Memphis wondered if Ida Hampton bothered to tell anyone what was what about her little gambling habit.
“I hear she gets up to all manner of things that ain’t right.”
Aren’t, Memphis silently corrected.
“She might even be into voodoo.”
“Sister Walker is not practicing voodoo. She’s helping Isaiah with his counting and computing.”
“Well, I don’t know if it’s right for you to be associating with her.” Aunt Octavia turned to Isaiah with her hands on her hips, like she meant business. “She do anything like that with you, Isaiah? Make you do magic with cards or put your hands on a crystal ball and talk to spirits? Anything like that?”
Memphis tried to give his little brother a warning with his eyes: Don’t say anything….
“No, ma’am.”
“You look me in my face when you say that. Look me right in my eyes and tell me again.” Isaiah’s head moved just slightly as he tried to peek around Octavia and keep Memphis in sight, but his aunt got wise and moved over, blocking his view. “Don’t you look at your brother. I’m the one asking. You look at me.”
Memphis held his breath. He could hear his blood pounding against his skull.
“She helps me with my ’rithmetic,” Isaiah said.
Aunt Octavia stood for a minute. “Well. You be careful around her, you hear me?”
Memphis let out his breath in a small whoosh. “Yes, ma’am,” he and Isaiah said as one.
“Memphis, I know you wouldn’t get your brother mixed up in the Devil’s business,” Octavia said, fixing him with a stare. “Not after all this family’s been through.”
Memphis’s jaw tightened. “No, Auntie. I wouldn’t.”
Octavia held his gaze for a few seconds longer, then poured iced tea into their glasses. “I promised your mama I’d look after you. I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to either one of you.” Octavia cupped Isaiah’s cheeks in her palms and kissed the top of his head. “Go wash yourself up for supper. Memphis, you say grace tonight. And after dinner, you can get the Bible from the china cabinet for Bible study.” When Memphis didn’t answer, Octavia called loudly from the kitchen, “Did you hear me, Memphis John Campbell?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Memphis grumbled. One day, he’d get the two of them out of his aunt’s house.
When they were washed to Octavia’s satisfaction, they sat around the old wooden table that their grandfather, a carpenter, had made as a wedding present to his young wife, their heads bowed.
“Dear Lord, we thank you for this bounty which we are about to receive….” Memphis said the words without feeling. He wasn’t thinking of being grateful for supper, but of the bounty he hoped to receive for himself. He prayed for his place in the world: his own words in a book and a reading at a salon on Striver’s Row, a place at the table with Whitman and Cullen and Mr. Hughes.
“… In Jesus’s name we pray. Amen.”
Octavia passed a casserole dish of baked sweet potatoes.
“I want you two to be very careful out there. You hear about that business down under the bridge?”
The boys shook their heads.
“I expect not. I heard it from Bessie Watkins, who got it from Delilah Robinson, whose husband works down at the docks. He called her just a little while ago. Woman got herself carved up by a madman.”
“That’s inappropriate dinner talk!” Isaiah said through a mouthful of potatoes.
“Take your elbows off the table. And don’t talk with food in your mouth. That’s what’s inappropriate.” Octavia shook her head as she buttered a piece of bread. “Don’t know what this world’s coming to. Feels like it’s all spinning too fast toward Judgment Day.”
Memphis hated it when his aunt talked this way. She never missed a chance to worry that the end was nigh—and she never missed a chance to worry everybody else with her thoughts.
“Well, all the same, I want you to be careful. Isaiah, I don’t want you going anywhere after dark by yourself. Memphis, you see to it, now.”
Memphis swallowed down his mouthful of potatoes. “Me? Marvin left you in charge, didn’t he?”
“Don’t use that tone with me. And don’t call your father Marvin.”
“That’s his name, isn’t it?”
“As a matter of fact, I got a letter from your father today.”
“Is he coming back?” Isaiah said.