Migrations of the Heart by Marita Golden

Author:Marita Golden [Golden, Marita]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-48824-4
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 1983-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

I forged a dishonorable peace with him over the issue of a child. Easily, remarkably, I lied. “You are still having your period?” he asked, his eyes measuring the bloodstain smudging the sheet. “Yes.”

“But why? I told you to get rid of those pills.” “Femi, you don't get pregnant overnight.” “You're not still taking them, are you?”

“No.” And as I uttered the word, I pictured the packet of pills lodged beneath a fifth form reader in my desk at school. On my lunch hour I pressed one against my tongue and swallowed it with a Coke. On Fridays I folded two of them, for Saturday and Sunday, inside a tissue and hid them in my purse. Surreptitiously I fought for my life.

“How long does it take,” he asked shyly, “to make a baby?”

“Don t be so anxious,” I teased him. “Tf you'd relax and stop worrying, maybe it would happen.” I was amazed that I looked at his face unashamed, even as I deceived the trust staring back at me.

That night I had a dream. All the people I am went on a rampage. One of my selves calmly surveyed the rest of me—bickering and hungry, banging tin cups against the bar. The writer stood along the edge of the disturbance, taking notes, camouflaging her true identity. The teacher called the riot to order, clapped her hands, shouting “Ladies, please.” The wife reached for her husband's hand while squirreling away morsels of her soul for the bad times. Suddenly mother burst through the barroom door. Thin ribbons of smoke slithered from the mouth of two pistols held in the air. “Everyone against the wall!” she screamed. All my other selves scrambled for cover but were hunted down beneath tables, dragged from behind locked bathroom doors, caught holding our breath in slender corners. Mother lassoed each one, dragged us across the splintered floor, tossed us into a heap in a corner. “Now yall stay there till I say you can move,” she sneered, perching one booted and spurred foot on a nearby chair. Craning her neck, she scanned our faces for evidence of rebellion. Satisfied by our display of meekness, she sat down and struck a match on the sole of her boot. Between puffs on a cigar, she chuckled happily, “From now on this here town's gonna be mine.”

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