For lamb, p.1
For Lamb, page 1
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Prologue
Lamb
Lamb
Lamb
Lamb
Simeon
Lamb
Lamb
Lamb
Lamb
Lamb
Lamb
Simeon
Lamb
Marion Ross
Marion
Chime
Chime
Simeon
Lamb
Lamb
Lamb
Lamb
Lamb
Chime
Lamb
Lamb
Lamb
Lamb
Lamb
Lamb
Lamb
Lamb
Lamb
Lamb
Lamb
Lamb
Lamb
Chester Clark
Chester
Lamb
Lamb
Lamb
Marion
Lamb
Marion
Lamb
Lamb
Lamb
Lamb
Lamb
Chester
Lamb
Lamb
Simeon
Simeon
Chime
Simeon
Lamb
Marion
Simeon
Chime
Simeon
Chester
Simeon
Simeon
Lamb
Chime
Simeon
Lamb
Simeon
Marion
Simeon
Lamb
Simeon
Chime
Lamb
Simeon
Marion
Simeon
Lamb
Marion
Lamb
Marion
Lamb
Simeon
Marion
Lamb
Marion
Lamb
Marion
Lamb
Marion
Simeon
Chester
Chester
Lamb
Myrtle
Lamb
Chester
Lamb
Epilogue: Myrtle
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
Copyright © 2023 by Lesa Cline-Ransome
All Rights Reserved
HOLIDAY HOUSE is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Printed and bound in November 2022 at Maple Press, York, PA, USA.
www.holidayhouse.com
First Edition
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN: 978-0-8234-50152 (hardcover)
For Lamb Whittle and those whose stories call to us to write, speak up, fight on
PROLOGUE
And then, there, there in the torchlight, I see her. Pressed in close against the others. Her face red as a fever sweat. Hair bright as a flame. My friend.
When the men let her go, I hear branches snapping and watch the crowd move closer. I search again for my friend, but I can’t hardly tell one from the other in this crowd. Pressed in tight, each one of those white faces looks just like the next. Smiling through shiny white teeth like a pack of hungry dogs.
Simeon is long gone now, I suspect.
Far.
North.
Safe.
From this. From them. From all of it.
A branch cracks as loud as a gunshot and the crowd cheers. I stay hidden behind the bush, just past the fence, and look up through the leaves at the dark. Not a star in the sky tonight. But the flickers of gold from the embers light up the sky in what looks like fireflies. Pretty almost.
Lamb
“The choir will lead us in our devotional hymn,” Reverend Greer said, and sat down behind the pulpit.
Soon as I heard the first note on the piano, the sweat started under my arms. In the back row of the youth choir during rehearsal every Saturday morning with everyone’s voice singing on top of mine, I didn’t know Miss Twyman even knew I could carry a tune. But one Sunday, after service, Miss Twyman told Momma I had a “lovely voice,” and Momma told Miss Twyman she already knew that but was surprised Miss Twyman was just finding out. And now, since she knew, my momma said, couldn’t Miss Twyman find a way to let me lead next week’s devotional hymn? Momma has a way of asking that lets you know she’s not asking at all. And now, here I was leading, when all I wanted was to follow, singing along quiet, in the back, with the rest of the choir. There were days, listening to Momma, I could make my ownself believe near anything she believed about me. Not today.
At breakfast this morning, when she was braiding up my hair, she could tell I was getting the scared feeling I always get when I have to be up in front of people.
“Now Miss Twyman wouldn’t have you up there looking like a fool if you couldn’t sing. You know that,” Momma said, pulling my braid tight.
“Miss Twyman says everybody has a lovely voice,” I told her. “Not just me.”
“I don’t know about everybody. She was just talking ’bout you.”
In the back was where I felt I belonged, looking at Juanita Handy’s curly ponytail, swaying from side to side while she sang all the youth choir solos. Every once in a while her voice would crack when she tried to reach too high for a note, and Earvent would hit my hand or one of the boys in back would laugh, but I kept looking straight ahead, wishing I was brave enough to stand up every time like Juanita, not caring if my voice cracked or not, but knowing, like Juanita always did, that up front was just where I was meant to be.
Now standing alone with the choir behind me, I was too scared to be mad at Momma. Just needed to get through one song and be done. Let Momma see I ain’t never been and never would be a soloist. I could almost feel Juanita Handy’s eyes staring in the back of my head. I could hear her sweet voice hitting those notes right and know she was wondering what I was doing in her spot. I wished I could tell her to go ask my momma. The blood was pounding in my ears, louder than the piano, but I came in,
Would you be free from the burden of sin?
There’s pow’r in the blood, pow’r in the blood.
Too soft, too shaky, I could tell. I looked over at Miss Twyman and she pinched up her face. I closed my eyes tight.
“Sing it, child,” Reverend Greer said beside me. I opened my eyes and looked out into the pews. Staring back at me was Simeon, grin stretched from one end of his face to the other. He saw me looking and nodded his head, telling me to go on ahead, give it some more. So I did. Now the front pew chimed in.
“Yes, yes, Lord” and “That’s right” mixed in with the song, and I looked over at Miss Twyman, watching her hands tell my mouth what to do. She smiled up at me.
There is pow’r, pow’r, wonder-working pow’r
In the blood of the lamb...
I looked over at Momma swaying, quiet, her head bowed low, one hand raised just above her head. The sweat dripped down my back now.
In the pews together, when we sang this song from the hymnal, Momma would squeeze my hand, remembering.
I closed my eyes again.
Would you o’er evil a victory win?
There’s wonderful pow’r in the blood.
After the second verse, Miss Twyman was circling her hand, telling me and the choir to sing the chorus one more time, and this time, my voice got a little louder, a little deeper too.
Let God move you, Miss Twyman reminded me after yesterday’s rehearsal. And I think I did let God in, and he helped me move from side to side, with the music making my voice stronger as I swayed. I hoped it was God, because Simeon and Momma weren’t gonna be enough to make me sing the song the way it sounded it my head. Just when I was finding my way, the song ended, and the reverend stepped up again to the pulpit.
“Amen, Sister.” He nodded at me. “A-men...”
I walked to the back row of the choir stand, not looking at Juanita, not hearing any of Reverend Greer’s sermon. Not even Earvent said anything as I made my way over her legs and back to my seat. I just made my lips move along to the rest of the hymns we sang in service, hoping Momma would let me alone now but knowing she never would.
“You sang that song today, Sister Lamb,” Reverend Greer said after service as I stepped down from the choir stand.
“Thank you, Reverend Greer,” I said. My momma stepped up beside me, smiling. Simeon stood behind her, grin still on his face.
“This girl can sing, can’t she, Reverend?” my momma said. Too bold, I thought. My momma is always too bold.
“She sure can,” said Simeon, his head nodding. I hit his hand.
“Why didn’t I see you up there in the choir, Brother Simeon?” the reverend said, his hand slapping down hard on Simeon’s shoulder.
“Well, uh...God has blessed each one of us with our own special gifts.” Simeon smiled. “Sadly, singing is not mine.”
Momma looked at Simeon, trying, I could tell, to keep smiling and not say what she wanted to say in the House of God and in front of Reverend Greer.
Reverend nodded his head at Simeon, smiling back. “You are right there, son. Lord knows, some folks sitting in that choir have talents that should be put to use elsewhere in the church. Can I get an Amen, Brother Simeon?”
“Amen! Simeon laughed.
Me and Momma stood watching them. No matter who Simeon talked to, it wasn’t long before he said something to win them over. Everyone except Momma, who stood watching him and smiling for Reverend Greer but not Simeon.
When we left church and headed home, Momma turned to Simeon. “You can’t let her shine for just one day?”
“What?”
“Don’t you what me. You always gotta take away her shine?” she said.
“Momma, I—” I started.
“You know she was only up there because you made her do it, right? That wasn’t nothing about Lamb. That was about trying to make you shine,” he said.
“Boy, I—”
“Can we please not do this today?” I asked. “On a Sunday? After church? Please?”
They were both quiet.
“Well, Amen to that,” Simeon said.
Lamb
I ain’t never seen my momma as someone who was saved. More like she sees God as the insurance man who comes round once a month collecting and you pay up because if you don’t, you die without a halfway-decent burial, laid out in some pitiful pine box. For my momma, Sunday service is like paying the insurance man. She don’t like paying up, but knows it could be worse if she don’t. I think for both of us the best part of church is the music. Me singing in the choir and the two of us singing loud to the one hymn they play nearly every week that makes my momma reach over and touch my hand, like just hearing it brings her right back to the day I was born.
“You wasn’t nothing like your brother, screaming to be seen the minute he came into this world. Nope, you just looked at me, real quiet, with those big old eyes of yours. Miss Ruby helped deliver you and I said to her, soon as you were in my arms, not making a sound, but watching me close, ‘She’s as quiet as a lamb.’ By the time your daddy came home, you hadn’t even moved and that’s when I knew.
“He said to me, ‘Thinking we can name her Cora, for my momma.’ I looked him right in his eyes, tired as I was, and said, ‘Her name is Lamb.’ He laughed some. Everybody did. ‘You can’t name her no Lamb. You out your mind, Marion?’ But I knew. I knew your name the minute I saw you. My Lamb.
“You had me worried, though, quiet as you were. When I took you back home for my daddy’s burial, you spent the whole time hiding behind me. And with Simeon ’bout talking you to death, even my momma said, ‘She ain’t never gonna speak if that boy don’t stop talking for her. My momma wasn’t right about much, but she was right about that.
“Your daddy used to ask me twice a day—morning and night—‘That Lamb sure favors me and my people, don’t she?’ And I’d have to tell him ‘Yes she do, Chester.’ But he was just asking because he could see you up under me all the time. He wanted a little piece of you too.”
You can’t get my momma to talk much about the past. Ask her about where she grew up or anything about my daddy, she barely has two words to say. But the one thing she can talk about all day long is naming me Lamb. Like it was the one thing she did right in her life.
“But Daddy picked Simeon’s name, right?” I made the mistake of asking her once in the middle of her storytelling. She stopped me right there.
“Simeon is from the Bible. I picked his name too. Wasn’t going to let no one name my children.”
It’s always my children with my momma, like she made us all by herself. My momma prides herself on not needing nobody to take care of hers. I suppose if there was a way to make us on her own, she would have done that too.
After that, I never interrupted when she was talking about the past. She needed to tell it her way.
Lamb
I remember my daddy in pieces, but not enough to make him whole. Simeon says he remembers him living with us one day and packing his bags the next. Come the next week, here he comes back again, unpacking the suitcase he just packed. I don’t remember a lot of fighting, just the quiet of my momma and daddy. Sitting at a table not speaking.
Working on a railroad. Traveling to see his family. Working all kinds of hours. Simeon and Momma told me all kinds of stories until we all knew I knew the truth of it. He was gone for good.
One thing I remember about my daddy is the smell of him. Like the smell of fresh-cut wood and smoke, like the cigars I remember him smoking. And he was big. I’m expecting one day to be tall like him, but for now I just took on being big-boned and “bright,” my momma calls me, with skin as light as my daddy’s. Not sure I’ll ever be anywhere near as tall as Simeon or my momma, so I’m sure never going to be as tall as I remember my daddy. One day Momma stopped talking about Daddy altogether. And when she did, me and Simeon did too.
I had just started school. And I was happy to finally not be away from Simeon for so much of the day when he was gone. Now Momma walked us both to school. Soon she said I’d walk with just Simeon. Didn’t matter much to me. Walking in between the two of them was all I really needed. Momma told me I’d need to start speaking for myself once I got to school.
“Won’t be no Simeon to tell the teacher what you need,” she said to me.
But I already knew that. I knew too I could find the words when I needed, but Simeon always had the right ones when I didn’t. His words were pretty and he could find a way to make them funny or mean or serious or smart anytime he wanted, without thinking much about it. I couldn’t do all that with mine but I knew I could get by fine until the school day was out and he’d be waiting for me by the door.
“What did you teach the class today?” he used to ask me every day that first year. And I would laugh.
“I’m not the teacher, Simeon.”
“No? But I bet you’re the smartest one in that class.” I shook my head no, hung it low. Simeon always made me look at him. “You are the smartest one in that class, Lamb. Don’t you forget that.”
“But Simeon—I’m not...”
“You are what you say you are.” Even young, Simeon always talked old. Like he was born knowing what to say.
So when the kids would make “baaa baaa” sounds like a lamb when I walked past, I tried to remember what Simeon told me about being smart and being the best even when I didn’t always feel it.
From what I remembered, Momma wasn’t much different after Daddy left. Maybe a little happier. Or as happy as Momma can be. Not long after Daddy left is when the Saturday parties started up. Momma would start cooking early in the day. A pot of neck bones and greens, corn bread. She’d fix us a cold supper early and draw our baths. Get us into bed. And then she’d put on one of her nice, flowery dresses, some lipstick, put music on the record player in the front room. And then we’d hear folks come in loud and laughing. Couldn’t call them her friends because Momma didn’t have people she saw regular outside of those Saturday night parties. We opened up the door from Simeon’s room just enough to get a peek to see who they were and so Simeon could make up names for everyone, like Big-Boobied Bertha and Lil’ Marge, that’d make me laugh till I cried. Sometimes the floor would shake, and the records would skip with all the dancing they were doing. We always knew when my momma’s younger brother, Uncle Chime, came in. We could hear his voice above everyone else’s. And before the night was over, he’d make his way into Simeon’s room and check on us.
“I know y’all ain’t asleep, so don’t even play,” he’d say, leaning in the doorway. I would run to hug him even though I hated the smell of drink and sweat on his clothes. I’d hear some woman shouting behind him, “What you doin’ in there, Chime? C’mon back out here and dance with me,” or “Chime, it’s your hand.” But I loved that he always took a minute to check in on us.
Lamb
I don’t know when Momma started letting us come out to see what was going on. Probably Simeon just said he was gonna do it and did. Or maybe it was when I would sing along to the records, standing on Simeon’s bedspread in my bare feet, and Simeon would practice all his dances. And Momma, who never checked in on us, one night did. She was just standing in the doorway, leaning the same way Uncle Chime did. A little smile on her face listening to me. When I finished singing “A-tisket, a-tasket, a brown and yellow basket,” she clapped real slow.
“C’mere, baby,” she said. I hated her drinking voice, which was deeper and slower than her regular voice. I stepped down thinking I was gonna be in trouble for being out of bed. But Momma took hold of my hand and pulled me into the front room, where all her Saturday night friends were sitting and talking or dancing.
“Listen to my baby,” she said to everyone, and they got quiet and looked over at me. Then she walked over to the record player and played the song again. “Sing like you just did,” she said to me, leaning up against her friend Myrtle, and everyone was looking, even Simeon. But I didn’t want to sing in front of her Saturday night friends, just Simeon, and burst out crying.
