The Bernice L. McFadden Collection. Bernice L. McFadden

soon as she disappeared around the side of the house, Cole snatched open the French doors, sprinted across the parlor, down the hall, and slammed into the kitchen just as Caress was opening the back door.

      Both Doll and Caress were startled by his sudden and rowdy arrival, and the women exchanged perplexed glances.

      Cole glanced stupidly around the kitchen before his eyes fell on the pot of coffee simmering on the burner. “I believe I will have some more coffee,” he said.

      Caress nodded, reached up and removed a cup and saucer from the cabinet, and then ambled over to the stove.

      “So, how is your husband doing?”

      Doll’s eyes popped with surprise. Cole Payne had never said more than two words to her.

      “My husband?” Doll spouted with astonishment.

      Cole laughed. “Well, Caress is a widow, so I must be talking about your husband.”

      Caress set the cup and saucer down before Cole and filled the cup with coffee.

      “He’s fine, thank you. I will let him know that you asked about him.”

      Caress spooned three heaps of sugar into Cole’s coffee and added a dab of milk.

      “Doll, would you like a cup of coffee?”

      Cole could have said, Doll, would you like to kiss me? for the dense and uncomfortable silence that followed.

      Caress’s head did a slow and comical spin. When it stopped, her eyes were wide and her mouth was an open, gaping hole.

      “Sir?” Doll said.

      “Coffee. Would you like some?”

      “Well, uhm … I don’t …” Doll stammered.

      “Caress,” Cole demanded in a casual tone, “pour Doll a cup of coffee.”

      Caress didn’t move.

      “Have you gone deaf as well?” Cole snapped.

      Caress stuck out her bottom lip and folded her arms defiantly across her breasts.

      “Caress!” Cole bellowed, and brought his fist down onto the table. The teaspoon rattled to the floor and coffee swilled over the rim of his cup.

      Caress scrambled to the cupboard. Cole composed himself, bent over, and retrieved the spoon from the floor. When he was upright again, he saw that Doll was still standing at the door.

      “Please,” he said, as he rose, rounded the table, and pulled a chair out. “Sit down.”

      Doll’s hand floated to her neck and began to stroke it. “Thank you, Mr. Payne,” she purred.

      While Doll was being served coffee at the Payne residence, her daughter Hemmingway, nearly fifteen years old, was headed toward the grocery store that Cole owned. Utterly unaware that the innocent sway of her hips and perfect onion-shaped backside bouncing beneath her skirt was causing a stir amongst the men she passed.

      They—the men, that is—wouldn’t dare admire Hemmingway in the manner they desired: wide-eyed and frothing at the mouth. She was, after all, the reverend’s daughter—so they glanced, glimpsed, and peeked, like shy two-year-olds.

      There was one amongst them, however, who took every opportunity available to make his desires known. His name was Mingo Bailey and he was infamous for his shameless pursuit of women and his triumphs over moist-eyed virgins.

      “Pssst.”

      Hemmingway heard the offensive sound, but continued walking.

      “Pssssssst!”

      Annoyed, Hemmingway turned her head just enough to sling, “I look like a cat to you?”

      Mingo stepped out from beneath the shade of a willow tree. “You could be my pretty kitty.”

      Hemmingway smirked, “I ain’t looking to be some man’s pet.” She glanced down at the slip of paper she held which listed the items she was sent to purchase from the store.

      Mingo fell into step behind her. His eyes lit on her bottom and then glided down her exposed legs, pausing at the dents behind her knees. Mingo began to salivate; he could spend a lifetime slurping pop from those tender spaces behind Hemmingway’s knees.

      “You better stop ignoring me, girl, or I’m gonna take this good stuff elsewhere.”

      He was tall and thin, but muscular. The color of cedar, he walked with a bop because his left leg was longer than his right.

      “Go on then,” Hemmingway laughed as she stepped into the store.

      Mingo lingered. He removed the cigarette he kept tucked behind his ear and rolled it thoughtfully between his fingers before replacing it.

      When Hemmingway reappeared he fell into step beside her once again.

      “Girl, you better start paying me some mind. How you ’spect you gonna get into heaven if you keep ignoring me the way you do?”

      “I ain’t your girl,” Hemmingway snapped as she shifted the grocery bag from her left hip to her right. “And heaven ain’t the place I’ma end up if I allow myself to deal with the likes of you!”

      “Aw,” Mingo sighed and reached for the bag, “lemme carry that for you.”

      Hemmingway stopped, turned to look him full in the face. “And what’s that gonna cost me?”

      “Cost?”

      “Yeah. I hear Mingo Bailey don’t do nothing for no one for free.”

      Mingo almost smiled. She had heard right.

      “You’re killing me, girl!” He grabbed his chest and roared with laughter. “I wouldn’t take a red cent from you, baby.” He reached for the bag. “I’d give you the world if I had it to give.”

      “For free?”

      “Of course!”

      Hemmingway handed him the bag.

      They walked along in silence until they reached the bridge that connected Candle Street to Nigger Row.

      After offering a curt thank you, Hemmingway reached for the bag, but Mingo held it away.

      “I’ll carry it all the way to your front door.”

      “So my daddy can tear my behind up for being with the likes of you? No thank you.”

      “What’s so wrong with me?” Mingo asked, handing the bag over.

      “I think you know,” Hemmingway snorted, and walked off.

      Mingo leaned into the splintered wood railing of the bridge and removed the cigarette from behind his ear. He pulled a long matchstick from the breast pocket of his shirt and swiped it against the heel of his shoe. By the time he brought the flame to the tip of the cigarette, Hemmingway was already on the north shore.

      He took a long and thoughtful drag of the cigarette and wondered if Hemmingway Hilson would be as feral a lover as her mother had been.

      Doll was coming down the road from Cole Payne’s house when she saw Hemmingway and Mingo. She ducked behind a tree and watched Mingo watching her daughter. Only after he flicked the cigarette butt into the river and walked away did she step from her hiding place. Doll started to follow him, but stopped when the reason for her pursuit suddenly vanished from her mind. You see, Doll thought she was suffering from lapses in memory. And I guess that would be the best way to explain away the periods in her life when Esther’s will overpowered her own.

      For Doll, childhood memories were choppy and gray. The months leading up to her marriage to August were cloudy. She could only recall bits and pieces of her pregnancies—although the labor and delivery of the children were vivid. Their escape from Tulsa in 1921 was quite clear in her mind. She remembered the