Free A Million Nightingales by Susan Straight

was fair and balding, the sweat at the back of his neck disappearing into folds when he lifted his head from the fish.
    Msieu was silent, moving his rice on the plate. He neededmoney. He wanted the sugar mill. I stared at one fish scale shining, curled, on the tablecloth like a fingernail pulled from an angel.
    I hated the coffee. What if someone moved the cup and I burned the hand? Their fingers moved too much. Tretite said the daughter's husband had sold Nonnie, Msieu Lemoyne's cook. It wasn't her fault he'd forgotten his cigar, but she was sold at auction in New Orleans.
    I held the preserve dishes, waiting for Félonise to bring the dessert.
    Where had the river trader got my peacock plate? Pink rosettes in Marie-Claire's cheeks, these dishes worth more than her bones. Là. There. I would be with you là-bas, Mamère had said. She was in her chair, praying I wouldn't drop this dish.
    “Dahlia,” Madame said, lifting the figs in their syrup. “My favorite dishes.”
    The next morning, I made certain to be downstairs when my mother came. And when I met her on the back gallery stairs, she didn't slide her fingers inside the laundry bundle for coffee beans. She said, “You ask why do we try if we are only animals? Because even a rat feed her babies and work hard to get my sugar and cornbread. Even a rat sit up at night and look at the dark. When the babies sleep.” She pointed to the side land and said, “Rat eat Marie-Claire cheeks and turn that blood into milk for her babies.”
    Madame was shouting upstairs. My mother turned and walked away.
    “We think the books cause the boutons!” Madame said angrily. I took them from the parlor shelf and stacked them in wooden crates.
    Céphaline took two volumes back from my hands. “I don't put my face into the pages.”
    “You don't sleep! You don't go outside! The Auzenne girls ride every day and make bouquets for the parlor. They have the flush of health. You are always reading and making yourself nervous.”
    Céphaline said evenly, “You are nervous. I am reading.”
    These were Grandmère Bordelon's husband's books, from France. I touched the spines.
    Madame sighed. “The Lemoynes will decide the sale of the land after the grinding. We will order dresses from New Orleans for winter. It is your task to think of pleasant conversation. Not from a book.”
    Nonc Pierre, the groom, his hair silver gray as fog rising from his forehead, took the books to the barn. Madame had me polish the mahogany bookcase with lemon oil, and on the shelves, she arranged vases and Spanish lace fans.
    Céphaline laughed. “I will continue to write my own books,” she said. Her fingers were purple, her sleeves stained with black.
    What if no one reads them but you? I wanted to ask her. Are they still books then?
    But I was silent.
    The next day, she had pages and pages hidden under her mattress. They whispered when she moved, calling out for water. When she took the glass, her face looked as if it floated in a dark, rain-heavy cloud on her pillow, and her breath rose sweet-hot as sugared brandy.
    But her book gave me back to my mother, if only for one morning.
    “Look at the ink,” Madame fretted. “Céphaline is too ill for lessons today. Take those dresses to your mother to treat the stains.”
    Céphaline slept, eyelids traced with lavender bayous like her maps. In the kitchen, Tretite was assembling a basket. “Your mother say white beet for ink. The leaf, too. Six eggs. She say bring salt.”
    I hurried to our clearing. The cane was still high here. The cutters would approach the rows closest to the Bordelon house last, near Christmas, presenting the final stalk tied with a red ribbon to Msieu.
    “Mamère.”
    She was drinking her coffee at dawn, sitting in the chair. I knelt before her and kissed her circle-bone knees through her dress.
    I couldn't tell her how much I missed all her words, even though they had frightened and angered me when she pressed them into my ears. With her