The Roux in the Gumbo by Kim Robinson

Author:Kim Robinson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780980473902
Publisher: Eternal Press
Published: 2005-01-01T13:00:00+00:00

Helen

It was almost three years later when Helen was changing her room around. When she moved the bed, she saw a wad of bills. She picked it up and counted it. With every note, the memories of that afternoon came rushing back at her. Wouldn’t you just know it? There was two hundred dollars in twenties. What was it about white folks and two hundred dollars? Was that the set rate for violating a black person and smashing their pride and dreams? Annie had told her about the money that her father’s parents had given her when they found out she was pregnant. Helen quickly pushed the memory from her mind.

Helen hid the money under the loose board in the floor where she had been saving money from her tips. She never told anyone about that afternoon and Mr. Macklin never came around anymore. She never saw him again until she was almost seventeen years old. She had a job at a hospital for people who could not take care of themselves. Some had mental problems, were retarded or just old.

One of the patients was Mrs. Macklin. One of the nurses told her that the reason why Mrs. Macklin was there was because she had gone crazy when she walked in on her husband pestering their seven-year old daughter. Mrs. Macklin had picked up a heavy candlestick and when she swung at Mr. Macklin’s head, at the very instant of impact, he must have sensed something because he moved.

When he tried to grab for Mrs. Macklin, she lost her balance and the candlestick came down on top of their daughter’s head, splitting her skull in two. The child was dead before she had known what happened to her.

Mr. Macklin ran out of the house. When he returned two whole days later, he found his wife in the same room holding her bloody dead child in her arms. All the anger that Helen had been holding in for Mr. Macklin drained out of her. The death of his daughter and his wife’s sanity was the high price he had paid for his terrible sins.

Every week, Mr. Macklin would attempt to visit his wife, but the only greeting he ever got when he stepped into her room was her screams as she looked in his face and relived that terrible afternoon.

Helen had seen him walking down the hall a few times. He did not know who she was and she did not see any reason to remind this stooped and broken old man of what he had done to her. He was living in hell on earth.

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