Page 27 of Junie
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The cookhouse smells of chitlins and onions. The scent drowns her as she strips her hundredth collard green off its stem.
It has been three days since they left Montgomery. Three days of Junie’s head throbbing like a broken bone, three days since Violet stopped speaking to her and ordered her to work in the cookhouse, and three days of crying on Caleb’s shoulder in the stables. When she stepped out of the carriage after they returned from Montgomery, her family did not ask why her head was bruised and bloodied. Instead, Muh took her to the water pump, rinsed off her wound, and caked it in her remedies while Junie sobbed in her arms. She has not spoken to Caleb about what happened; she has seen the bleeding lines cut through the back of his shirt. He has suffered on his own.
Auntie does not trust her to make food for white folks, so instead Junie is making the Negro meals; collard greens, grits, and, this week, her least favorite food, chitlins. The white folks will eat the meat. First a roast, then the chops, and lastly the bacon and hams, which will get smoked and stored for a later meal. Junie will eat the feet, the ears, and the entrails. She turns away from the flames, seeing only the memory of Mr. Taylor tossing her notebook and her writings into the fire.
The door to the cookhouse swings open. Auntie rushes in, removing her bonnet and dusting off her apron.
“You ain’t done yet?” she says, looking at Junie’s thinning pile of collard greens. “You’re gonna have to get a whole lot faster than that if you’re gonna work in the kitchen with me. I ain’t got time for lead feet.”
Auntie walks over to the chitlins pot and looks at it suspiciously.
“Have you been watching these? The water’s getting awful low,” Auntie says, stirring the pot.
“I’ll add it in, I’m—” Junie stops as the smell of the cooking organs rises again. She covers her nose.
“You all right?” Auntie asks.
All right. She’s the farthest it gets from all right. She tries to look at Auntie, to placate her worry with a bit of eye contact and a smile, but as soon as their eyes meet, Uncle George is in Junie’s memory. He exists in the flesh so nearby, yet he might as well be in another world. Getting to him means risking the punishments Muh had told her about, the type of suffering that makes you beg for death. Telling Auntie about Uncle George isn’t a kindness, but a cruelty, opening a wound that’s long sealed shut, giving hope where none truly exists.
She averts her eyes and goes back to chopping.
“It’s just my head, is all,” Junie says.
“Go on and get some ice from outside and sit down for a minute. I can mind these chitlins,” Auntie says.
Junie snaps an icicle off the roof and wraps it in a rag before returning to sit at the table.
“I heard some news when I was in the house,” Auntie says. Junie raises her eyebrows. She isn’t used to Auntie getting the house news before she does.
“Mhmm?” Junie musters.
“It seems Miss Violet and Mr. Taylor are going to be getting married, after all. By the end of the month. Not sure what the rush is, but Bess heard something about a bill collector coming at the beginning of next year, so my guess is something to do with that. Anyway, it means you and I will need to put together a wedding meal on the fly. Good thing we killed that pig and got the ham ready.”
Junie hardly hears the end of Auntie’s sentence.
She is going to marry him .
After all this, she is still going to marry him.
She has wondered for months what it would feel like if Violet got engaged to Mr. Taylor, if her whole life hung in the balance like a fly stuck on the thinnest thread of a spider’s web. She had imagined she would cry, that her knees would give, that her pulse would pound so quickly it would threaten to burst through her skin. Instead, there is nothing more than the sting of ice against the slice in her forehead, and the boiling of rage in her blood.
—
Auntie marilla doesn’t notice she is gone until Junie is halfway to the back door of the main house. It is Caleb who sees her running out of the cookhouse, grabs her by the shoulders, and begs her to see reason before she gets herself hurt again. She ignores him through the deafening buzz in her ears. She shakes him off and sprints for the door, throwing it open and walking inside the house as though she is meant to be there.
Once she is inside, no one will follow her. No one will walk up the stairs after her. No one will pull her back from twisting the familiar knob of Violet’s door.
Violet is curled in her reading chair, the winter afternoon sun casting a gray pall over the room. Books clutter all the surfaces, the bed is unmade, and clothes litter the floor. With Bess stretched thin taking care of all the house chores, Violet’s messy tendencies have been allowed to flourish. When the door flies open, Violet’s eyes widen but she does not scream.
“Close it behind you,” she says.
She was expecting this. Junie’s hands shake as she pushes the door closed. Violet places the book in her lap.
“You know you ain’t meant to be here, Junie.”
“You’re marrying him?” Junie says.
“Gosh, people sure do talk around here.” Violet laughs coldly, and sighs. “You can’t be surprised, Junie. This was always intended.”
“You don’t have to do this, Violet. Don’t do this.”
“It ain’t your place to have an opinion on my choices, Junie.”
“Violet, I know you love her, but see reason here, please. This ain’t the way, he’s—”
“I’d stop right now if I were you before you say something impertinent,” Violet says. Her voice has the same icy ring as her mother’s. Junie stops. She sucks in a deep breath, pulling the tears back into her body from the throat.
“I know I put a hard face, Violet, but you know better than anyone that I’ve been cursed with forgiveness. No matter how hard I try, it’s always broken from hard to soft like frozen butter in a hot pan—”
“Stop, Junie,” Violet stays.
“Do not interrupt me,” Junie hisses. Violet balks, but she does not speak.
“I was ready to forgive you one day for sending me away to the cookhouse. I was even ready to forgive you for what you did in Montgomery. I’ve always believed we’re something like sisters to each other, and a bit of fighting is expected with your sister, I suppose,” Junie says, holding back her tears. “But this? You’re putting me and my whole family in danger, Violet.”
Violet turns away, looking out the window.
“You should go,” Violet says.
“You ain’t even gonna show me the respect of looking at me?” Junie says, her rage boiling. She walks over, dropping to her knees in front of her, angling the wound on her head toward her.
“Look at me, Violet,” Junie says. “Look at what your new fiancé did to me.”
“Leave, Junie. Now,” Violet says. She shifts in her seat to move farther away from her.
“You told me you wanted me to have love and happiness, and this is what you let him do to me? I will not leave this room, Violet, until you look at me.”
“I said, leave, Junie,” Violet says.
“You’re bringing this monster into all of our lives.”
“Do you think I want this?” Violet yells. “That I want to sign my life away to a man I don’t love? There ain’t no other way.”
Junie stands up, taking a step back.
“You know, you’re actually luckier than me, Junie. Nobody’s gonna stop you from being with Caleb, especially once Beau and I are married. There is no other way for me to be with her but this.”
Junie is silent. There is an ounce of truth in Violet’s misguided words, a teaspoon of sugar mixed into the cup of poison.
“And what about me, then?” Junie says. “What about my family? Are we meant to suffer so you can have your one true love?”
“It ain’t your place to have opinions about my marriage or my decisions.”
“It is when they affect me!”
“Christ, Junie, you’re my Negro. You serve me. This ain’t a two-way road.”
The words cut Junie like a knife.
“That’s all I am to you, Violet?” Junie says.
Violet finally turns back to look at Junie. Tears hang on her eyelids. Junie stands a moment, praying Violet will speak, that Violet will find a way to mend the fatal wound she has opened between them. She doesn’t.
“You’re a fool if you think he won’t do this to you one day, too,” Junie says, turning back to the door.
“Junie?” Violet calls. Junie turns around.
“If I catch you again in this house without permission, I’ll have you whipped.”