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Her nana looked back at her, and seeing what she was doing, said “Careful now. Don’t get that in your eyes.” She took the bottle from Jilo’s hand and closed the stopper before setting it next to the other clear bottle. Jilo noticed the old woman’s hand trembled a bit as she reached for the neck of the tall blue bottle. Her nana took the bottle in her right hand, and used her left to twist on its cork stopper until it came out with a pop.
She turned her attention back to Jilo. “Not all men are good, but someday you’re gonna meet one of the good ones. You’re gonna want to have his babies because of who he is, not just ’cause it’s something that happened to you.” She tilted the bottle up, and Jilo watched as a liquid unlike any she’d come across—even in her advanced chemistry classes—flowed out of it. A fluid somewhat resembling mercury spilled into the cup, but this substance glowed with a phosphorescence unlike any of the normal properties of the liquid metal. Rather than blending with the other two ingredients, it seemed to come alive, like a tiny serpent in a brackish sea. Her nana stopped the bottle up, then handed the concoction to her.
“That there gonna burn a bit going down, and it’s gonna make you sleep for maybe a day, but when you wake up, your situation’ll be cleared up for you. If that’s what you want.”
Jilo stared into the glass, watching as the band of glowing silver swirled around, connecting head to tail into a figure eight, then breaking apart again. Her nana always swore to her that her “magic” wasn’t real, but the behavior of the unidentified quicksilver-like substance made her wonder, if only for a moment.
“What is in this?” Jilo swiveled the glass in her hand, growing even more curious as the substance refused to dissolve into the rest of the mixture.
“It’s safe. For you,” Nana said, not really answering the question. “You ain’t the first girl Nana’s done this for, so you don’t need to worry.” Nana’s features softened. “You ain’t”—she emphasized the word—“the first girl Nana’s done this for, so no need to feel like you doing something wrong.” She reached out and took Jilo’s free hand. The old woman’s touch felt cool, dry, papery. “Men, they’ll tell you that you shouldn’t have a choice in the matter, but Nana figures until those men step up and help raise what’s in you, it ain’t none of they business anyway. You, girl, Nana wants you to know you have a choice.”
She released Jilo and collected her bottles, then walked off stiffly to return them to where they’d come from.
Jilo weighed two possible futures. Perhaps there was still time. She could
write the women doctors whose achievements she wanted so badly to emulate. Take a job. Maybe even save up enough money to go visit them in person.
If she had this child, she’d be branded a fallen woman. She’d have a hard time finding any kind of employment, and she’d certainly never see the inside of a medical school. Her life would be hard. Probably lonely, too. Not many men—even the good ones—would willingly raise another man’s child. Her nana was right, there was no shame in making the decision to return to the path she’d envisioned for her life. But up until this moment, she hadn’t thought she would have a choice, and she’d begun to imagine other things. What it would be like to have someone of her very own, someone so completely connected to her that they were a part of each other.
“Nana,” she said as the old woman returned from the pantry.
“Yes, baby?”
“If you were me, what would you do?”
The old woman’s eyes brightened and a smile stole over her face. “Nana, she’d do the same thing she reckons you about to do.” She reached up and pulled Jilo’s forehead down to her lips and planted a kiss on her brow. Releasing Jilo, she stepped back. “Nana be out in the garden for a while, if you need her.” She turned and shuffled toward the door that opened to the outside. The room grew brighter as she opened the door, then dimmed again as she pulled it closed.
Jilo looked down at the glass in her trembling hand. She closed her eyes and raised it to her lips. The liquid’s fiery, bitter smell promised her freedom, a chance to start over. There was no shame in letting go of this child. But her heart was not willing to do it.
Jilo opened her eyes and emptied the glass’s contents into the sink. No matter what folk thought, there was no shame in having this baby either. She turned on the faucet to wash the silvery band down the drain.
BOOK THREE:
MOTHER JILO
ONE
Savannah, Georgia—July 1954
May sat at her kitchen table, unmoving, her cup of chicory long since cooled.
Lately, May had been dreaming of days long since past, days that, this morning, seemed strangely closer and more real than the world around her. Some of the dreams were about cleaning the house of her first employer, and though she was sitting at her own table now, she felt certain that if she closed her eyes, she would see every nook and cranny of a house that she hadn’t set foot in going on sixty years.
May had begun working as the Farleys’ maid just after her thirteenth birthday. Right from the get-go, the lady of the house, known by one and all as “Miss Rose” despite being married to Mr. Andrew Farley, struck May as an anxious, nervous child, even though Miss Rose was a good ten or fifteen years older than May herself.
“Mr. Farley likes an orderly kitchen,” Miss Rose said, opening the pantry door and stepping just over the threshold. “He likes to see all labels facing forward, and they should be in alphabetical order.” She paused and gave May a nervous glance. “You do know how to read, don’t you, dear? You understand what alphabetical order means?”
“Yes, ma’am,” May nodded. She was so young. She still cared about making a good impression on this weak and spineless woman.
Miss Rose led her past her husband’s study. “If the door is closed, you may not enter.” She wagged her finger in May’s face. “Mr. Farley likes a clean, orderly space, and you will be expected to keep his office in good order, but”—she stopped and set a grave expression on her face to underline the seriousness of the knowledge she was about to impart—“you must never touch the papers on Mr. Farley’s desk.” And May never did.
May got on fine at the Farleys’, right up until Miss Rose died during labor. When Mr. Farley married again soon after, his new wife brought servants with her from her family home in Augusta. Though she felt at ease with the servants she’d grown up amongst, she simply couldn’t bear the thought of an unfamiliar colored poking around in her private belongings. It was nothing personal, the new Mrs. Farley wanted May to understand, but she had such pretty things, and well, an ounce of prevention and all that. It was really in May’s best interest to seek out alternative employment.
And so May did. She found work cleaning house for old Mr. Whitcomb, with his shock of snow-white hair, and his spotted hands that would run over a body, if that body didn’t move quickly enough away. He lived all alone, his wife gone and his children distant, emotionally if not physically, in a grand house on Calhoun Square.
At their first meeting, the old man had presented her with a box, wrapped with brown paper and string. “Take it home with you. Keep it there, but don’t open it until I tell you that you may. Don’t go opening this until it’s time, or things won’t go well for you,” he warned, a gleam in his eye telling her that in fact he would like nothing better than for her to go poking around in his squalid business, and he believed her incapable of leaving well enough alone. Only a wealthy white man like him, a man who had never felt powerless or threatened, would think that way.
He couldn’t imagine finding himself in a position where folk could treat you however they wanted, saying or doing anything and feeling more than justified, making up lies for themselves so they could paint you as the threat and themselves the innocent, the defenders of good. He couldn’t fathom the possibility of ever finding himself incapable of even saying a word in his own defense, just having to take it from those who are waiting with angry, jealous hearts for you to step out of line so they have an excuse to beat you down. But May didn’t have to imagine it; she’d lived her life there.
