Page 30 of It’s Me They Follow

“You know, there are babies who get stuck,” Elle said, waking up from a deep sleep, as though she could hear The Shopkeeper’s thoughts.

Elle leaned her passenger-side seat all the way back and put her swollen feet up on the dashboard.

Her legs were wide open, her silk muumuu bunched at both sides.

She looked relaxed. Gentle. She was calm like a newborn baby, ready to give birth to a newborn baby.

She rubbed the pressure point between her thumb and her pointer finger in circles like their grandfather had shown them to do whenever they were in pain.

“My first one got stuck in the canal, which put pressure on her head, her neck, her chest, and her cord. Being stuck in the tunnel cuts off oxygen, and eventually...”

The Shopkeeper wanted to put her hands over her eyes, but she was driving.

I deserve sweetness , she thought, searching for any sweet thought.

It wasn’t fear that made The Shopkeeper drive slow.

Yes, a baby was on its way. Yes, a few dozen cars were honking behind her, flashing their lights, and giving her the finger, but she imagined veering too far to the left or right and running into the side of the tunnel, puncturing it (or them), and water rushing in, simply because she was going faster than necessary to get to an inevitable place—the other side.

She was going to hold on tight and move at her own speed, even if it was slow.

She’d rather be safe than sorry, like her grandfather used to say.

“‘Time brought us here, and time gone take us away,’” Elle said, speaking a gibberish Rocky line as she drifted back to sleep.

It crossed both of their minds that they might run out of time and end up having to deliver the baby in the never-ending tunnel, because of course it was never-ending, but there was no safe place to pull over.

They couldn’t stop. At ten miles per hour, they couldn’t go any slower.

At least I wouldn’t have to catch it , The Shopkeeper thought, and asked herself if that was why she was going so slow, to avoid having to touch the baby—running down the clock so it would slip out on its own. That’s not good.

“This baby must like drama like her mama,” The Shopkeeper teased.

“Her? No, it’s a boy,” Elle retorted, though half-asleep. “And you’re a turtle. Great. We are all ancient creatures. So what? Just drive.” Elle made no sense. The pain had gone to her head.

The Shopkeeper searched for a topic that would take her attention off the cars coming toward her at preposterous speeds.

“I want a water birth,” Elle said sleepily.

“Why?” The Shopkeeper could not understand why Elle overcomplicated already complicated things. First, she wanted a home birth; now she wanted a home birth in a pool of water. “Sounds unnecessarily risky if you ask me. You’re having a baby, not a shark.”

“Didn’t ask you.”

The Shopkeeper waited an extra-long time to respond as she searched for a clever comeback.

Then realized Elle was snoring beside her.

The Shopkeeper knew being in the tunnel reminded them both of their grandfather.

It was his special place; maybe that was why Elle had finally relaxed and gone to sleep.

“Something I read.” Elle popped up again. “It said babies born underwater are calmer, like dolphins.” She faded, then woke up. “They speak to me in my dreams.” She was oddly at ease, dreaming and therefore not making much sense. Driving underwater slowed both their minds and their bodies.

“Who speaks to you? Babies or dolphins?” The Shopkeeper asked.

“Both.”

“In English?” The Shopkeeper laughed, not sure what Elle meant.

“They speak to me in dolphin. You know how I hit that high note when I am in pain? Yeah, that’s my dolphin side coming out.”

The Shopkeeper laughed some more. She missed talking to Elle when she was asleep. “And what do they say to you in dolphin?” she asked, then leaned closer to her sister so she could hear.

“They say, ‘Tell Gee she’s driving too damn slow and she’s gonna get us killed.’” Elle kept her eyes closed.

The Shopkeeper cracked the window and felt the moisture of the wet tunnel fill the air. I must speak turtle , The Shopkeeper thought, hunching over the steering wheel because she didn’t understand anything Elle was saying.

“Dolphins spoke to Ms. Harriett too,” The Shopkeeper added.

She ignored her sister. “Ms. Harriett said our ancestors left our stories with the dolphins. Ancestors who didn’t make it through the Middle Passage stayed with the dolphins instead, and they became one people.

” The Shopkeeper guessed that was why she felt safe with the mystical creatures, air breathers who thrived underwater and spoke and sang. They were her family.

“I wish you’d get outta your head. You have to drive faster, or you’ll cause an accident,” Elle insisted. “No make pretend.”

“Or I can drive faster and cause a worse accident. I can only drive as fast as I can drive.” A long tail of cars with bright red brake lights was forming behind them.

She didn’t care. Maybe we all need to slow down.

She turned on her hazards. “Happy?” The clicking noise was like a heartbeat, steady and reliable.

“I am slowing time,” she said to the rhythm of the hazards.

“I am slowing time.” Her nerves were no longer unnerved; her heart was no longer racing.

She was moving slow because she was slowing time.

“You have to be careful,” Elle said. “Don’t slow it too much.”

The Shopkeeper wished her sister would either fully wake up and say something of substance or stop speaking and stay asleep. She wanted the dolphins and the never-ending tunnel and their grandfather and his stories all to herself while she drove.

“We need a game,” Elle said, after another moment of prolonged silence when The Shopkeeper was simply breathing and thinking.

The sisters gamified anything too hard to face head-on.

“I’m gonna lay down my burdens / Down by the riverside / Down by the riverside / Down by the riverside.

” The Shopkeeper was surprised to hear Elle sing their grandfather’s favorite song, and then The Shopkeeper started humming along, then singing, then tapping fingers on the steering wheel while thinking of all the water they couldn’t see around them.

She wished they’d made the walls of the never-ending tunnel see through.

“I’m gonna lay down my burdens / Down by the riverside / I ain’t gonna study war no more. ”

“I have a game,” Elle said. “The game is, every time someone sings the beginning of grandfather’s song, ‘I’m gonna lay down my burdens,’ they have to end it by sharing a burden they wish they could lay down. You have to share on beat. No hesitation.”

“I wish you’d lay down the burden of youknowwho, and you know why.” Her sister sang and clapped her hands like they were in a church choir.

“Down by the riverside.”

This was Harriett’s song as well, The Shopkeeper remembered—a coded message for those seeking freedom. It told them where to meet her and when, and what to let go of to make it to the other side.

“Down by the riverside.”

“Lay down the burden of losing another baby,” The Shopkeeper blurted. It came out before she could take it back.

Her sister got quiet. Then continued clapping.

“Down by the riverside.”

“I wish you’d lay down the burden of being lonely forever because you can’t allow yourself to touch anyone or be touched, which really means that you’re emotionally stunted, and I am going to have to take care of you and come to your rescue for the rest of your life,” Elle retorted, strong and offbeat.

“Lay that burden down so you can meet someone nice, like ME, and settle down.”

The Shopkeeper got quiet. That was not how the game was supposed to go. She swallowed hard and then went back to singing, even with tears in her eyes and cars whizzing into the opposing lane to go around her.

“Down by the riverside.”

“Let’s just start speaking practically about delivering this baby if that is what needs to happen next,” The Shopkeeper said, cutting off the game and changing the subject.

“I was just getting into it.”

“Well, we have other things to get into.”

Sometimes games saved them, but sometimes games made things worse.

“Our grandmother is a storied woman.” Elle stopped her clapping. “Agree or disagree?”

The Shopkeeper agreed.

“When she doesn’t have eyes, she can see. And what she cannot see, she can feel. Somehow, she always knows where a story will go.”

“Always.”

“She is like the dolphins; she can feel what bounces off of people. And that’s what she uses to navigate the world. So we are going to make it to her house, and she is going to tell us the next part of this story.”

“I thought you said no make pretend,” The Shopkeeper corrected.

“It’s not make pretend; she’s our real grandmother. When we get to her house, you’ll go straight upstairs. Gather towels and blankets and pillows in a basket and bring them to the sunroom, where I’ll be running hot water into a blow-up pool filled with...”

“Calendula.” The Shopkeeper thought she had heard it all. Besides still thinking they were going to make it home in time, Elle also believed they were gonna sit at their blind grandmother’s feet and have her tell a story that would help them birth a baby in a kiddie pool filled with calendula.

“She can do it,” Elle said. She was quietly sweating and swearing every fifteen minutes now, but otherwise, she was taking the contractions quite well. “Just like you can drive faster!”

“I’m waiting for the dolphins to take my burdens away.”

Elle looked at The Shopkeeper, completely confused, and shook her head. “That’s what I mean by no make pretend.”

But just when The Shopkeeper was about to explain, the never-ending tunnel ended, and they were officially Down South once again.

A star-filled sky greeted them as they emerged from the tunnel, with the North Star shining the brightest behind them.

A school of dolphins splashed on the side of the shore, so close to the car that The Shopkeeper swore she could feel their mist. Her eyes widened; her mouth dropped open.

“Close your mouth,” Elle said. “This ain’t even the good part of the story yet.”

She looked at her sister, and her sister looked at her.

“To grandmother’s house we go.”