Southbound and the Complications of an Atlantic Baptism

The Reverend went south.

This was his plan.

Or perhaps it became his plan once he realized he was already headed that direction.

Jasper had become Reverend Elijah somewhere along the way, and since jail, Reverend Elijah had become something else again.

Miriam did not have a name for this version.

Brooding would do.

He spoke less.

Stared more.

Sometimes he stood at the wheel of the little boat for hours as though he were personally offended by the horizon.

Miriam knew better than to ask questions.

She knew how to live around moods.

Keep things clean.

Keep food ready.

Wash the clothes when there was water enough.

Stay useful.

Stay pleasant.

Stay out of the way.

This was not difficult.

Miriam had been becoming what other people needed her to be for most of her life.

Before Miriam, she had been Lucy.

Before Lucy, she had been whatever the people who had her wanted.

Then there had been the brothel.

Then Jasper.

Then Jesus.

Jesus, apparently, had required Miriam.

She had become Miriam.

She was very good at becoming.

Hattie was two.

Hattie was not very good at becoming anything yet.

She mostly watched.

She had enormous eyes.

This was the first thing Miriam noticed about her.

The second was that she did not talk.

Or wouldn't.

Miriam wasn't sure.

It didn't matter. Did children talk much at 2? or was she three?

Miriam talked enough for both of them.

She brushed Hattie's hair.

This became a ritual.

Hattie sat very still while Miriam worked carefully through the tangles, much more carefully than real momma.

"There now," Miriam would say.

Brush.

"You've got pretty hair."

Brush.

"I had pretty hair when I was little."

Brush.

"I think."

Miriam could not actually remember.

Memory was unreliable when too many people had told you who you were and there were so few mirrors.

You become just two outward eyes unto the world.

Hattie watched her in the little cracked mirror.

"You know, I wasn't always Miriam."

Brush.

"I was Lucy."

Brush.

"Lucy had a fun time of things."

Hattie blinked.

"Miriam thought she was doing better."

Brush.

"Mostly. But now, Meriam really is doing much better. She has you sweet baby girl. Precious baby."

Hattie did not understand Lucy.

She did not understand Miriam.

She did not understand brothels or baptism or husbands or jail or why the man on the boat was sometimes Jasper and sometimes Elijah and never anything resembling Daddy. Not Daddy Like. Daddy like was already fading.

She understood the brush.

She understood Miriam's lap.

She understood warm food.

She understood being lifted before she had to ask.

She understood the body beside her at night.

She understood that she no longer slept alone.

Miriam was Momma-like.

Not not Momma, but momma-like.

Hattie knew that somewhere inside herself and she still held on it for now.

There had been another smell.

Another voice.

Another pair of hands.

Something enormous had happened.

Water.

Noise.

Wind.

Then Miriam.

Two-year-olds do not make histories.

They make attachments.

So Hattie attached herself to Miriam.

And Miriam adored her for it.

She dressed her.

Washed her.

Combed her hair.

Made up little games.

Held her hands and walked her down docks whenever Reverend Elijah stopped somewhere along the coast.

And he stopped often.

For fuel.

For food.

For conversations Miriam was not invited to hear.

For people he seemed to know and people who seemed to know him under names Miriam had never heard before.

He said they were going to Florida.

"I've got people there."

Miriam liked the sound of this.

People.

People meant houses.

Tables.

Beds.

Perhaps women.

Perhaps children.

Perhaps somebody who knew how life was supposed to work.

She imagined verandas.

Orange trees.

White curtains moving in warm breezes.

She had never been to Florida.

This did not prevent her from having very specific ideas about it.

Reverend Elijah did not elaborate.

His people were his people.

That was enough.

So they followed the coastline south.

A strange little family if anyone cared to look closely.

A preacher.

A girl dressed as his wife.

A child belonging to neither of them.

Most people did not look closely.

People rarely do.

In one town there was a market.

Not much of one.

A few tables.

Tomatoes.

Beans.

Corn.

Peaches softening in the heat.

A woman had baskets of pears.

Miriam stopped because Hattie stopped.

Hattie stared at the fruit.

"You want one?"

Hattie stared.

"I believe she wants one," Miriam announced.

The woman laughed.

"Well, I believe she does too."

She picked out a pear and handed it to Hattie.

Then she handed another to Miriam.

"For Mama."

Miriam almost corrected her.

Almost.

Instead she smiled.

"Thank you."

The pear was warm from the day.

Miriam bit into it.

Juice ran down her wrist.

"Oh."

It was almost too sweet.

She laughed.

Hattie bit hers.

Too much pear.

Too few teeth.

Juice ran over her chin.

Miriam laughed harder and wiped her face with the edge of her skirt.

"Look at you."

Hattie smiled.

The woman behind the table watched them.

There was nothing remarkable about the scene. The girl was barely a woman. She could see that but this was normal in a coastal area where everyone was burdened with too many children and not enough education and money. They were just people. Surviving and thriving with the ups and downs of the waves and ins and outs of the currents. The woman in the market was not literate, but that didn’t keep her mind from forming these poetic ideas.

A young mother.

A little girl.

Two pears.

The woman leaned forward.

"No charge, child. And what's this precious baby's name?"

Miriam looked at Hattie.

Hattie looked back at Miriam.

The little hat was not on her head.

It had become too precious for everyday wearing.

Miriam kept it tucked safely among their things.

White cotton.

Small.

HATTIE stitched across the front in Sybbie's hand.

The only thing that had traveled with the child from the life before.

The only witness.

Miriam opened her mouth.

And for one strange second, nothing came out.

She had been Lucy.

Someone had called her Miriam.

Names changed.

That was what happened when your life changed.

She knew this.

It seemed almost obvious.

Hattie waited.

The woman waited.

Miriam looked into those enormous eyes.

Then she smiled.

"Oh," Miriam said.

"She's just our sweet precious little angel."

The woman beamed.

"Angel!"

Miriam froze.

"What a glorious name. Angel."

"Oh."

Miriam looked at Hattie.

Hattie looked at Miriam.

"Oh dear."

Reverend Elijah was going to be mad.

Miriam had not named the child.

She knew better than that.

Names were important.

Names belonged to men like Reverend Elijah.

Men named things.

God named things.

Reverend Elijah spoke for God, which made the division of labor fairly clear.

Miriam had only been avoiding the question.

She could not tell this woman the child's name was Hattie.

She knew that much.

Hattie belonged to before.

Before the storm.

Before the boat.

Before them.

Before whatever came next.

So Miriam had done what Miriam did best.

She had become charming.

"Oh, she's just our sweet precious little angel."

That was all.

It wasn't a name.

It was a description.

A little sweetness offered to a woman at a fruit stand.

But now the woman was smiling at Hattie.

"Angel," she said again.

And Hattie smiled back.

Oh dear.

Miriam gathered her quickly.

"Thank you for the pears."

She lifted Hattie onto her hip and hurried away.

"Come on, sweet baby."

Hattie clutched what remained of her pear.

Miriam walked faster.

She had successfully avoided giving away Hattie's real name.

That was good.

She had very nearly given her a new one.

That was not.

There were rules to these things.

Miriam understood rules even when nobody explained them.

Especially then.

She would tell Reverend Elijah.

Not about Angel.

Perhaps not about Angel.

She would tell him the child needed a name.

A proper name.

A new name.

He would know what to do.

Of course he would.

Reverend Elijah knew what things meant.

He knew what storms meant.

He knew what imprisonment meant.

He knew what salvation meant.

He had known Lucy required saving.

He had known Lucy required baptism.

He had known Lucy required a new name.

Miriam had emerged from the water.

The child would too.

Reverend Elijah took them to the Atlantic.

Not a river.

Not a pond.

Not some quiet little basin of water where a child might be dipped safely beneath the surface and brought back up again.

The Atlantic.

Miriam stood at the edge holding Hattie against her chest while the water rushed over their feet and pulled the sand from beneath them.

Hattie did not like it.

Her little fingers tightened around Miriam.

"It's all right, Precious Baby."

Reverend Elijah held out his arms.

Hattie tightened harder.

"It's all right. He's just going to baptize you."

Hattie did not know what baptize meant.

Miriam did.

It meant you went into the water as one person and came out as another.

She handed Hattie to the Reverend.

He carried her farther into the Atlantic.

The water rose around them.

Hattie began to cry.

Reverend Elijah spoke over the surf.

His voice grew louder.

Words about God.

Words about deliverance.

Words about the storm.

Words about being chosen.

Miriam couldn't hear all of it.

Perhaps that didn't matter.

Reverend Elijah wasn't really speaking to her.

He wasn't speaking to Hattie either.

He was speaking to God.

A wave struck him.

For one terrible second, Hattie disappeared.

Miriam screamed. She plunged forward on her feet, skirts weighing her. Her whole body wanted to hold Hattie safe.

Reverend Elijah staggered, recovered his footing, and lifted the child high against his chest.

Hattie came up coughing and screaming.

The Atlantic rushed around them as though reconsidering.

"Elijah!"

He did not seem to hear Miriam.

“JASPER!”

His face was turned upward.

His eyes were on the sky.

He was smiling.

He began toward shore.

Miriam ran further into the water to meet him.

"Jasper, give her to me."

He kept talking.

"Rev. Elijah, give her to me."

Finally, the child was close enough for Miriam to reach.

She pulled Hattie from his arms and pressed her against herself.

Hattie was shaking. So was Meriam. It was cold coming out.

"It's all right. It's all right, Precious Baby. I've got you."

Reverend Elijah stood in the surf behind them, soaked through, arms slightly raised, face still turned toward heaven.

He was talking about the hand of God.

About the waters.

About being delivered from the waters.

About what had been placed into their keeping.

About purpose.

Miriam couldn’t listen even for a moment.

She looked at the child in her arms.

Something seemed to be missing.

"What is her name, Reverend Elijah?"

He looked at Miriam as though the answer had already been given and she had somehow failed to hear it.

"Grace."

Miriam waited.

"Grace," he said again. "By the Grace of God she came to us!"

And that was apparently only the beginning.

Reverend Elijah turned his face back toward the sky and continued.

Miriam looked down.

Hattie looked up at her.

"Grace," Miriam whispered.

She pushed the wet hair away from the child's face.

"Grace of God."

Hattie shivered.

"Of course you are."

Miriam kissed her forehead.

"You are Grace."

She carried her quickly out of the water.

Reverend Elijah remained behind them, preaching to God and the Atlantic.

Miriam took Grace back to the little shack they had been given.

She peeled away the wet clothes.

Washed the salt from her skin.

Found something dry.

Fed her.

Brushed her hair.

Wrapped her in a blanket.

Rocked her.

"Grace," she said.

The child watched her.

"Grace."

Nothing.

"Precious Baby?"

Those enormous eyes settled on Miriam.

"There you are."

Miriam smiled.

She rocked her until she slept.

The little hat was among their things.

HATTIE.

Miriam tucked it away carefully, further into a trunk of things, a trunk that would one day be very important.

She did not know why it mattered. The hat. The trunk was just furniture.

The hat belonged to the child.

So she kept it deep in the trunk that would be her birth right.

Afterward, Reverend Elijah seemed better.

Whatever had followed him out of jail and onto the boat seemed to loosen its grip.

He ate.

He slept.

He laughed occasionally.

He was kinder to Miriam.

He could even be gentle with Grace. Fatherly.

He seemed to be practicing something.

He held the child sometimes and spoke softly to her.

He called her his little Grace.

His blessing.

His miracle.

Miriam relaxed.

She knew this was the real Reverend Elijah.

This was the one she knew how to live with.

The other one had frightened her.

Perhaps the baptism had worked.

Perhaps God had answered him.

Perhaps Reverend Elijah had simply needed something to believe had been given specifically to him.

Whatever it was, they continued south.

Toward Florida.

Toward his people.

She liked the sound of it. Even after all she had been through.

The sound of people and belonging was a siren song to her. It was what she wanted most.

The sound of people and belonging was a siren song to her.

It was what she wanted most.

Miriam would learn that people could mean many things.

Family could mean many things.

So could community.

So could belonging.

But for now, Florida was still ahead of them.

And Reverend Elijah had people there.