with Samuel Joe in his arms. “Damn Indians!” Mama was unconscious lying on the floor. I gave one last attempt to rescue Samuel Joe, his little arms grappled for me as the other agent snatched him, forcing him onto the bus. The door shut, black boots held me back. “This is better for them, they’re going to school.” Black boots clasped his huge arms around me. “Come on, you can show me a good time.” His beard bristled against my face, his breath smelled nasty. I shoved his face away and he smacked me on the mouth and knocked me to the ground. Blood dribbled down the side of my lip. “I don’t have time for this,” he grunted and stepped onto the bus. The blood tasted sharp in my mouth. The bus rolled down the dirt road and the whimpers of children faded.
I don’t remember what happened after that, how I got off the ground or where I found Mama in the house. I couldn’t forget Beah and the others. I couldn’t forget their howling from the tin can bus. After that day, we lived in unbearable silence. Papa Charles came home to an empty nest. Moonshine helped: we made it, we sold it, we drank it. Papa Charles went fishing one day and never came back. Did the silence get to him? The thick air of pain? Our neighbor said Papa Charles walked into the bay until the water covered his head and a wave crashed over him and out came a porpoise. He said Papa Charles used his medicine to turn into a porpoise and he was watching over us from the bay, that he would protect us from there. I walked to the bay one time and a porpoise leaped out of the water. Maybe it was him, maybe it was Papa Charles.
The speakeasy is my heaven. Smoke-filled rooms ringing with laughter and music give me hope. Mama and I sell our moonshine there—it’s always a party. I especially adore the singer, Eva. I want to be Eva, tall, dark and glamorous, commanding the stage with a drink in her hand, dressed in a beautiful gown and red lipstick. I sing along with her, quietly mouthing the words. Mama shushes me. I am mesmerized by the stage, by Eva.
Eva sings “You Can’t Keep a Good Man Down,” swaying to the beat of the piano, punctuating the notes with her hips. She catches me mouthing the words, pulls me onstage. “Go on, girl, you can sing, I know you want to.” I catch up with the piano and belt out the words in the right place. The crowd cheers, I finish the song, the piano punches to the end, abrupt applause and whistles fill the air. Eva pouts her lips and wags her finger at me. “You’re gonna take my job, honey.” She pats me on the head, downs her drink and steps off the stage. Mama is stunned, men buy me drinks. “You sure are pretty!” one hollers. “Sing another one!” another man calls out. Mama yanks me off the stage and out the door. She beat me when we got home.
“You won’t be a harlot!” she yelled as the stick came down on me, but I didn’t stop singing—my voice—that’s all I had.
* * *
The children were gone a year; it took us that long to save money for the train tickets to get them. That is Mama’s plan—to go to the school and get back her children. I am seventeen almost a grown woman. At the train station in Brunswick the memory of my first train ride hit me: Mama smearing dirt into my face so I would look like her child, so they wouldn’t take me away. Now I understand. Mama sits in silence staring out the window the whole ride. I am jittery, humming songs running through my head. It takes a day to get there. We step off the train and walk down a winding dirt road. A large brick building sits menacingly on a hill. Mama lights sage before we continue and speaks the old language, sending wafts of smoke around us. I ask Mama, “What if they take me?”
“The bear spirit is with us, I have asked her to come.” She snuffs out the sage on the ground. I steady myself and follow behind Mama’s sure footsteps to the entrance of the school. Mama rings the doorbell. It is eerily quiet. A white nun in a habit opens the door slightly. “My children, I am here to get my children,” Mama says fiercely.
“It is not visiting hours. It is dinner time.” She tries to shut the door, Mama barges in.
“My children, I am here to get them.” Mama glares at her, almost through her.
The nun steps back, flustered. “Well, what are their names and ages?” She takes a small pad of paper and pen from her pocket.
“Beah, nine, Samuel Joe, five, Mary, eight, and Eleanor, seven.”
“Yes, well, I’ll see what I can do.” Her face is beet red in her white habit. Mama sits in a cushioned chair, her eyes fixated on the door. We wait. It is eerily quiet in the waiting room, no children’s voices, nothing. The door opens and the nun enters with a scrawny girl. It’s Beah, she is much skinnier and has dark circles under her eyes. Beah doesn’t run to me or Mama, she waits for a prompt from the nun like a trained animal. The nun nods her head and Beah walks to us. We embrace her small body. Beah’s arms hang limp at her sides and her face is vacant. Mama pulls away. “The others? Samuel Joe?” She juts her chin out ready to charge. Two more nuns appear in fancy habits. “The others—where are my other children?” Mama clenches her fists; her mouth hardens into a line.
“Yes, well, the others were sickly …” the first nun says. She steps back and bows her head. The tallest nun, who wears a black and white habit, clasps her hands in front of her. “I regret to inform you that your other children became ill and died of consumption. They are with the Lord now.” Mama’s breath fills her chest, like she will explode. The black and white habit nuns leave, the flushed nun in the white habit remains, immobilized by Mama’s eyes. Mama turns towards Beah, takes her skinny arm and heads for the door.
“Where are you going?” the flushed nun asks.
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