Page from a Tennessee Journal (AmazonEncore Edition)

again.
    “You think yo’ husband would go easier on you if he thought it was a colored man’s chile?”
    “Colored or not, it’s my fault,” she whispered into the coat. “If I had just told him no when he brought all that food. If I hadn’t hitched up my dress that day. If I had just kept my mouth shut. If…” The sobs racked her body.
    “If you’d let yo’ babies go hungry, if you had yo’self on two crinolines and three chemises under yo’ dress and that coat, if you’d looked cold and dead…” Becky’s strong hands raised Annalaura’s head from her chest. “Ain’t none of them ifs would have made a damn bit of difference.”
    Annalaura’s eyes widened. She had never heard her aunt speak a cuss word in all the years she had known Rebecca Thornton Murdock.
    “But somethin’ I did or said must have made him look at me. Made him think I wouldn’t fuss too much if he came to my bed…if he touched my body,” Annalaura stammered.
    Becky sat back in the kitchen chair with the wobbly leg. Her hand tapped at the bowl of her pipe.
    “If a Tennessee white man comes ridin’ along and spots an apple orchard and decides he wants him an apple, ain’t nothin’ that apple can do to make him pick a different one. It can’t hope that a breeze will come up and knock it to the ground. It can’t pray that a bird will peck a piece out of its side so it won’t look so good. A colored woman in Tennessee is just like that apple. Ain’t never been a brown-skinned woman who had any say over what a Tennessee white man can do with her body.” Becky’s voice trailed off as if she had been suddenly transported to another world.
    Annalaura clung to the mug as though it were her lifeline.
    “I was only fifteen when Old Ben Thornton came sniffin’ ’round me. It was slavery times, but when it comes to a white man wantin’ a black woman, slavery or no, it’s all the same in Tennessee.” The pain in Aunt Becky’s voice edged deeper, and for the first time, the agony of it filled Annalaura’s soul.
    “Cousin Johnny.” She didn’t have to work hard to let her tone sound reverential.
    The name on her niece’s lips seemed to shake Aunt Becky out of her growing morass.
    “I’ll give you the herbs, but I can’t get you no conjure woman.” Becky’s voice sounded gruff.
    Was it about Johnny?
    “I don’t want this child, Aunt Becky. The conjure woman can ream it out of me. I’ve heard of it workin’ on others.” She lowered her voice though the two were the only people in the lone cabin in the middle of forty acres.
    “You hear tell of those ‘others’ dyin’ from the conjure woman, did you?” Becky sat back in the chair, careful of its one shored-up leg, the pipe clenched between her teeth.
    “I know some die, but I’ve already had me fo’ babies. I’m strong enough for her to do her business.” Strength was eking its slow way back into Annalaura as she nodded her head for emphasis.
    Becky took a long draw on her pipe. She let the smoke curl in the space between them.
    “You know ’bout yo momma and the conjure woman?” Aunt Becky rocked slightly in the broken chair.
    “No’m.” Annalaura feared her aunt would crash to the floor.
    “You ’member yo’ momma dying?” Becky kept the pipe between her teeth without taking another draw.
    Annalaura shivered. “I can barely remember.” She peeled back her own memory curtains.
    “’Cose you can’t. I shooed you out into the rain when I brought yo’ momma back from the conjure woman.” Becky let her eyes slowly drift across Annalaura’s face.
    Annalaura read in those eyes that her aunt believed she was speaking the truth.
    “Yo’ momma was about as fur gone as you. Too late for the herbs. Happened ’bout this time of year, too.”
    Annalaura tried to bring the mug to her dry throat. “Auntie, Momma died of the gallopin’ consumption. Remember?” She let each word come out slow to bring her aunt gently back from the depths of time.
    “’Cose I remember, girl.” Becky’s eyes looked at her hard as glass. “It’s you who don’t remember.” Aunt Becky tried to suck another draw on her pipe, but it had gone dead. She got up and relit it from the fireplace. She settled back into the rocker.
    Annalaura swiveled her chair around to face Becky.
    “This old cabin was here in slavery days.” The old woman sounded of the long-ago. “It’s where me and yo’ momma was born. But, when yo’ momma married yo’ daddy, she moved