gured if leaving to beg for a boot and a hand in Mobile was considered better living, then go nd it. Most everyone else had learned to be content. To be satis ed with the routine of the days and the roles and positions they played. The Duprees had the farm. The Danubes, the general store. And each had their own beach. This was the balance that k ept Land’s End from being like the other cities they heard about. The ones where the Black people were bombed and burned out for living better than some of the white folk. While there were all manner of businesses on the Dupree side of the tracks—tailors, seamstresses, barbers, and more—no one owned a general store. It was an unspoken agreement that preserved life in more ways than one. When they saw Sampson cross the tracks and walk to where they’d been all their life assuming he was going to take up where Claudette had left o — though she’d been in the ground for six months—they could only come out to their porches and laugh amongst themselves. Not one to su er needlessly, Sampson passed the empty plot as if he’d never meant to stop. He k ept straight toward the house with the women who ran things on this side of the tracks. If he thought his new destination would wipe away the smug smiles and bemused smirks launched at him amid the evening gossip, he was wrong. When everyone realized where he was going, they monitored his movements more out of curiosity than mirth. Though they’d never admit to being meddlesome, they were certainly intrigued by what they might see once Sampson reached the door of Emma and the one who no longer liked to be called Jubilee. His arrival made them remember that not only had Jubi been shut in since her return, but they hadn’t seen her girl in a while either. “Ruby Ann is that child’s name,” they said amongst themselves as Sampson walked toward his intended. “Truth be told, I ain’t seen that child since that boy’s grandmama passed.” “She ain’t been to church or school, and she ain’t been in the storehouse with Emma helping her with the gurin’ either.” “Then you know that’s why he back, don’t you? What else could it be?” Humphs and harrumphs of speculation echoed each one of Sampson’s footfalls. By the time he reached the Dupree door, folks had gathered in the middle of the road for what they called their weekly walkabout, knowing good
and well they had started it right then. An idea spread by osmosis due to their need for knowing. Word this hot couldn’t be k ept going porch to porch. They needed con rmation. Someone to see and substantiate what they believed to be true and then run back and tell word that they’d been right all along. Sampson knocked. Jubi answered. She ushered him across the salt line at the threshold, bookended by a bowl of water and the bucket of goofer dust. Once he was inside, she didn’t close it right away. She heard the humming of voices in her bones and felt the sear of stares on her skin. Light skin, light eyes, light hair unwrapped and owing about her head, held high, she absorbed their shock and imbibed their drunken wonder. Standing in the doorway, she let them lay eyes on her. Gave them something altogether di erent to whisper about as they roamed back home. Ruby they couldn’t have. Cured of their captivation, they headed back to their porches. Though they didn’t get the answers they’d come for, they were all in agreement that they’d lucked up on something even better. “Did you see Jubilee?” The murmurs went around once more xated on the woman they’d known as a girl. The rare sight led them all to surmise, “Something’s got to be going on with Sampson and her girl.” “I heard the girl is pregnant with twins.” “Why else would she stand outside like that?” “It makes sense and explains why she ain’t been to school either, even though this would’ve been her last year.” Word traveled well for weeks as the stories grew more fantastical by the month, until screams pierced the night coming from inside the Dupree door. It had to be that somebody walked by when Ruby let out her rst yelp from the inside. The unmistakable cry of a woman in transition, caught between life and death. The delicate balance from which babies come forth. It had to be a woman who walked by too, because who else could hear a scream and immediately know the cause of the agony? Only someone who had been through it, who’d seen the other side while nudging life along centimeter by centimeter. The news of what was happening inside the Dupree house spread faster than when Sampson rst returned. It passed from porch to porch, and instead of
sitting in their rockers and kicking back with one foot caught between their chairs and their banisters, nearly the whole of Land’s End on their side of the tracks got up and called forth. “You think Jubilee in there helping Emma deliver the baby?” “She should be.” “How could she? You know she ain’t trained in the way.” “Emma learned from Evangeline. Between the two of ’em, they birthed us all.” Head nods of agreement sw ept through the crowd as another scream pierced the night. Outside they k ept watch. Held vigil. Praying for the girl to only peek around on the other side but to come back to them with her new baby in arms. That was the prayer of the women. The ones who had peeked themselves. The men could only stand solemn-faced, gritting their teeth, waiting on word— good or bad—the same way they had waited when their own wives disrupted the night with screams that shot vertically through the air. They never bought into the newfangled talk of “ W e had a baby.” They knew they’d never had a damn thing. No screams had ever left their lips. No contractions had ever erupted from the centers of their sacrums and radiated outward with the pain of forced opening. From where they stood, they could only remember what it looked like to see someone, two someones, splayed before God, their bodies an exhortation to give them breath or give them rest. They’d stood in the same spot Sampson was standing in now: in another room, away from the women, hands shoved in his pockets, his top teeth grinding against the bottom. He’d long been put out of the room he shared with Ruby. When she felt the rst pang that wasn’t practice, a belly tightening di erent than before, she reached for him. Woke him up out of a sound, snoring slumber with the kind of grip he knew was the clench of life. As Ruby’s heavy breaths turned to moans, and her moans to screams heard by a woman walking outside, her mothers came rushing, their bodies wrapped in white and ready to work. “Spread another line of salt at the door, change the water, and put some more mixture in the bucket. Fill that one to the brim.” “Boil some water for me on the re.” “Get me some towels.”
“Sampson, go’n out the way.” “C’mon, baby girl, it’s time now.” Emma barked orders and Sampson, Ruby, and Jubi all followed what she said. They had no other choice. She was the only one with the knowledge. The only one who had been present on the occasion of all three of their births. Sampson’s was ordinary, while Ruby’s was not. And when Emma delivered Jubilee, Evangeline had been coaching her the way she’d coached Jubi, the way she was coaching Ruby now. Birthing babies is women’s work if there was ever any real division of such things. Men may get all the glory for it with their hospitals, tools, and book learning, but some things can’t be taught. They have to be learned through experience. Felt on their own time, spontaneous and unscheduled, and ushered with gentle rmness. A coaxing, not a blitz. Standing between Ruby’s open legs, Emma coaxed forth. From her position at the head, Jubi ushered her girls in from the other side. She said, “Bear down. Take my hand.” Even halfway between heaven and earth, Ruby felt the fullness of the moment. Her mother o ering her hand. Giving her permission to touch. It was all she had ever wanted. What she’d rst found in Sampson nally came back around between her and Jubi. Ruby placed their palms together and intertwined their ngers. She pushed her body into the bed, gritted her teeth, and let a screaming moan tear through her torso as her daughter was shoved into the world into Emma’s warm rag waiting hands. “She’s here,” the old woman grunted. Emma cleaned the baby’s nose and throat until the lungs cleared and a di erent kind of cry pierced the night. The sound sent Sampson scrambling into the room. “How do?” he asked. “Right ne,” Emma answered. “Now go’n back out. We gotta clean them up.” Ruby gave a small nod that sent him shu ing outside. On the porch, where the last stragglers were gathered around waiting for word, Sampson gave a nod that sent the women on their way. They already knew all was ne inside the
Dupree house, for they had heard the baby cry. Thrust into the world, kicking and greedy, baby squeals were piercing yet proud. The women knew Ruby had tasted death but pulled through and chosen life. Only the men were left. They approached the Dupree porch and shook Sampson’s hand. No matter what they’d thought of him before, he was one of them now. A son of Land’s End with a baby of his own and a need to take care of it lest he live o his women. One man, called June, on account of him being Jeremiah Job Erickson Jr., said as much. “We ain’t seen you ’round much since you been back.” “I thought it best if I be ’round for Ruby,” Sampson said. He was too ashamed to admit he’d returned without a plan. While he had no prospects in Mobile, he didn’t know where to begin to look for work in Land’s End. It was one thing to know there were jobs available but you couldn’t get them because you didn’t t the description. It was also ne to know that there were simply no jobs. But Land’s End presented its own conundrum. It required creation. The community, insular and needing nothing outside of itself, exc ept groceries, was a mystery to him. A code of work he could not crack. Everything he could do, anything he could o er, Land’s End already had. Emma had o ered him work around the farm helping her and Jubi with the facts and gures, but he knew that was only because they had put Ruby on bed rest. He had her job. A position she’d been born into on account of her name. Whether he was there or not, he knew Ruby could always be employed in the work of the farm, but Sampson wasn’t that kind of man. He did what he was told, biding his time, waiting for the day he could decline. June said, “With more children running around, we need more teachers at the schools.” Sampson nodded, trying to follow where June was going. “We heard you had some college schoolin’. Is that right?” “Yeah, that’s right,” Sampson said. “We was thinking maybe you would be t to teach a class at the high school.” Sampson nodded. “Sounds like a good idea to me.” “Most of us ’round here ain’t ever left out of Land’s End, let alone went to no training college in the city. If teaching is all right with you, it’s all right with
us.” “That’s all right with me.” Sampson sighed, relieved. He looked at June, who would one day inherit his father’s church, the same as Ruby would inherit the farm, the same as all the other sons and daughters of Land’s End would inherit whatever work or business that employed their parents, be it eld hand or xer, barber or baker. He shook June’s hand and watched him walk o . No t h a n k y o u , or y o u ’ r e w e l c o m e , or c o n g r a t u l a t i o n s uttered between them. Back inside, Ruby cooed to the baby as Sampson entered the room. “Look at your daddy, right on time.” “How’s our girl doing?” he asked. “Eating,” Ruby said. “That means she’s ne,” Emma answered. “Can I hold her?” Ruby nodded her head and slowly unlatched the nursing baby from her breast. She tightened the swaddle blanket around the baby girl who kicked at the air as she was passed to Sampson. He looked down on the little one who looked nothing like him. Looked nothing like Ruby either. Their daughter took after Jubi and Emma. A bundle of light called forth from the caverns of the de ep. “You name her yet?” Sampson asked. “Not yet,” Ruby said. “How about Gladys,” he o ered. “Because that’s how I feel looking down at her now. Just mighty glad.” Ruby nodded. “Hello, Gladys,” she said, when Sampson passed the baby back to her. There were no objections. Not even from Jubi, who still stood in the corner beside Ruby’s head. She reached for the baby’s little hand with one nger. Waves of words unspoken washed over her. Ruby noticed. The delicacy. The tenderness of touch. She watched as the sternness she associated with her mother’s face melted without a disappearance into the distance or a head shake to rid it away. Twin arrows of grief and love shot through Ruby. Emma called them closing contractions on account of her nursing, but Jubi and Ruby knew
the truth. Looking down on the baby, they both swallowed bitter pills of resentment. Ruby focused on baby Gladys’s face, though she struggled getting her latched to the other breast. She wanted to ask for help, to reach for Jubi’s hand, but she didn’t. It was just as well. It took every inch of Jubi to ke ep her hands to herself, though her face told it all, shining like it did with tears that looked like love. She gazed at Gladys with only one thought. She knew that was the baby who was supposed to be hers.
O c to b e r 1 9 ŷ ź It was upon the occasion of Gladys’s birth when Jubi began to feel like her old, created self again. Whenever she looked at the bright-skinned babe she had wanted for her own, she’d snatch her grandgirl from Ruby and Sampson and carry the girl to her room, only taking her back to her parents when the child’s acute cries for milk overwhelmed all who could hear. With Gladys she could pretend like she did when she rst met, courted with, and eventually married Logan because he had assumed she was like him despite Emma’s warnings it couldn’t be done. “You think you gon’ marry that white man and make a happy life forever?” Emma had asked, when Jubi announced she was moving into the rooming house on the other side of the tracks. Jubi had answered ippantly, “Maybe so.” “And whatchu gon’ do when he nd out who you really is?” “He ain’t gon’ nd out.” Emma had humphed at her daughter’s con dence, Jubi’s certainty in who she was becoming. She and George didn’t understand the jumps Jubi’s mind made to get her to believe she was someone other than herself, light skin be damned. Emma and George were just as bright, if not more so, on account of both of their fathers being white. But they knew better. That looking similar was not the same as being. They didn’t believe people could hide their whole selves, put on someone else as a costume, and disappear. But that is exactly what Jubi did. Her vanishing act was so complete that Emma and George had to hear about their daughter’s pending nuptials to one Logan Je erson Danube III from the staring, murmuring, whispering folks who worked for them.