𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐄𝐆𝐔𝐈𝐍𝐄

𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐄, 𝐈

9. | AS THE GHOSTS COME RUSHING IN, I

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Ernestine Moten-Jordan had the tenacity of an ox. Of all the siblings in the Moten family, she and her sister, Bea, were the only ones to pack up what little they had, trading the hills and winding roads of Allenville, Alabama for the cold American North. They made a new home in Detroit alongside leagues of others who were eager to start anew, yearning to etch a path outside of sharecropping and Jim Crow's looming shadow. Along the way, Ernestine fixed her sights (and lips) on a man with kind eyes and legs long enough to make those dreams all the more tangible—her Fred Ross, as sweet and sure as fresh toffee.

Those weren't the only things that accounted for her tenacity.

When the United States saw it fit to involve its weary people in another war, Ernestine became the lady and the man of the house. At the time, the transition hadn't been so tough. Yes, she felt the dearth of Fred's missing hands, the ones that typically kept their children, Barbara (too smart for her own good) and Diane (a skinny tomboy with a head hard enough to leave a hairline crack in the Rockies) in line, but steadfastness and patience did wonders to make their fragmented home feel whole. It became practice for everything thereafter: Fred's return—in body, but barely in spirit—and sickness.

Ernestine was a part of an unlucky sort. Sanatoriums, rest, and plenty of sun weren't enough to keep the consumption away. The first time, her family stepped in, caroling the little ones to Bessemer as she underwent recovery in Detroit. The second time around, her sister Bea filled the void while Lucille and Mary, their siblings from down south, occasionally stepped in to assist. They were lengthy battles, rife with hacking, bloody coughs, pain in the lungs, and the type of fatigue you could feel in the deepest marrow of the bone.

But no battle with tuberculosis was recurrent enough to keep Ernestine down. After the second bout, the clouds parted and the sun came, shining down on a stronger, healthier her.

That was why Diana didn't worry. Not immediately anyway. When Ernestine's tiredness turned a bit raddled, when her cough was a little too persistent, and her walk became a bit too much like a gait, Diana reduced it to a winter bug, the sort of sickness that leaves with rest, plenty of fluids, and maybe a prescription.

Life wouldn't give her more than she could handle, right? It was already tough enduring Michael's incident—or Pepsi's, since it was their negligence that caused it. The worry of wondering if the serious, painful injury inflicted on his scalp would heal would be the only thing she would have to ruminate over when she dragged herself in from another show and plummeted on the bed harder than Raggedy Anne.

Wishes hardly mimicked reality. The truth of that dashed her in the shoulder when, a few hours before her next show, her sister Barbara called. She had been immersed in her beauty routine, grooming her eyebrows and meticulously choosing between two different face creams for wrinkles when she heard the word blood.

Or she thought she heard the word.

Maybe it was a simple misunderstanding. Maybe Barbara had misspoken. Maybe she said spud and was talking about feeding their mother a good meal to bring up her spirits. We'll make a stew with enough spuds to put every farm in Idaho out of business. Or maybe the word was flood. There was a flood at the Great Lakes and mama won't stop talking about it.

"What did you say?" Diana asked as she peered at her reflection, certain the word was spud.

"I said she's coughing up blood, Diane. Blood."

The disbelief in her voice was uncanny. If her sister, the doctor of the family, was stunned, they undoubtedly had a problem.

Diana closed the creams, turning the tops so tightly her wrist ached. "How?"