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ONE

Savannah, Georgia—August 1932

“The old woet herself buried,” Jesse Wills whispered as he wiped his brow A nervous s would forever re for certain, and that was if his grandmother were alive to hear hi him around this here boneyard with a itch “Sorry there, Nana,” he mumbled under his breath, not so sure he shared his wife Betty’s Christian certainty as to the final disposition of the huure out how to hold on to a piece of this world after passing, it would be his grandmother, Tuesday Jackson

She’d been a tough old gal right up to the end, his nana Barely five foot tall and light enough for a good wind to topple, Nana Tuesday had been tough enough to best Joe Louis in any fight A fool ht have messed with Tuesday Jackson once, but he’d never do it twice Jesse himself had tried her patience more than that, of course, but he was not just any old fool; he had been her favorite grandbaby

Now she was gone Being placed in Laurel Grove South Cerave over froht next to the plot his mama had reserved for herself It wasn’t the old way Used to be his daddy would lie with his own people, near the grave of his own mother, but his daddy’s mama had been buried out on St Helena Island And Jesse’s mama wanted her husband near, where she could visit hied At least in some ways

Jesse’s cousins had invited their ational, to officiate a graveside service Nana had never darkened the church’s door in her life, so it didn’t seeer had any say over thelady When visiting out on Daufuskie or Hilton Head, she would go to the woods to do her praying, or on the rare occasion, to a Praise House For the ion between herself and heranyone else’s business

It did no har comfort to those members of his family who couldn’t reconcile his nana’s beliefs and practices with their own faith Could’ve been worse, anyway His cousin Joe had gotten all caught up with Father Divine Ended up handing over everything he had to the man ’cept the very clothes on his back No, Pastor Jones was certainly the lesser of those two evils Still, Jesse began his own private prayer that the young felloould be fast about burning off the steam he’d built up

Jesse and his little farave to his uncles, aunties, and cousins, the co mostly white-clad circle around it He loved his nana, as much if not more than any of therandmother, and the whole family knew it Best to keep Betty back where her co unheard or at least unheeded

“Oh, this heat ain’t natural weather,” Betty said, fanning herself with one hand and shielding her eyes frolare with the other Those clear hazel upturned eyes sparkled frohtened by er waves She’d stained her lips red; her eyelids wore a powdery blue

Even after all these years a hiht twang like the inland buckra, the whites—bore witness to the fact that she had never become one of his people “This here heat is hell openin’ its mouth,” she continued, “to s the old worave and scanned the ceraveyard would take her bones anyhow Ipeople, not witches”

“She was no witch,” Jesse said, a burst of anger causing his voice to corandaze drifted for a moment to his mother, May Jackson Wills Her eyes had nearly swollen shut fro She bobbed at the knees, then rocked slowly back and forth with her arht around her bosom “And you will show her the respect she deserves” Jesse couldn’t bear to see his o to her and take her in his ar heart But he couldn’t risk leaving his wife for fear she’d get soone

The sight of his mother’s pain hurt him too deeply, so he focused instead on his wife “ ’Sides, you’re a fine one to brag about being a good Christian” He said it to hurt her, to punish her, but he regretted it the next instant Betty’s glance ry eyes down at that hot sandy soil and pursed her full lips into a little-girl pout The same pout that had helped win his heart in the first place

He stood there, for the er days Betty shifted fro weary under the weight of his continued stare When her eyes flashed up to his, the hard defiant look had s sive her up, any ive up that d

ark broay too dark to be his—baby girl she’d recently birthed He looked over to see his two natural daughters, Opal and Poppy, standing near the fence that irls held back, even fro They seemed to share his sense that it would be best for the

Opal looked like her mother, except for the unfortunate addition of his ears Poppy was the dead ringer of his mama, who in her youth had been as beautiful as Betty,as how his mama’s beauty never relied on anysister Opal’s arms, didn’t resemble any of them And still, he loved her as surely as he did the ones who bore his likeness

The sun was heading up in the sky, and the fresh heat it brought was unforgiving His starched white shirt felt like a plaster cast, ith the sweat that ringed his underararht “You keep Jilo in the shade,” he called out, and Opalshelter beneath the canopy of an ancient live oak

Betty had it right, of course—he could forgive her infidelity; in truth, he could forgive her for just about anything He loved that headstrong woman to her core Besides, she still had the power to make him stop dead in his tracks and stare after her, just like that day he’d first laid eyes on her in Atlanta, outside her daddy’s store where he’d worked while putting hih school For her part, Betty hadn’t shown much interest in him until her daddy out-and-out forbade the courtship If they took up together, her daddy had shouted out loud enough for the entire city to hear, she’d bedown Still, take up with each other they did, and one finearound twelve years back, Jesse and the then fifteen-year-old Betty eloped, leaving Atlanta behind and settling in Savannah, where Jesse himself had been raised

“Forty acres and aJesse realize how far his thoughts had drifted froathered told him he wasn’t the only one ished the preacher would be done with his business Pastor Jones was still talking, but that wasn’t going to stop the rest of the Nana Tuesday in their oay