This is the twilight and we are the gods.
Congressman married the doctor's daughter; that's what the town said.
The girl who attended New England Female Medical College. In a little African Methodist Episcopal church. I was the only witness.
I sold Lady's ear bobs and bought a little house out by the water in Maryland. Its weather-darkened bricks are from before the birth of our nation; the woods that surround my place are older still. The Frederick Douglasses are talking about buying some nearby property and building a home. When the time comes, I think I will be ready for neighbors. If and when the Douglasses come, they want to encourage others to migrate with them. It's starting to be hard times for Negroes in the city, and it's always been hard times for Negroes in the country. It's easier to live where fewer dreams are buried.
The son has been born to the Congressman, a legitimate heir. A beautiful, beautiful boy. He came into the world so pale, his mother fretted for days over his little Moses crib, praying for a little dark to come in. There were good signs from the start, a bit of brown ness 'round his cuticles and the tips of his ears, but like many lightskinned babies his eyes are a greeny-gray. I am to be the Godmother. They named him Cyrus after me. I took him back to an Episcopal church to be baptized; I couldn't wait for the Baptist immersion. If anything happens to my Godchild, I want him to go straight up to heaven and wait for his father and mother. I want no doubts at all.
Ah, my goodness. He is here. I call him Moses. I'm keeping Cyrus for his Poppa and Mama today. I tell him the story of Moses. I hold him above my head and I tell him about the mother making the cradle and setting it to float in the bulrushes. I tell him about the woman who put him in the cradle and the woman who found him. Some folks say she was the same woman, some folks say she was not. I know both women loved the baby. I am not so very well now. I think about the old days some now, and for the very first time I understand something about Mealy Mouth. The very best days are the days on which babies come. I'm so tired, I forgive her for what she had done to Miss Priss's brother, beat until he bled to death because something he said about a time he had had with Dreamy Gentleman. And I forgive Miss Priss for what she done to Mealy Mouth. And what that done to Other. And what that done to me. The very best days are the days the baby comes.
j is for you, my darling, emperor of the Congress of my heart. For you, Adam Conyers. Congressman Adam Conyers of Alabama, self-educated trained to the bar. I had intended to get a job on the new Negro newspaper. I had intended to write about the ladies and the parties they gave and the dresses they wore. I had intended to make you and him proud of me. All my life I saw the tangles that stood between me and love-until you. When I saw you, I refused to see the tangles, and I stubbed my toe, got swoll up and burst, and now it looks as if I'm going to ele.
I have never felt so loved as the day we waited for the baby's color to show or not show. And I knew because you told me, and I believed what you said, that you knew who the Mama was, and that was good enough for you. Anything of mine you loved. And lucky for me he's yours; it's been hard for me to love anything of mine. But just in time, loving what belongs to you means loving my own.
Tell your son all of this-when he's grown. Tell my Moses. Don't let it form him, and he will grow strong enough to master it. Shield the child from the truth of shackles, and no shackle will hold the man. The bars that cannot be broken are behind the eyes; the whippings you can't survive are the ones you give yourself. Let respectability be his first position; then nothing on this earth can shame him. Tell him his mother bought that respectability with lonely blood, and it is his birthright. Tell him that I was the chosen witness of the twilight, of you, my God. Ask him to pray against his mother's blasphemy. Tell him if we are as a people to rise again, it will be in him.
Tell him I only did one great thing: I bore a little black baby and I knew-what every mother should know and has been killed out of too many of my people, including my mother-I bore a little black baby and knew it was the best baby in the world. Tell your wife, tell my gap-too the Corinne, a lifetime of hating Other has made me fit for an eternity of loving her. Tell them both, I learned to share in peculiar circumstances. Now, the wind done gone, the wind done gone, the wind done gone and blown my bones away.
Cindy, nee Cynara, called Cinnamon, died many years later of a disease we now know to be lupus. She left her entire, not inconsiderable, estate to Garlic. She left her diary to Miss Priss, who left it to her eldest daughter, who left it to her only daughter, Prissy Cynara Brown.
The Congressman's son, Cyrus the first, never made it back to Congress, but his grandson, Cyrus the third, did. Today, Cyrus represents a district near Memphis, in Tennessee. He married a Nashville girl who practices law to support her horseback riding. They named their firstborn son Cyrus, Cyrus the fourth, but added Jeems in honor of one of her ancestors who had helped train the first American grand national champion. Little Jeems, as he is called, has his eyes on the White House.
Cotton Farm still stands just outside Atlanta. Jeems's christening, upholding long-standing tradition, occurred in its great hall, overlooked by an oil portrait of Garlic that Debt Chauffeur had painted just before he died. In his will, Debt left Cotton Farm, fallen on bad times and in disrepair, to Garlic, with the wish that he rot with the farm until he died and rot in hell after. Many thought R. just wanted some good company. Garlic used Cynara's money to repair the place.
When Garlic died, he left his pocket watch to the Congressman's son, along with half of Cotton Farm. The other half he left to Miss Priss, of course!
The mortgaged farm supplied the funds for Cyrus the third's successful election to Congress.
Like Mammy, Lady, and Planter, Cynara, Congressman, and Corinne were buried together. For all those we love for whom tomorrow will not be another day, we send the sweet prayer of resting in peace.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Caroline is my strongest inspiration. I would burn this book unpublished if it would ensure her happy life. She would pull it from the fire; my daughter is a brave and generous soul.
Mimi has proven herself to be my life's longest sweet companion. David is the redeemer of my faith in romantic love; his history is my future.
Jun is our Godfather. Anton is my best book friend. David F. is my longest friend-boy. Jane is Sunday afternoon. Ann is my magnolia blossom. When I had very little else, I had Marc and in a different time Marq. Happy Birthday, Joan B. and Judge Cliffie. Bob G. and Edith and Michael believed in me from the beginning. Roberta was my beginning. The Smiths embody the best of Cotton Farm-home. Gail sparkles. Forrest helped me see, Somers helped me survive. Jed is the brightest person I have ever known, still. Grandma is Grandma, and Sonia is our Aunt. Lea is God mommy Kimiko is my sister. And Flo is my hero. Ricky carried the ashes. The Congressman owes much to Reggie. And Jerry is my Garlic. Courtney sang. Quincy brought me to the big show. Brandon I miss. George I think on every day. Their love sustained my creativity.
And a blessed thanks to Kazuma, Charlie, Moses, and Lucas, my Godsons, and Takuma, Caroline's Godson, whose very existence lit the last turn of this book toward its ending.