In This Light Read Online Free Page B

not permitted to hold the precious mirror or brush my mama’s hair either. She said I was too rough, too clumsy—seven years’ bad luck—I brushed too fast, only Martha Parnell did it right:
Yes, Martha, that feels nice.
I hid in the shadows of the doorway.
Yes, like that, good girl, Martha, just another hundred strokes.
Mama’s honey hair caught the light, shot back a thousand sparks of gold fire. Martha said, “My mam told me the angels have yellow hair, Missus.” She stopped to press the silken strands to her mouth and nose, forgetting Mama could see her in the mirror. “Stop that,” Mama said. “I don’t have time for such silliness.” Martha raised the brush, gripped it like the stick she’d used to beat the stray dog in the yard, but she brought it down gently, brushing again—a hundred strokes, just like Mama said—before she coiled that angel hair into two thick braids and pinned them tight, high on Mama’s head.
    Martha couldn’t make Seth take the bottle after Mama died. She was a spinster at twenty, a girl who never ripened, hips narrow as a boy’s and bone-hard, breasts already shriveled before they’d blossomed. Her body offered no comfort to man or child. Father cursed the sight of her, abused her for the foolish way she cooed at the baby, making him cry harder till he was too hoarse to wail and only squeaked. She dipped her finger in warm milk, but Seth was not fooled. Only Beulah could soothe him, holding him on the great pillow of her lap, quieting him with hands so fat and smooth she seemed to have no bones. She gave him a bit of cloth soaked with sugar water. He suckled and slept. Still, my father’s only son was starving; that’s what drove him down to the slaves’ quarters, looking for Lize.
    The man come to the shack. He say, my boy’s hungry. He pulls my dress apart at the neck, looks at my breasts like I’m some cow. He say, looks like you got plenty to spare.
    Secretly I was glad to hear my father rail at Martha Parnell, calling her a worthless dried-up bit of ground, threatening to send her scrawny ass back to Ireland if she didn’t find some way to make herself useful. At my mother’s funeral, she tugged on my braids and hissed in my ear, “Looks like you’re no better’n me now, Miss Selina. Nothin’ but a motherless child with no one but the devil to keep her safe from her daddy. Don’t I know. Eight of us. Mama and the ninth dead and me the oldest. Just you watch yourself, little girl, and lock your door at night.” My lack of understanding made her laugh out loud. People turned to stare. When Father caught my eye, my face burned, blood rising in my cheeks as if I’d just been slapped.
    Martha’s only pleasure was bringing sorrow to others. Her lies cost Abe his ears. Mama was nearing her sixth month when it happened. She yelled when a door slammed too hard, fretted when the heat got too heavy—she was a walking misery, despising her own bloated body, its strange new weight, its hard curves. When Martha claimed Abe cuffed her jaw and shoved her down, Mama’s judgment was swift and cruel. He was going to be an example. “Can’t let these boys get above themselves,” she said.
    I pleaded for mercy. Martha was always calling Abe, telling him to fetch her some water, fetch her some eggs. One day she’d say, “Help me move this rockin’ chair, Abe.” And the next day, she’d make him move it back to where it had always been. She ran her fingers through her dry, colorless hair; she batted her stubby eyelashes and never thanked him.
    I knew she led him into the grove, looking for mushrooms, she said; but as soon as the trees hid them, she grabbed his wrist and pushed her face against his, mouth wet and open for the kiss he would not give. Scorned gentleman, proper husband of another woman, he knocked the girl to the ground and fled.
    Spitting blood from her bitten lip, Martha came complaining to Mama. False and fearful, she whispered she was lucky to have her