The house feels cold and disapproving, each clap of my footfalls a rebuke. I glance up the staircase but see no movement.
Noemi notices. “Caroline went with her father to the mill. How about that?”
“And Merritt?”
“He went, too.”
At least I won’t have to face him. It is grievous that thethought of seeing one’s brother should make one so ill. The scent of vinegar in the kitchen almost comes as a relief. Jars line the window, filled with an assortment of vegetables.
We set off toward the stables, Noemi’s arm looped through mine. Unlike the front of the estate, the back moves with activity, men lifting potted plants off a wagon in the courtyard, trimming trees, and painting fences. Merritt’s broken engagement will not stop the post-race merrymaking. Scandal loves a good distraction.
Noemi cuts her gaze to me. “Now, what happened to Old Gin? He never misses work.”
“Billy Riggs.”
Her arm stiffens. “What about Billy Riggs?”
I tell her, and when I am done, she issues a loudhmph.
“This time, I’m really going to hit him with the Book.”
“Who?”
“My no-account brother.” A worker rolling a wheelbarrow of pinecones tips his hat toward us, but Noemi sees right through him.
“You’re going to read him the Bible?”
“No, I’m going to hit him with it. He might not get up for days. What was he thinking, sending that smelly corpse to beat up an old man? He’s out of control.”
“I—I don’t understand. Your brother knows Billy?”
She sighs. “My brotherisBilly.”
Thirty-Eight
My shock falls out. “B-b-b-b—”
“Billy’s father stuck Mama with a baby before I came along, but that’s a story for another day,” Noemi says, not breaking her pace. “When Billy came out fair as a lily, Billy’s father stole him from Mama to school in his vile family business. Billy only tolerates my preaching ’cause he knows I got something on him. If people thought he had a little color in him, he’d be rotting in jail right now, not clinking glasses with the mayor.” She casts a patch of dandelion a look so grim, I expect the blooms to whiten and blow away right in front of us.
Noemi’s mother had been one-quarter colored, though many here considered a single drop of African blood enough to damn a lineage. It’s like how Mrs. English would never use an ostrich plume with a gray spot on one of her top-shelf hats, even though the feathers naturally came speckled. And with the push for new segregation laws, now is not a good time to have a gray spot, especially for one who has already made his share of enemies.
The thought that I have something in common with Billy—both of us passing in our own way—makes my teeth ache. “I’m sorry, but even if he is your brother, I can’t forgive him. I spent last night plotting out ways to make him suffer.”
She nods. “Tonight, we’re gonna pay him a visit. I’ll hold him down while you give him your best shot.”
“Okay.”
“As for Mrs. Payne, I own you deserve a lot better than her.” A crow lands on the ground in front of us, and Noemi lunges toward it, growling. The crow flaps away with a squawk, and she continues on her way. “But each of our personal roads got crows on them. With every crow we meet, we get better at shooing them away, the filthy flying rats. And guess what’s at the end of the road?”
“Pearly gates?”
She tsks her tongue. “Not that road, that’s on a different map. Vic-to-ry.” She cuts the word into pieces and savors every syllable. “I wasn’t too keen to get on that slick-looking August at first. But now that I know how, I’m riding him to the finish line. Victory. Do you understand me?”
“No. What is this victory?”
“It’s knowing your worth no matter what the crows tell you. Victory is waiting for us. We have to be bold enough to snatch it.”
Her words swirl around my head, white and fuzzy, like the pollen-filled air around me.
