Free Balm by Dolen Perkins-Valdez Page B

Her bag held flowers, some grass. That was really all there was. Flowers and grass.
    He spoke tenderly, drawing her out again. “You find something?”
    She took some petals from her bag, held out her palm for him to sniff. He leaned. The muscle in his neck twitched, and she could not help but touch it with her other hand. For a moment, he allowed her hand to linger there, as most folks did. Not much to heal with this one. Everything sounded brisk and sharp inside him. But there was something else. A grievance down deep in his gut. She had never felt a sadness so thick. He suddenly drew back, and she mumbled an apology.
    â€œBack home they call me Horse,” he said, rubbing his neck where her hand had been. That hand had been so warm. She had soothed him with her touch, and now he felt split wide open.
    The wind died; the grass ceased its rustling. Here it was again: the past reaching up to steal what little joy Madge could manage. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.
    â€œSoon as I could, I pick a name for myself. Felt like being born again.”
    Her heart returned to its rightful place, and her voice arrived with it. “Horse ain’t no kind of name.”
    â€œI was wanting to take a real name. I can’t be called no Horse up here. But then I think, how she gone find me if I change it? What if she come looking?”
    â€œWhat if who come looking.”
    â€œMy wife.”
    She had hoped the laundress in his yard was not his wife, but it had not occurred to her there might have been a wife from before.
    â€œYou left a wife?”
    â€œShe left me. Sold off before we was freed. I’m aiming to find her.”
    â€œAnd the laundress?” She could not help herself, the first taste of jealousy on her lips. She had been taught to distrust men. Surely he could be no better than the rest. “Richard say a woman be washing in your yard.”
    He looked at her briefly, as if taking his first estimation of her, then looked away. “She just using the yard. Don’t belong to us nohow.”
    The train’s far-off whistle screeched. Coolness crept over her, and she pulled her cape around her shoulders.
    â€œWhy Hemp?”
    â€œHemp was what we grew. Man owned us by the name of Harrison. Harrison’s Hemp. Be mighty nice if my new name help my wife find me.”
    The train appeared in the distance, and Madge looked at him, the drawn cheeks, the horn of a nose. The man’s face was chiseled bone. She wanted to wrap her arms around his waist, but she had never done such a thing to a man in her life and did not even know where to start.
    Hemp’s eye flitted in and out of focus. One moment he was looking intently at her, the next he was elsewhere. He was like a half-person.
    â€œI got to find her ’cause I got to confess.”
    â€œConfess what?”
    The sound of the approaching train threatened to drown his words.
    â€œAnnie’s girl, Herod. She try to do something with me that wasn’t natural.”
    â€œSomething like what?”
    The train’s wheels roared, the screech of metal on metal. They raised their voices.
    â€œI hit her. I hit her to get her off of me.”
    â€œYou hit her?”
    â€œI was sleep! And I hit her to make her stop!”
    She took his hands in hers and rubbed the backs of them. She did not believe he was telling her more than she could handle, but his eyes were wide with fear, his lips marked from the pressure of teeth. The train was upon them, and nothing either of them could say would be heard. Had the train not arrived at that moment, he might have caught the hushing sound coming from her lips. “Shhh. Shhh. Shhh.”
    When they got back to the house, he deposited her on the steps, his face back to its normal. “I hope you found what you went out there looking for.”
    She pulled the bonnet close, hiding her feelings as she stepped into the widow’s kitchen, and shut the door softly