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by Toni Morrison

“They sell dead bodies? What for?”

“Well, you know, doctors need to work on the dead poor so they can help the live rich.”

And for a reason he still did not understand, he began to cry. Love plain, simple, and so fast it shattered him.

Earlier, when Billy introduced his son to Frank, the boy had lifted his left arm to shake hands. Frank noticed the right one sagging at his side. Now, shuffling the deck, he asked what happened to his son’s arm. Billy arranged his hands in rifle position. “Drive-by cop,” he said. “He had a cap pistol. Eight years old, running up and down the sidewalk pointing it. Some redneck rookie thought his dick was underappreciated by his brother cops.”

“You are deep, Thomas.” Frank smiled. “What you want to be when you grow up?” Thomas turned the knob with his left hand and opened the door. “A man,” he said and left.

Afterward, for months on end, Frank kept thinking, “But I know them. I know them and they know me.” If he heard a joke Mike would love, he would turn his head to tell it to him—then a nanosecond of embarrassment before realizing he wasn’t there. And never again would he hear that loud laugh, or watch him entertain whole barracks with raunchy jokes and imitations of movie stars. Sometimes, long after he’d been discharged, he would see Stuff’s profile in a car stopped in traffic until the heart jump of sorrow announced his mistake. Abrupt, unregulated memories put a watery shine in his eyes. For months only alcohol dispersed his best friends, the hovering dead he could no longer hear, talk to, or laugh with.

“Misery don’t call ahead. That’s why you have to stay awake—otherwise it just walks on in your door.”

“But—” “But nothing. You good enough for Jesus. That’s all you need to know.”

Ignoring those who preferred new, soft blankets, they practiced what they had been taught by their mothers during the period that rich people called the Depression and they called life.

Look to yourself. You free. Nothing and nobody is obliged to save you but you. Seed your own land. You young and a woman and there’s serious limitation in both, but you a person too. Don’t let Lenore or some trifling boyfriend and certainly no devil doctor decide who you are. That’s slavery. Somewhere inside you is that free person I’m talking about. Locate her and let her do some good in the world.”

So it was just herself. In this world with these people she wanted to be the person who would never again need rescue. Not from Lenore through the lies of the Rat, not from Dr. Beau through the courage of Sarah and her brother. Sun-smacked or not, she wanted to be the one who rescued her own self. Did she have a mind, or not? Wishing would not make it so, nor would blame, but thinking might. If she did not respect herself, why should anybody else?

“I can’t have children,” Cee told him. “Never.” She lowered the flame under the pot of cabbage. “The doctor?” “The doctor.” “I’m sorry, Cee. Really sorry.” Frank moved toward her. “Don’t,” she said, pushing his hand away. “I didn’t feel anything at first when Miss Ethel told me, but now I think about it all the time. It’s like there’s a baby girl down here waiting to be born. She’s somewhere close by in the air, in this house, and she picked me to be born to. And now she has to find some other mother.” Cee began to sob. “Come on, girl. Don’t cry,” whispered Frank. “Why not? I can be miserable if I want to. You don’t need to try and make it go away. It shouldn’t go away. It’s just as sad as it ought to be and I’m not going to hide from what’s true just because it hurts.”