Page from a Tennessee Journal (AmazonEncore Edition)

table.
    The kerosene lamp highlighted the little spray of sun coming from the window over Cleveland’s alcove and played across her face. He was almost sure it was his Annalaura, but that look of surprise, mixed with a goodly amount of fright, confused him. He took a step toward her but stopped when he saw her face go pale underneath her brown skin.
    “Annalaura, I knows I been gone awhile, but I can explain.” Of all the faces he had pictured on his wife when she greeted his return, he hadn’t seen this one.
    He knew she’d be spitting mad, but this wasn’t anger that he saw. He took another step toward her and thought she was going to fall right off that chair onto the floor. Chair? He remembered that when he left, the family only possessed two crates for sitting and no chairs. He waited for her to speak, and when her mouth looked like it was frozen into a face that had seen a lynching, John’s heart picked up a pace. If it wasn’t anger that he was seeing on Annalaura’s face, then she must have passed anger and gone straight to don’t care. He couldn’t bear the thought. He unfastened the bottom button of his new suit and pulled out his shirt.
    “Now, Annalaura, ain’t no reason fo’ you to take on so. I been workin’ fo’ us.” John slipped a hand under the waistband of his pants and fumbled with his money belt. He undid the clasp and pulled out bills, piling them on the table. Fives, tens, and even twenties mounted. He kept his eyes on his wife who seemed to be barely breathing.
    “Annalaura, darlin’, I got us over a thousand dollars here.” He swept his hand over the pile, knocking a few of the bills in her direction. “Sugar, we gonna get us our own place. Our own farm. Girl, stop yo’ frownin’ and let’s get to dancin’.” He stepped around the table and pulled Annalaura from her chair.
    His arm moved to encircle her waist.
    “Mmm” strangled out of his voice box. “A…An…” His open hand lay inches from where her tight belly used to be. He stared at that big bulging thing that poked out in front of Annalaura.
    The look of the living space rushed at him. He spotted the potbellied stove that hadn’t been there when he left. He saw the tin of candied yams warming on the grate. The sweet scent of melting butter and sugar that should have filled his nostrils with pleasure brought only the taste of bile with it.
    He tried to swallow but choked on a mouthful of nothingness. His arms moved without him willing them. He pushed Annalaura away.
    “That.” The word exploded out of him. He pointed at her stomach.
    She stood stock-still.
    “Annalaura?” The word squeaked out of him. Tears puddled in his wife’s eyes. “Annalaura…you ain’t…that…ba…you cain’t…” He blinked his eyes to make the sight disappear. “What’s in yo’ belly, woman?” The words burst out of his dry throat.
    He took in a deep breath, ready to hear that his wife had contracted some dreaded woman’s disease. Something that men never learned about until their own women caught it. Something so terrible that it made the belly swell up like the woman had been poisoned. John grabbed the back of a second chair. His mind registered that the chair hadn’t been there when he left. He swallowed, steeling himself, waiting for Annalaura to tell him that she was about to die of some awful thing that had no medicine cure.
    “What’s in there?”
    She stood silent.
    “What’s inside you?” His voice clanged in his ears.
    Annalaura’s eyes turned in his direction.
    “I want to know what’s in yo’ belly.” He stepped toward her. “Tell me now, Annalaura. Damn it to hell, tell me now.”
    John didn’t feel his arm move out from his shoulder, but he heard, rather than felt, the smacking sound the back of his hand made across Annalaura’s cheek. He saw, rather than felt, her head snap back, and to the side as she stumbled against the wall that hadn’t been there when he left. He sensed, rather than heard or felt, the commotion from his children behind him. He walked closer to his wife, the left side of her body punched into the wall, sliding down the whitewashed surface. Her hands hung limp in the folds of her dress. Her mouth stayed silent. Grabbing her shoulders, he roughly pulled her back to her feet.
    “Annalaura, you ain’t done this to me. Tell me in the name of God Almighty that you ain’t done this to me.” He didn’t know how long he shook her, but the sound of her head banging