Past Cries Beneath the Blues

I believe the saddest thing a person can witness is the slow unravelin’ of somebody’s spirit. Folks see Liora walkin’ around with her chin high, her shoulders back, actin’ like she got the whole world sittin’ pretty in her hands, but me, I can see past all that. I can see how her childhood is finally catchin’ up to her, pullin’ at her mind, twistin’ her heart, draggin’ her down piece by piece. And even though I tried my best to protect her when we were young, Lord knows I did, even though I wasmore a child myself. I still carry guilt over the things I couldn’t stop. Misplaced guilt, I know, because most of what happened to her happened when Mr. Louis took her out of the house. I didn’t know the full truth of what was happening to her until she told me herself, and by then she was already changed, already full of anger that lashed out at anything close enough to touch.

I don’t understand her obsession with me, nor the way she clings to me like I’m somethin’ she owns. But I can see, clear as day, that in many ways I was the only one in her childhood who ever saw her for who she truly was. I didn’t see some helpless pretty child. And I don’t see this beautiful wealthy woman she pretends to be now. Liora is smart, she is dangerous, and she always has been.

Which is why, as I walked into her room late this evenin’, I wasn’t shocked, not truly, to find her standin’ there naked, beatin’ a man’s head in with a club. The man was laid out on the floor, naked too, blood pourin’ from his skull like water from a busted pipe. I hurried to her, grabbed her arm, tried to pull her back.

“Liora, stop! Stop now,” I whispered harshly, fear crawlin’ up my spine. She had blood smeared across her face, her chest, her arms, but she was so full of rage she didn’t even feel it.

“STOP? YOU WANT ME TO STOP?” she screamed, her voice crackin’ with fury. “YOU KNOW WHAT THIS BASTARD DARED TO THREATEN ME WITH!”

She pointed at the man shakily, her whole body tremblin’. I snatched up her robe and wrapped it around her shoulders, shushin’ her like she was a child. I was terrified she’d wake the babies sleepin’ in the nursery. Mr. Claude was up north on business, so I was stayin’ at the house that night to help with the little ones and keep an eye on Liora. Anthony didn’t mind. Marceline and I would head home in the mornin’. The night had been quiet, peaceful even, and I’d sent the other maids home. It was just me, Liora, and the babies in that big house.

I should’ve known she’d bring a man in. I should’ve expected it.

“Keep your voice down, Liora,” I said sternly. “The babies are deep in their sleep. Don’t wake them.”

She burst into hysterical laughter, wild broken laughter, but she did lower her voice a little.

“This son of a bitch tried to extort me,” she hissed, straighten’ her robe. “He dared to threaten me.”

I gathered up the skirt of my nightdress and knelt beside the man. His chest wasn’t movin’. His eyes were glassy. His breath was gone.

“He’s dead, Liora,” I said quietly, lookin’ up at her.

She didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. Didn’t care.

“What was the threat, Liora?” I asked, though I already feared the answer.

She tilted her head, smirkin’ like she was entertainin’ herself.

“You tell me, sissy,” she said. “What could he have found out about me? That I’m a killer? That I’m a whore who steps out on her husband every chance I get while stealin’ from him? Or maybe he found out I was born the daughter of a mulatto pimp and the Black bitch of a jazz singer he dragged off the streets. Who knows? There’s plenty of shit a bastard could use against me.”

She sank into her armchair like she was discussin’ the weather.

I took a deep breath and cursed myself for what I was about to do. I was already too far in. All I could do now was keep walkin’ forward and pray the Lord would forgive me for standin’ beside her in this mess.

“His body can’t stay here,” I said calmly. “What do you plan to do with it?”

Liora waved her hand like she was swattin’ away a fly.

“Don’t worry your head about it, sissy,” she said. “I got men who’ll take care of it.”

And that answered the question I’d been wonderin for months, how she kept her hands clean, how she kept her secrets buried. Marriage hadn’t stopped her killin’. Motherhood hadn’t slowed her down.

She just perfected her methods. 

I stood up slowly, feeling the weight of the room settle across my shoulders like a shawl woven from grief and memory, and I walked over to the basin where the water had gone still and quiet, as if it too understood the heaviness of what had just happened. I wrung out the rag until the last drop fell back into the bowl, then carried it to her, my steps soft on the floorboards, my breath held tight in my chest. Liora sat in that armchair watching me with an expression I could not name, something hollow, something desperate, something that reminded me of the little girl she used to be, the one who used to crawl into my bed at night so she wouldn’t have to sleep alone in her room.

I didn’t say a word as I pressed the warm cloth to her cheek and began wiping the blood from her face, letting the long strokes of my hand speak the comfort my voice could not yet give. She kept watching me, her eyes following every movement, her breathing uneven, her body trembling with leftover rage and something deeper, something wounded.

“Will you sing for me, sissy?” she asked, her voice low and fragile, so soft it felt like a memory brushing against my ear.

The request struck me like a blow, pulling me back through years of childhood nights when she would curl against me, small and frightened, asking for a song to drown out the sounds of her daddy’s footsteps in the hallway. I swallowed the tears rising in my throat and steadied myself.

“What would you like to hear?” I asked her gently, my voice barely above a whisper.

“That song you used to sing when I was a girl,” she murmured, leaning forward until her head rested against my stomach, her arms wrapping around me as if I were the last piece of solid ground she had left.

I took a long breath, letting it fill me with the strength I needed, and then I began to sing the blues lullaby Mémé used to hum to me, Weeping Willow Woes, a song soaked in sorrow and sweetness, a song meant to soothe broken spirits and quiet trembling hearts.

I sang softly:

“Oh, weepin’ willow, bend low for me, Hide my heart where no eyes can see, Rock me gentle through the night’s cold woes, Till the mornin’ sun finds where my sorrow goes.”

Liora held onto me tighter, her fingers clutching the fabric of my nightdress, her breath warm against my stomach as if she were trying to anchor herself to the sound of my voice. I kept singing, letting the melody wrap around her like a blanket, and continued wiping the blood from her face, her shoulders, her arms. Cleaning her with the same tenderness one uses on a newborn baby, careful and slow, as though gentleness alone could undo the violence she had just unleashed.

My voice wasn’t the voice our mama had. Lord knows she could make a whole room fall silent with a single note, but it was steady enough, warm enough, familiar enough to pull Liora back from whatever edge she had been standing on.

And for a moment, if one ignored the dead man lying on the floor behind us, his blood still glistening dark on the hardwood, the scene might have looked almost peaceful. Just two sisters bound by a lifetime of shared shadows, one singing, one clinging, both trying to hold together the pieces of a world that had long since cracked apart.