Free The Black Rose by Tananarive Due Page A

you away empty-handed, neither. I’ll give you some money to start, and it’s a gift , not a loan. That means you won’t have to pay it back. It’s not much, but I think you’ll be able to make do.”
    “How Alex gon’ find us?” Sarah blurted, forgetting to address Missus Anna by her courtesy title. Mama would have cuffed her for that.
    “Believe me, girls, any letters I get from your brother will be kept safely for you. Y’all can come back anytime and ask me if there’s been any word. I owe you that, too.” Suddenly she paused, breathless. “Oh, my, I forgot my manners. You girls want some lemonade?”
    Sarah looked at Louvenia, who was slowly shaking her head. “Thank you, ma’am, but no,” Louvenia said in a scratchy voice. “We got to go now.”
    “Are you sure? After that long walk—”
    Louvenia had already stood up, tugging on Sarah’s hand. Sarah gazed at the cool, sweet yellow liquid in Missus Anna’s glass, which was beading through in fat droplets of water. Sarah would have given just about anything, in that instant, just for one tiny sip. Missus Anna had offered them lemonade on a visit once before, and she thought maybe it would have made her feel just a little better. But Louvenia was ready to leave, and Sarah had no choice but to follow.
    Louvenia was walking swiftly, nearly running, and it wasn’t long before Sarah heard sobs catching in her sister’s throat. The awfulness of the sound reminded Sarah of the few times she’d heard her Mama crying, a sound that had made the world stand still.
    “Guess that ol’ biggity Rita do too like us, huh?” Sarah said, trying to make a joke.
    It didn’t help. Louvenia sobbed on, inconsolable, wiping her face with her arm as she walked. She nearly stumbled into a tree trunk, until Sarah guided her past it. Louvenia was murmuring the same helpless words she’d heard falling from so many other croppers’ lips: “What we gon’ do now?” The words tried to burrow into Sarah’s heart and make her cry, too, but she refused. Wouldn’t make any sense for both of them to be crying all the way home.
    “But jus’ think, Lou. What if we do really good in Vicksburg? You know how you been talkin’ ’bout gettin’ out the fields.”
    “Not with no damn money!” Louvenia screamed at her.
    “But Missus Anna say she gon’ give us—”
    “An’ how long that gon’ last? Girl, we ’bout to go to that city with nothin’ . You heard Alex say he couldn’t find no good work. An’ now we don’t even …” Her words were interrupted by an anguished sob. “… we don’t even know where he at.”
    Maybe Louvenia was right, Sarah realized. She’d been imagining life in Vicksburg as a grand adventure, a chance to change their lives for the better, but maybe the same cold and hunger and endless work were waiting for them there. Maybe they would starve.
    The more she thought about it, the more Sarah’s heart began to plummet with terror. What if they hadn’t heard anything from Alex because he was out starving somewhere, too? Louvenia was crying because she was scared , she realized, not because she was sad.
    In her mind, Sarah could see the fear rolling toward her, she could hear it like a cold drumbeat, and she thought about the first time she jumped in the river over her head when she was little because Louvenia had dared her; how she couldn’t hear anything or see anything, hardly, and she’d never been more scared in her life, but she knew if she screamed she would drown. So she hadn’t screamed.
    She’d looked up toward where the sunlight was glowing above her, and she’d kicked her legs and flung her arms alongside her just like Papa had shown her, and she kept doing it even though she’d felt like she wasn’t moving, she’d kept doing it even when she was sure she was about to die because her lungs were tight with hot air, and then just as she’d felt like giving up, her head had broken above the surface and been kissed all over