Burdens
Burdens
E d and Ebby are sitting side by side in the dirt, now, under the old oak, while his mother clears glasses from the back porch, pretending she’s not watching them.
“I should have moved us back here, after Baz died,” Ed says.
Ebby sits up straight, looks him in the eye.
“But why?” Ebby says. “I mean, I love this place and all, but no.”
“But our roots were here.”
“Our roots are still here,” Ebby says, putting her head on her father’s shoulder. Few things please Ed more. She used to do that all the time when she was a little girl.
“You had to grow up all alone. At least you would have had your cousins, here.”
Ebby says nothing, merely nods her head.
“I wish we could bring your brother back, but we can’t.”
“I know, Dad.” He hears her voice break.
“It’s been hard for you.”
“For all of us. I feel like my mistake was trying so hard to forget what happened, you know? When my engagement to Henry fell apart, it put too much of a spotlight on me. It just brought back too many memories of what it was like after Baz died. That’s why I took off for France. I kinda wanted to forget who I was. I wanted to live like someone else. But I didn’t want to forget about Baz. Just everything that happened to us right at the end.”
Ed nods.
“I think I caused you a lot of worry,” Ebby says. “Because I never liked to talk about that day.”
Ed holds his breath. This may be the first time, in all these years, that his daughter is choosing to talk about the impact of her brother’s death without being prodded by Ed and Soh, or by a therapist.
“You know how the media always talked about us being the only African American family in our exclusive coastal enclave and that sort of thing? Well, as I got older, it really bugged me. As if they were trying to say that what happened to us wouldn’t have happened to a white family.”
“Right.”
“Even though we know it does.”
“I felt that way, too. Your mom and I both did.”
“It’s just that,” Ebby says, “Dad…”
Ed’s shoulder feels wet. His daughter is crying.
“Baby girl,” he says, touching her chin.
“No, no, I’m okay. I just need you to listen.”
Ed sits back. Ebby lifts the hem of her shirt to pat her face dry.
“In a way, it’s true, Daddy. That it happened to us because we’re black.”
Ed tips his head to one side. Ebby hasn’t called him Daddy in that little-girl voice in years.
“Because of the jar, Daddy,” Ebby continues. “Those robbers? They were looking for Old Mo.”
“We don’t know that,” Ed says. “We may never know. Though I have wondered about it.”
“But I know , Dad, for sure. I heard them.”
“Heard them? Who?”
“The men. The robbers.”
“But you were upstairs.”
“I was, but I heard voices, and looked over the banister, and saw them from up there.”
“Wait, you actually saw them?” Ed says. He stands up. “But we asked you. The police asked you. You saw them and you didn’t tell us?”
“I couldn’t really see them. They had their faces covered. Two men with ski masks.”
“Could you tell if they were white?”
“I think they were white. Just from what I could see around the eyes, you know? Light-skinned, for sure.”
“Would you recognize them if you saw them?” Ed asks.
Ebby shakes her head.
“I’ve asked myself that a million times, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t know them if they walked into this yard right now. And that was part of what scared me. Who were they? What if they knew I’d been up there? That I could hear them?” Ebby is on her feet now, pacing.
“I kept thinking, what if they were to come back? What if they tried to hurt you and Mom? Or me? I’m sorry, Dad, but I was petrified. I saw how they treated Baz. They pushed him into the study and then I couldn’t see any more, but soon after that, I heard the shots.”
Ed realizes he’s been holding air in his lungs for too long. He exhales heavily, now. Finally, he has confirmation of what he has long suspected. Even his friend Harris suggested it. Whoever came into their house all those years ago came looking for the jar. And now he knows that his daughter witnessed more on that day than she’d ever admitted.
“I didn’t want to tell you and Mom,” Ebby says. “But all these years, I kept thinking that they wouldn’t have come to our house if it hadn’t been for Old Mo.”
Ed hugs his daughter. Ebby may not think she knew enough to make a difference, but even the confirmation that the robbers had been looking for Old Mo might have helped police in their investigation, early on. He’s not sure it would make much of a difference now. So many years have passed. But Ed won’t say that. His daughter looks miserable enough.
“You would have been too young, at the time, to know any of this, but the jar had become very valuable, all of a sudden. It had always been historic. But most people had no idea how special it was. Then someone sold a similar jar for a lot of money, and the experts started doing interviews in the news about pottery produced by enslaved craftsmen, and people we knew started making comments about Old Mo’s value.”
“Word must have gotten around.”
“Yes, word must have gotten around.”
“And whoever came for that jar killed Baz,” Ebby says quietly. “And none of this would have happened, we wouldn’t have been at home, if I hadn’t insisted on playing hide-and-seek one more time. Baz kept telling me we had to go, but I convinced him to stay. We were still there because I begged him to play one more game. Baz is dead because of that, too, Daddy. Baz is dead because of me.”
“Oh, no, baby, no,” Ed says. “What happened to our family happened because someone came looking for something that didn’t belong to them. They came into our house uninvited, they brought a weapon into our home, and they were willing to shoot a defenseless child. That is why this happened to your brother. The rest is all variables. You do know this, don’t you? You know that this is about the people who did this, and not about what you did or didn’t do?”
As Ed hears himself say it, he finally, finally, finally believes it. The same thinking applies to him. You can’t separate out one event from another, one choice from another. His son wasn’t killed because Ed chose to live on the coast or because his daughter wanted to play one more game. His son was killed because other people made the decision to interfere with their lives. His family had a historic jar, but it might have been something else, or someone else, on that day.
“But, Daddy, there’s something else I never told you.”
And then Ed’s twenty-nine-year-old daughter cups her hands over his ear and whispers into it like she’s ten years old again. When she is done telling him, Ed pulls back and looks at her.
“Nooo,” Ed says. “You can’t tell yourself that. It could have happened to anyone, and you were only ten years old. People freeze all the time when they’re scared.”
“But you and Mom taught us…”
“Sure, we taught you to call 911, but things were happening so fast. You’re not a machine. And no one could have gotten there in time to stop what was happening, don’t you see?” Ed hugs his daughter. “You called them afterward, Ebby. You tried to get help. But the doctors told us your brother wouldn’t have survived anyway. I’m so sorry you had to live through that, baby girl, but probably it was over the moment they shot him.” Ed hears his voice break. “The damage to his body was too great.”
“But he talked to me, Daddy. He was still alive.”
“I know, baby, I know.” Ed’s heart is breaking. To think of all that his daughter has carried with her all these years.
“And they broke Old Mo.”
Ed nods, now, at a loss for words. His daughter’s doubts have been mirroring his all this time, and he didn’t realize it.
“They took everything from us.”
“They didn’t take everything, Ebby.” Ed puts his arms around his daughter again. “They didn’t take you.” He glances up at the kitchen window and sees his mother, watching them from inside. And now Ed knows what he needs to do. It is time to tell his family the truth about the jar. But first, he needs to patch things up with his wife.