asked in a gentle voice. He had a white jacket on and a clipboard in his hands. He peered patiently over the glasses that sat at the very tip of his thin straight nose.

“Yes,” Sugar said in a voice so low, even she hardly heard it.

“Are you family?” the doctor asked, looking at his chart.

Sugar froze. She wasn’t family. Would they tell her anything if she wasn’t family?

“I want Grandma, Mommy,” Mercy said in a sleepy voice. Sugar’s heart stopped beating. The child must be dreaming. Mommy?

“Oh, so you’re Mizz Bedford’s daughter?” the doctor said, now peering at her with tiny black eyes.

Sugar’s head nodded yes, as if some unseen force was guiding it.

“Well . . . Mizz. . . . uh . . . Mrs. . . .” The doctor stumbled and looked to Sugar for assistance. Sugar, still in shock by the turn of events, could not read the doctor’s face.

“Well, Mizz Bedford has suffered a stroke and—”

“She comin’ home now?” Sugar heard someone say and turned her head to see who it was. All the eyes peered back at her. She had spoken those words. And then suddenly, they were coming again, like water flowing from a faucet. She wanted it to stop but it wouldn’t. “Shecominhomenowshecominhomenowshecominhomenow.”

Fear was thick in her throat like molasses, trapping the words.

The doctor was flustered. “Uh, no, she’s suffered a stroke . . . not too severe, but she’ll have to stay here for a few weeks until her condition improves,” the doctor said carefully, aware that the woman he spoke to was on the verge of having a nervous breakdown.

“Can we see my grandma?” Mercy asked in a composed voice that stunned both Sugar and the doctor.

“Yes. Just for a minute, though,” the doctor said and stepped back, pointing down a long corridor.

Mercy hopped off of Sugar’s lap. She held her hand out to her. “C’mon Miss . . . uhm . . . Mamma. Let’s go see Grandma,” she said and winked.

How did this little girl get to be so strong?
Sugar wondered.

Mary was in a ward with at least thirty other women. Some were moaning. Others were turned on their sides or stomachs, sleeping. Sugar was aware of the sound her shoes made as she walked down the long ward toward Mary, sounding like a large clock inside her head.
Clickclickclick.
She wanted to run screaming from there, but she looked at Mercy and found the strength she needed.

Mary lay before them, her pecan complexion almost white. Her silver, silky hair dry and brittle. Her face twisted to one side.

Sugar was overwhelmed with sorrow. There were tubes running out of Mary’s nose, mouth and arms; her eyes were closed and to Sugar, she looked dead.

It’s funny,
Sugar thought as she washed up the last of the supper dishes,
how life repeats itself.
Here she was once again, taking charge of the Bedford house. Collecting money and making sure the boarders conducted themselves properly. No loud music after ten. No loitering on the stoop. She had handled it all quite well, just as she did twelve years ago.

Mercy was a tower of strength. She never complained, not even when Sugar overcooked the eggs or burned the bacon. Not even when her hair parts were crooked and her bangs drooped. She just smiled and went skipping off to school.

But Sugar knew the girl was torn up inside. She saw the tear-stained pillow cases when she did the laundry.

People in the neighborhood, the former hustlers, pimps and prostitutes (some gone straight, others still living the life), came and did what they could when they could. They brought casseroles filled with baked macaroni and cheese, sweet potato pie, smothered pork chops and fried chicken. They took away loads of dirty clothes and returned them clean, folded and smelling of Borax. They did all of this for Mary, because over the years, Mary had done so much for them.

Sugar went to visit Mary every day while Mercy was in school. She fed her soup with a shaky, unsure hand, while she tried to keep a smile on her face.

She made light conversation about Mercy and what was going on in and around the house. But none of it came out sounding natural, it was always strained with the fear Sugar had lodged in her mind.

Suppose she never comes home?

Mary’s speech was slurred and so she chose, most of the time, not to talk at all. She would just nod her head and offer a crooked smile.

One day, as Sugar was gathering herself to leave, Mary started to speak. It was difficult and clearly took a lot of effort to get out the one word she wanted so badly to say: Christmas.

It came out as “Kissmmmmas,” but Sugar understood it. She had been worrying about that herself. Usually it was just a day in a week for Sugar, but she knew that this was not just another week in her usual life. There was Mercy to think of now.

Sugar half hoped the holiday would come and go without the child noticing it, but the idea was shot down when Mercy came home from school with her scrawled pictures. Mercy had drawn a Christmas tree with tiny little gifts beneath it. She also had a wreath she’d drawn, colored brightly and cut out. Sugar saw the pride in her eyes as she presented her creation to her and asked her to take it to Mary. “This will make her happy and she’ll get better soon. She won’t want to miss Santa Claus,” Mercy said, with a large smile and gleaming eyes.

The paper wreath now sat on Mary’s nightstand propped up against the water container.

“Mary, won’t you be home for Christmas?” Sugar asked, hoping her voice sounded cheerful. Mary shook her head slowly, painfully, from side to side.

Sugar was silent for some time, as she stared down at the large green and beige tile design on the floor. She eyed the Christmas wreath and could hear Mercy’s excited babbling about the toys and dresses she hoped Santa would bring to her for Christmas. “Miss Shuga, I been a real good girl this year!”

Sugar squeezed her eyes shut and shook Mercy’s voice from her mind. When she lifted her head to meet Mary’s gaze, the eyes that looked back at her dropped responsibility heavy as stones on her shoulders.

“I’ll try, Mary,” she said solemnly, already convinced that her best effort wouldn’t be good enough.

Sugar stood before the towering evergreen that practically swallowed the tiny parlor. There were ornaments of all colors, shapes and sizes hanging from its long, wide limbs. They gleamed and glimmered off the streetlamp light that filtered through the windows. The house was quiet except for the soft crooning of Nat King Cole’s “White Christmas.”

Sugar breathed in deeply, inhaling the sweet smell of the tree. It took her back to Arkansas, and she suddenly felt homesick, a feeling she’d never stumbled across before.

She turned to face Mary. “It’s beautiful, ain’t it,” Mary said. It was still difficult for her to talk, but she was improving quickly. She’d come home by taxi just two days earlier, surprising both Mercy and Sugar.

“I just had to be here with my babies. I couldn’t be in no damn hospital on Christmas, no siree!” she said as Sugar helped her up the front steps.

“I’m sure glad you’re home. I didn’t think I could have done it without you being here,” Sugar said as she sat down in the wing chair across from Mary. She sipped her eggnog and allowed the whiskey it was spiked with to move through her, numbing the emotion she felt rising within her.

“Girl, what you talkin’ about? Without me? You did it.
You
got the tree, the gifts. You did it all, girl, without my help,” she said, and raised her own glass of eggnog in salute. “You didn’t need me here, but I’m sure glad to be here. Thank the Lord,” she added and bowed her head in a silent, quick prayer.

“I did use your money, though,” Sugar said with a wry smile.

“My money is your money. You know that. ’Sides, it was all for my grandbaby.”

Sugar looked back at the tree and for the first time noticed the ornament of the mother and child embracing. “Ahhh,” Sugar uttered and moved closer to examine it. “I remember this,” she said almost to herself as she touched it gently with the tip of her finger. “Do you remember this?” she asked, looking back at Mary, light dancing in her eyes, her finger still resting lightly on the gold and silver ornament.

Mary nodded slowly. She was the one who’d placed it there. It’d always been her favorite. It was special to her, given to her by her mother. She kept it wrapped in paper, in her hope chest at the foot of her bed.

“You tried to get me to hang it on that tree you had . . .” She trailed off, recalling a long-ago Christmas. The thought of it brought a wisp of a smile to her face.

“Oh, look!” Mary shouted and sat straight up in her chair. Sugar jumped and nearly fell into the tree.

“What?” she yelped and ran toward Mary.

Mary was pointing a crooked finger toward her. “You having one. You having one I seen it don’t try and deny it!” Mary was cackling and coughing like an old hen.

“I’m having what?” Sugar was confused, a puzzled look shadowed her eyes.

“You just looked up and smiled. You had one, thank the Lord, you done finally had yourself one!” Mary was laughing and slapping her thigh with glee.

Sugar smiled, finally understanding what Mary was excited about. It was true, the thought of that Christmas did make her smile. Yep, she’d had one. Christmas brings on all sorts of things. It was a magical season.

Sugar figured she’d be doing it quite often. She’d stored up plenty of good-time memories during the time she spent in the Bedford household.

“Sugar.” The voice was hesitant. “Will you sing for me?” Mary’s eyes were hopeful and pleading.

“Mary, I . . . I told you, I don’t sing no more . . .” Sugar got up and walked back over to the tree. How could she deny this woman such a small request. She felt low down for doing it.

“Please, Sugar, it’s Christmas. And as much as I need to hear it, I believe you need to do it,” Mary said in a quiet voice.

They were silent. Sugar standing in front of the tree, Mary sitting staring at her back.

The song started small and muted with emotion, and then it rose like a wave coming out of the Atlantic. With every word, Sugar’s voice stretched and grew until it was higher than the tree and overpowered the room. Mary had never heard “Silent Night” sung like that before. So much soul, so much sadness.

When she was done, both of their faces were wet with tears.

Spring came early that year. The streets came alive again with the sounds of squealing children and crying newborn babies. Sugar decided it was time. Mary was up and about. She moved a bit slower, but Sugar told herself it was age, not sickness, that slowed her movements.

By then, she was considering going west, where she heard the weather was always like a warm spring day.

“California? Who the hell you know out in California?” Mary asked, when Sugar announced her plans. “This time you won’t just come back with your neck slashed, you’ll come back in a damn box!”

Mary was yelling now, and Sugar tried to shut her mind to her words. She told herself—and for the most part it was true—that Mary just flat did not want her to go. Sugar didn’t want to go either, but she needed to move on.

Mary ranted and raved for nearly two hours. Walking from room to room, slamming doors and cussing as she went.

“Them crackers out there don’t like no kinda colored peoples. I hear they worse than the ones in the South. A soot-black girl like you don’t stand a chance in hell in California!” she said before she slammed the bedroom door in Sugar’s face.

That was bad, but the worst was yet to come. Sugar turned to see Mercy slipping silently into the kitchen, tears sparkling in her eyes. Up until then, Sugar had never mentioned to Mercy the fact that she would be leaving soon. The child had formed an impenetrable bond with Sugar. Sugar knew by the way she curled into her at night, matching her breath as they lay sleeping in the bed they shared.

Sugar felt like a low down snake.

Lower than she did when she lifted a can of beans from a store in Detroit owned by a gentle old man who had only the day before extended her credit.

Evening came in with a chill, and Sugar supposed this helped in cooling Mary down. She came into the parlor where Sugar was sitting and staring out of the window. Her eyes were heavy with apology.

She stood before her, leaning heavily on her cane, and reached into her bosom, pulling out a piece of paper that was aged yellow. “Here,” she said and handed it to her with a shaking hand.

Sugar took it and her fingers began to tingle. “What’s this?” she said as she rose from the chair.

Mary clucked her teeth and then began to ramble like a small child. “It came ’bout four years ago. I had all but forgotten it. Well, I ain’t hear nothing from you in all them years. Didn’t have a clue as to where you could be and I just now run across it again. Well, go on and read it.”

Sugar tried to read Mary’s eyes, but they held nothing but excitement. Sugar slowly unfolded the piece of paper that Mary must have folded and unfolded hundreds of times. Maybe hoping that the sheer ritual of it would someday draw Sugar back.

It was a telegram that read:

OCTOBER 1ST, 1951 *STOP* YOUR
MAMMA IS HERE *STOP* COME
HOME *STOP* LACEY *STOP*

Sugar read the words over and over again until they were no more than a black blur of nothing before her.