Chapter Thirty-Four

thirty-four

WHEN JEMMA WOKE IN MAGDALENE'S cabin on her birthday, a few days later, she marveled that she was only twenty-eight years old. After everything that had happened, she felt twice that. As she sat up on the mattress, she knew the weariness would pass once she had time to process it all.

"Happy birthday, Emmaline."

Magdalene leaned against the table, her earthenware mug in one hand.

"Thank you."

"What you going to do today? Walk up to the house, watch them sweat it out 'til midnight?"

Jemma chuckled, rising to her feet. "You think they're still scared?"

"I know they are. Wish I could be a fly on the wall. They're probably sitting around that dining room table, hands flat on top, asking that maid to bring them the runniest soup she can." Magdalene sipped her chicory, her eyes twinkling over the rim of the cup.

After they all had set the spirits free, Jemma hadn't waited for or expected the Duchons to thank her. She'd been too bone weary to hang around.

"I'll be back after my birthday," she'd told them, heading out with Magdalene. "We have one more thing to do."

Since then, she'd done nothing but sleep and eat the swamp rabbit stew Magdalene pushed on her. When she grew tired of lying in bed, she walked the woods outside, enjoying the sounds of the mosquitoes and birds in a way she never had before. The humidity didn't weigh as heavily on her as it once had.

She told her friend now, "They shouldn't be scared anymore. The curse is broken. For real this time."

"Yeah, but when people been doing the same thing for so long, like shitting bricks on your birthday, it can be hard to stop."

Despite herself, Jemma felt sorry for the quartet at the house.

"You hungry?" Magdalene asked.

Jemma shook her head. "I think I'll go for a walk first, before it gets too hot."

She spent over an hour wandering around the woods, unafraid of getting lost. Magdalene had shown her the trails she'd made over the years, telling Jemma that as long as she kept to the path, she shouldn't run into any danger. Her bare feet crunched over leaves; her hands trailed along tree trunks. Her hair had worked itself out of the neat plaits her friend had fashioned for her. Jemma ran her hands through her thick hair, so unlike the Duchons', something she had so envied when she'd first met them. Just as she'd envied them their skin, their eyes. Had she shared all of that with them, she never would have been sent away. And maybe her mother wouldn't have cursed them.

Her life could have been completely different.

But what kind of life would it have been? One in which she referred to herself as colored, in which she looked down on people who didn't look like her? One in which she'd marry a relative in order to ensure her descendants looked like all the ancestors who came before?

The Duchons hadn't been trapped just by Inès's curse. They'd been trapped by their hatred of what they really were.

To her surprise, when she returned to the cabin a yellow loaf cake sat in the middle of the table, its rich smell filling up the room. Magdalene was banging around in the single cabinet on the wall.

"What's this?" Jemma asked. One side of the cake was browner than the other, but it still looked and smelled delicious.

"It's your birthday. You need a cake." Magdalene came forward with a white taper candle, shrugging. "This the only candle I got."

"Oh, thank you!" Jemma embraced her friend, tears stinging her eyes. She'd never known Magdalene to cook anything besides squirrels, possums and rabbits. She didn't know the woman could bake a cake.

"It's nothing fancy, okay? Best I could do with what I got."

"It's beautiful, Mag."

Magdalene stuck the big candle in the middle of the cake, both of them laughing at the ridiculousness of it, and Jemma made a wish and blew out the high flame. So their breakfast was slices of pound cake still warm from the woodstove.

Afterward, she walked to the edge of the woods, staring at the back of the house. She did wonder what the family was doing, if they were still gripped by the fear that had roosted in every corner and room since the day she was born. A part of her wanted to go there. She'd never spent a birthday with them, after all. But another part reminded her of the last time she'd seen them all, in the dark and dusty room where they'd worked together to free the dead who'd been trapped for ages.

They'd been too wrung out to look like anything besides the haunted. Jemma hadn't expected their undying gratitude, of course. Things were still tender between them, their feelings as fraught and exposed as nerves in a bad tooth. But she'd expected something more than what she'd gotten as Magdalene placed an arm around her shoulders and led her out.

No one had called out after them.

Were they sitting around, sweat running down Honorine's perfectly powdered face, crooked tracks revealing age spots? Had uneasiness dampened Russell's appetite, if that was even possible? Was Simone watching Fosette like a hawk, ensuring that her remaining child was safe?

Jemma knew they had no cause for concern, but like Magdalene said, she was sure her birthday cast a pall over their entire day. And they might not ever forgive her for that.

—

THE NEXT MORNING, HAVING HEARD no screaming in the night, and not having been awoken by a frantic banging on the cabin door, Jemma assumed everything was all right at the Duchons'. She awoke to no sign of Magdalene. After washing up and eating a large slice of cake, she headed toward the big house and entered through the kitchen, startling the maid, who was setting bowls and cups on the rolling cart.

"You can't just knock on the front door?" Yvonne asked.

"My family lives here. If you don't want anyone coming in this way, lock the door. Where are they?"

"Mr.Russell is in the dining room, but the ladies haven't come down for breakfast yet."

Jemma lifted the lid on one of the serving dishes, ignoring the woman's tight lips, finding fluffy eggs inside. "Smells good."

She preceded Yvonne into the dining room and plopped into her old chair. Russell looked up from the newspaper.

"Good morning, Uncle Russell."

He shifted in his seat and greeted her, setting his coffee cup down. A look of discomfort distorted his normally handsome face.

"Everything good? Everyone make it through the night?"

He frowned at her lighthearted questions, clearly thinking there was nothing to joke about.

"Oh, come on. You all should be celebrating. No more curse, I'm out of your hair…"

"Not quite, are you?" Simone asked from behind her.

Jemma craned her neck to find her aunt, grandmother and cousin filing into the room and taking their seats.

"Good morning to you, Auntie."

Gone was the woman who'd cowered against the wall just a couple of days ago. Back was the woman who'd probably worn pants only a handful of times in her life. It was almost comforting to Jemma to see Simone back to her snippy self.

Yvonne set the breakfast dishes on the table and poured coffee. After she sent a quizzical look to Honorine, the older woman nodded once. The maid went to the kitchen while the family said grace, and she returned with a place setting for Jemma, arranging the plate, fork, knife and spoon in front of her quickly, almost elbowing her in the face.

Silently, they began passing platters and tureens around. At first, Jemma wondered if Fosette would ignore her, but her cousin handed over a platter of sausages while keeping her eyes on her own plate.

Jemma was hungrier than she'd expected. She'd eaten only cake for the past day. And Yvonne's cooking was considerably better than her mother's had been, much as she didn't want to admit it. With the smoky smell no longer hanging over everything, the food tasted better. So Jemma, sure that this would be the last meal she shared with her family, ate almost as much as Russell.

"You promised you'd be back after your birthday," Honorine said to her, pushing aside her plate, half full of food. "What is this about?"

"First, how did you all spend my birthday?"

They exchanged glances.

"No lies now."

Fosette spoke up. "We sat in here for most of the day. We were still…scared. Uncle Russell didn't shave, and we only ate broth for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Last night, though, we all moved into the parlor and watched television. Perry Mason. My Three Sons. Grandmère listened to the radio. We watched the clock until midnight, didn't we? And when it hit twelve oh one, only then did we know we were all right."

Jemma nodded. "Thank you for being honest."

"Look," Fosette said, turning to Jemma and shocking her with her next words. "I'm sorry. I know that ever since you came, things have been…Well, we haven't been kind to you. I'm sorry you were ever sent away, sorry for Tante Inès." Her gaze flicked over to her mother. "Sorry for how my maman treated you."

"Don't apologize on my behalf," Simone hissed.

Fosette ignored her. "But we should apologize. I can't make any of them do it, but I'm sorry."

It was more than Jemma expected. And no, she didn't expect the rest of them to apologize, least of all Simone, but hearing one of them say sorry was surprisingly fulfilling. And if that was all she got, she'd be satisfied with it.

Jemma pushed her plate aside and folded her hands on the table, leaning forward. "The reason I'm still here is because although we put those souls to rest, you can't continue to live on top of their bodies. Something has to be done about that room." When no one protested, she continued. "It needs to be torn down."

"What?" Honorine squawked, but Jemma was already nodding.

"Yes, it has to go."

"If we tear it down, it will affect the structural integrity of this entire house."

"And if you don't tear it down, you'll know you're living on top of a mass grave. After everything that's happened, can you really go on like that?"

Honorine sat back in her seat. Jemma knew that what her grandmother said next would either get the rest of the family on board or have them oppose her yet again. She met her grandmother's level gaze. "Also, if you don't do as I say, I'll curse this family."

A silence settled over the room, a river of panic humming beneath it. Honorine's gaze dropped, and when she finally spoke, her voice was little more than a whisper.

"Who on earth is going to tear it down?" Honorine asked.

"I don't know, but I'm sure the yellow pages have plenty of options for you."

She looked at Simone as if daring her aunt to say something, anything, but the smirk that so often rested on the woman's face was gone. In its place was a thoughtfulness Jemma had never seen before. But it was Russell who spoke.

"Maman, she's right. We have to tear it down."

—

IN THE END, JEMMA OVERSAW the deconstruction a couple of weeks later. The whole family, plus Magdalene, stood off by the croquet pitch as a crew of workmen saw to the demolition. It had taken some persuasion on Honorine's part.

"Madam," the man in charge of the operation had addressed her when they'd come out a few days before, "there's no way we can remove that room clean. Not without bringing down the whole second floor. Now, it's not connected to the second floor, but the roof is attached to the ground level. If we just go in there and tear the walls and roof down, that's going to leave some stone sticking out of the exterior wall. This house is too pretty to have that ugly look on the outside of it."

Like this morning, Jemma had joined the rest of the family when she'd spied the crew from the woods.

"Sir," Honorine replied, "I'm paying you a good deal of money to demolish that room, and I expect to have it done. What the exterior looks like or doesn't look like isn't your concern. You'll do what I'm paying you to do."

The man had looked over at Russell, as if pleading for help from the only other rational person on the grounds, but Jemma's uncle had shrugged and continued smoking his post-breakfast cigarette.

So the crew was now busy tearing down the walls and roof of the old kitchen. Honorine had made it clear that they were to leave the floor alone. The men worked through the day, and when they'd finished, driving off in their work trucks and leaving behind a pile of brick and stone, the exterior of the house was ugly, Jemma had to admit. Instead of a smooth wall, pieces of stone jutted from where the roof had been.

Honorine and Simone stared at the aftermath, tears shining in their eyes.

A square dirt patch was all that remained.

"Call a gardener, Grandmother," Jemma said, staring down at the ground. "Call someone and have them plant flowers here. Roses and tulips. And some daffodils. Let them grow here all the time. This is going to be a place of beauty."

She turned to go back to Magdalene's, her friend falling into step next to her. But Honorine called after her.

"And you? What are you going to do? Where are you going to go?"

"I don't know."

"Come by the day after tomorrow. We have some things to discuss."

Jemma stared at Honorine, searching for something in her grandmother's tight expression, but there was no hint of anything there. So she simply nodded once and walked back to the woods, with Magdalene beside her.

"What are you going to do?" Magdalene asked as soon as they reached the cabin. Instead of going inside, they sat on a log by the well. Jemma turned her head up to the sky, dappled sunlight playing patterns across her face. She leaned back on her hands and closed her eyes.

"I really don't know. I thought about going back home, but there's nothing there for me anymore. No mama, no daddy, no man, no job."

"You thought about staying here?"

Jemma sat up straight and looked at her friend. "Where? You know they don't want me." She lifted a chin toward the Duchons'.

"I don't mean them. I mean just here."

Jemma had thought about staying in New Orleans, although not with Magdalene, in her one-room cabin. The woman had already been more than charitable by letting Jemma share her bed most nights. A part of Magdalene's life had grown on her, though. The quiet of the woods, the sparseness of her home. Back in Chicago, Jemma had often felt that she didn't have enough, although enough of what, she couldn't have said. But being here proved that she didn't need nearly as much as she'd believed she did.

She could easily walk into the parish and find a job teaching, she knew. She could find a room to rent, save her money and eventually buy her own modest place. She might even find a man to love and have children with someday.

And would she visit the Duchons, her family? Would she ride out on Sunday afternoons and have tea with them? Lay flowers on her father's grave?

Even now, despite recent events, when even Simone wasn't sniping at Jemma all the time, she didn't know if it was possible to have a real relationship with them. Sure, they had admitted to a lot of wrongs, but they hadn't changed how they felt about her, about other people who looked like her.

Maybe, though, Jemma thought, if they worked on having a relationship, she might be able to visit them one day without a tightness in her jaw or tension in her shoulders serving as reminders of what they used to be to one another.

Maybe.

"If you do stay," Magdalene said, "I can show you around a little. I don't go into the city much, but I can still show you where it's safe to shop and live."

"I'd like that."

"I like to think that if my baby girl had lived, she would've grown up to be a lot like you." Jemma looked over. Her friend leaned forward, elbows on her spread knees. "I know you used to think you weren't much of anything, but now you see you are. You're a strong woman, Jemma. Inès didn't have that same strength, but I know she was proud of you for it." Magdalene turned to face her. "You going to look for her?"

"I want to, but I don't know where to start."

The other woman nodded. "Yeah, it's a big world out there. But she probably wants you to find her. I think, if you start looking, someday you two will be together again. She had a lot of regrets, but having you and your brother wasn't any of them."

—

THE NEXT MORNING, JEMMA, DRESSED in her one good dress, fluffed her rag curls in the spotted mirror and sighed at the three different textures: kinky, flattened kinky and somewhat straight. She didn't know why she even bothered anymore. Maybe she'd just let her hair be natural, be like Beneatha in A Raisin in the Sun and start wearing African print dresses and getting in touch with her roots. She mussed her hair with her hands and told Magdalene she was going to the house.

The back door was open. Jemma joined the rest of the Duchons in the dining room, where they sat in front of mostly empty breakfast plates.

"Bon matin, Cousine," Fosette said.

"Good morning," Jemma replied, taking her seat and piling what was left of the food on her plate.

The maid cleared the rest of the dishes away after pouring Jemma a cup of coffee and giving her a curt greeting after Jemma said good morning to her.

A long white envelope had appeared in front of Honorine. "I assume we won't be seeing much of you after this. Will you stay in New Orleans?"

"No. I thought about it, and I don't have a place here. It doesn't feel like home to me, and I'm not sure it ever would." She chewed a piece of baguette, wondering if she should tell them about her plans. "Wherever I end up, the first thing I want to do is to find my mother."

Honorine nodded, as if she expected it. "If you find her…"

"You want me to tell her you're sorry?"

"I want you to tell her that she will always be a Duchon."

Jemma stopped chewing. "What does that mean?" When her grandmother didn't answer, she put her fork down. "That's it? ‘You're still a Duchon'? No apology at all? Look, I don't need one. You all aren't into that, clearly. But after what you put her through, for the reasons you put her through it, I would think that at the very least a tiny ‘I'm sorry' is called for."

"Inès will understand" was all Honorine said.

Jemma fell back in her seat, the bread a rock in her stomach, sinking in a bitter sea of coffee.

She took a look around the table, not wanting to see all their faces but needing to all the same. This was her last time in this house, she knew. So she wanted to remember it for those times in the future when she might try to convince herself these past months with them had all been an extended nightmare, with just a few bright spots to break up the horror.

Honorine pushed the envelope forward. Jemma's full name was written on it in an elegant cursive hand.

"You were hired for a job, which you have done," her grandmother said. "Inside are your earnings, via cashier's check. You may cash it at First Citizens Bank if you wish. I have already called and instructed them to assist you, as your account is open again."

Jemma stared at the envelope, not reaching for it. All the money that she'd briefly held just a few short weeks ago was inside it, allowing her to do just about anything she wanted, to go almost anywhere she wanted to go. Maybe even allow her to hire someone to find Inès.

She took it and held it in her lap.

Just as she wondered if, or how, she should thank her grandmother for giving her what was rightfully hers, Honorine said, "We thank you for your services."

Jemma looked up at her before turning to each of her family members in turn. Russell's sheepish gaze. Simone's stony face. Fosette's blank stare.

Thank you for your services. As if Jemma were another hired hand, like Dennis had been, like the workmen who'd demolished the old kitchen, like Yvonne.

Like her mother had been.

She had helped free her family, but she could see that these remaining four would probably always be trapped in their way of thinking. Even though they could now leave this crumbling house, their minds were still rotten. Although Fosette was the youngest and had the greatest chance to change, Jemma knew her cousin wouldn't. She imagined Fosette wandering the rooms and the hallways in ten, twenty years' time, her beauty even brittler. There would be no husband, no children.

A small part of Jemma took pity on them all.

She rose from her seat, sticking her hand out to her grandmother. "This is goodbye, then." And Honorine shook her hand as if they were employer and employee, which was how their relationship had started, after all. Jemma went around the table and repeated the action with the others, except Fosette, who rose out of her seat as she approached. Jemma stiffened, hoping and also not hoping for a hug from her cousin. And then she was wrapped in a quick embrace, Fosette whispering in her ear, "Laurence did love you, you know," and then it was over, Fosette back in her seat.

Jemma took them all in one last time, their upturned faces, their eyes not so much standing out as blending into their skin.

This was her family.

She walked out through the kitchen and stopped by the plot of land where Adam and six others were buried. Honorine had done what Jemma had told her to do. Instead of being a dirt patch, it was now covered with new sod, grass sprouting throughout. A line of lush pink rose bushes flanked the wall. Left alone, they'd grow tall enough to hide the unsightly stone parts sticking out. In front of the roses sat yellow daffodils and blue hyacinths. Bordering the patch were white tulips.

Jemma reached down and pulled one of the tulip stems free before taking one last look at the back of the house.

She made her way to the old slave cemetery and stopped by her father's grave. She knelt and laid the tulip on top of it.

"Thank you for saving me, Daddy. I won't be back here, but I'm carrying you with me. I wish you an eternity of peace."