don’t think so.”
“Why were you walking so close to the edge?”
Doll tried her best to remember, but couldn’t. “I lost the oranges,” she whispered. “The bag broke and they tumbled into river and I went after them.”
“You went after them? Oranges? You went after some stupid ole oranges?”
Doll nodded ashamedly.
August snaked his arm protectively around her waist. “Thank God it was the oranges that rolled into the river and not you.”
By April of 1927, most folk in Mississippi couldn’t think of anything but rain, mud, mosquitoes, and flooding.
Not a drop of rain had fallen between May and July of 1926, but on the first day of August the skies opened up and remained that way for a very long time.
Bullet rain. Bucket rain. Rain as soft as rose petals. Mist.
You’d think that so much water would have washed the stench of sin right out of the air, but it didn’t. The water infused it, transforming it into an invisible vapor that hung in the air like fog.
Sin was what was on August’s mind when he shrugged on his gray slicker and shoved his Bible into one of the oversized pockets. Retrieving an umbrella from the stand in the small vestibule, he opened the door and stepped out into the downpour.
It was Good Friday and he was headed to the church a few hours early to go over his sermon. It gave him no pleasure to be thinking about sin on one of the most blessed days of the Christian calendar, but try as he might, he could not shake the troubling thoughts, nor could he decide if the sin had ushered in the rain or the rain had made way for the sin. Whatever the case, both the sin and the rain were there—growing mightier with each gray, wet day.
Weeks earlier, one parishioner after the next had approached him with: “Reverend, could I have a word, please?”
August listened quietly and intently as the men confessed to gambling, drinking, and fornicating. The women’s offenses were light in nature compared to their male counterparts. Their transgressions involved gossiping and coveting. August prescribed scripture and prayer and sent them on their way.
But he soon realized that sin hadn’t infected just his community; it was wreaking havoc all across the state. Every new day brought another horrendous report of evildoing:
William N. Coffey, aged 48, confessed he’d murdered his bigamous bride, Hattie Hale Coffey, clubbing her to death with a baseball bat and then tossing her into the Mississippi River.
In the town of Alligator, plantation owner V.H. McCraney shot and killed plantation owner C.G. Callicott and then put the pistol to his head and blew his brains all over the face of the wide-eyed witness, Richard Moore.
MISSISSIPPI LEADS IN NEGRO LYNCHINGS …
Yes, sin was everywhere. It had even breached the sanctity of his own home.
At the church, August removed the skeleton key from his pocket, shoved it into the lock, and turned. Once inside, he loaded the pot-bellied stove with wood and paper and tossed in a lit match. As he stood watching the flames swell and flicker, his mind wandered to his wife and the bite mark on her thigh.
He’d noticed it weeks earlier as she lay sleeping. Sometime during the night, her restless tossing and turning had caused her gown to roll up and around her waist. The warm and humid day had ushered in an equally uncomfortable evening, so the blanket was left folded at the foot of the bed and husband and wife slept uncovered.
The morning August realized that sin had taken up residence in his home was a morning similar to the thousand others that preceded it. August had risen early, swung his legs over the side of the bed, stretched his arms high above his head, and yawned.
As always, he took a moment to admire his beautiful sleeping wife, and that’s when he spotted the bite, which he first took as a bruise.
On closer inspection, August could plainly see the teeth marks in her flesh, and his heart dropped out of his chest. Some man, some heathen, had placed his mouth so close to
— August stopped the thought barreling down on him.
How could she? Why would she?
Doll had not allowed him to make love to her in that way for months. She had even prohibited the normal coupling that occurred between man and wife. After a while, August had been forced to pleasure himself in the solitary darkness of the outhouse.
Now it was all clear to him: she had taken a lover.
Adulteress!
The word alone was kindle for fury.
No one would have faulted August if he had snatched Doll up by the throat and choked the breath out of her.
But not August. He did what he always did when it came to Doll’s misgivings—he turned her sin onto himself and absorbed like a sponge. He convinced himself that he had allowed his church and his flock to take precedence over his wife. The result of which were feelings of neglect within Doll. She in turn had sought attention elsewhere, and had stumbled into the arms of a heathen who plied her with sweet lies all in the name of pilfering her pyramid.
He had only himself to blame.
August exited the bedroom on legs made of jelly. He thought he might vomit and rushed to the outhouse. Standing in the darkness, he waited patiently for the surge, but it did not come. What did emerge were tears accompanied by a howl so loud and sorrowful that it woke Hemmingway from her slumber.
The door of the church opened and closed. August turned around to find one of his parishioners stepping in.
“Morning, Sister Betty.”
“Morning, Reverend.” Sister Betty’s response was cheerful. “Happy Good Friday to you!”
August smiled. “And the same to you.”
Sister Betty removed her coat and gave it two good shakes, sending droplets of water through the air. “I know you ain’t s’pose to question God, but I gotta ask why in the world he sending down all this rain!” She chuckled as she moved to August’s side and floated her hands over the stove. “Ooh, nice and toasty,” she moaned.
August excused himself. He went to the small windowless room located at the back of the church. Once inside, he lit a candle, sat down at his desk, opened the drawer, and removed six pages of notes.
He’d been working on the sermon for nearly two weeks, but now, as he scanned the paragraphs, none of it read familiar. It was as if some other man had written the words. A man consumed with grief and riddled with self-pity.
You ask, Did he question Doll about the love-bite? No. Not one word was uttered. August buried it, alongside his pride.
Hurt is a growing thing. August’s
