“Did MiMi do one of her cleansing ceremonies to fix you, too?” I only half-laugh because I’m still not sure what that was or what it did, but I know I’m changed somehow.
“It wasn’t that simple,” Lo says. “It never is. No, she told me about a boy she loved when she was young. When he came to the house, her mother said he failed the paper-bag test.”
“What is a paper-bag test?”
“You have to remember it was New Orleans, years ago,” Lo offers. “Our family was filled with quadroons and octoroons and a whole bunch of words for almost white. So when she came home with a brown brother, her mother broke out the paper bag. They would hold a paper bag against your skin, and if you were darker than the paper bag, you didn’t pass the test.”
“That’s awful. Oh my God.”
“Yeah, and MiMi regretted letting him go. He ended up marrying a friend of hers. He treated her like a queen, and they lived a happy life not a block from where he asked MiMi to marry him.” Lo blinks at tears, her lips tightening. “She told me that she missed out on him because of a stupid paper bag,” Lo says. “And anyone who misses out on me would be as foolish as she had been and that they would live to regret it.”
I glance down at my daughter, with her skin lighter than mine and her eyes of blue–violet, and I swear to myself that no one will ever make her feel out of place or question her identity. It may not be a promise I can completely keep, but I’ll try.
“Anyway, enough reminiscing.” Lo looks at me, clear-eyed and probing. “It’s the future we need to discuss.”
I watch the sun dipping into the long, watery line of horizon, like a cookie diving into milk. “It’s getting dark.” I stand, brushing my dress off and bending to pick up Sarai.
“Listen to me.” Lo grabs my wrist, looking up from her plot on the riverbank. “You can’t stay here, Bo.”
I swallow a quick retort, a defense. Even though these were my very own thoughts before I came to the river, I resist the idea of leaving. “What if it’s not …” I gulp sudden trepidation, “… safe to leave? What if Caleb comes after us?”
“You’ve done all you can to keep him from doing that.” Lo squeezes my wrist gently until I meet her eyes. “The leash is tight around his neck, but it’s also tight around yours. Think about all you gave up. Get it back.”
Take them back. Your soul is yours. Your heart is yours. Your body is yours. Yours to keep and yours to share.
MiMi’s incantation circles my thoughts.
“The dreams you had. Your ambitions,” Lo continues, in unknowing chorus with MiMi’s voice in my head. “Reclaim them.”
“But Sarai needs—”
“Sarai needs to see what we never saw,” Lo says dryly. “Let her see her mother pursuing her dreams. Let her see you standing on your own two feet.”
“I will need the money,” I murmur. The little bit of cash Andrew smuggled to me when I left will run low eventually, even though our expenses have been next to nothing out here.
“You need more than money. Girl, you need a life.” Lo stands, too, taking Sarai from me.
“Do you remember any of your Louisiana geography?” Lo asks.
“Um, that would be a no.” I laugh. “I mean, the basics, yeah.”
“Did you ever learn about deltaic switching?”
“No idea,” I tell her, frowning and searching my memory.
“I don’t remember all the details, but the long and short of it is that the Mississippi River searches for a shorter route to the sea.
It makes these deposits of silt and sand over time to get there faster.” Lo shrugs. “Think of it like geographical evolution. Well, the bayou was one of the points of deltaic switching, and over time, about every thousand years or so, it literally changes its course.”
“Wow.” I’m not sure what else to say. “What does that mean, though?”
“It means that this very spot where we’re standing right now was powerful enough to be a part of that—to help set the new course for the freaking Mississippi River.” She starts walking back up the shaded path to the house, but looks over her shoulder, locking our eyes.
“Take a few minutes and think about that,” she says. “Don’t let Caleb define the rest of your life. Change your course.”
I take more than a few minutes after she walks away. I stand there until the sun disappears, and the night spreads the sky with black velvet and studs it with stars. I know I should go in. I’m never this close to the river when it’s dark, but tonight, there’s no fear of gators or snakes or whatever the swamp could use against me. Tonight, the crickets whisper Lo’s words back to me.
Change your course.