Martha explains her problem

Late winter I saw her stagger back from Darius Jefferson’s house. I stood at my window looking out at her. She must be tired, I thought. We’re all tired.

Early spring, I met her kids in my backyard. We pored over the garden, looking for the first signs of flowers. When we found a tulip spearing up through the damp earth, we all gasped with delight. I watched their dark, radiant faces. We had this in common, we understood this beauty, we loved the earth and what it provided. We would cross the color line: we were neighbors.

Late spring. I was puttering about in the kitchen when I saw Martha come out her back door with a cut glass decanter of golden liquid in her hand. I heard a knock on my back door. It was Martha. “I just want to talk to you, woman to woman. Neighbor to neighbor.” I opened the door. Inside my kitchen she held out the decanter to me and looked about. “I’m just being neighborly,” she said. Glasses, I thought, she must want a glass. I opened the cupboard, brought out two Japanese tea cups, tiny with a translucent rice pattern. I loved these. I put them on the counter.

“Shit!” said Martha. She yanked open the cupboard, pushed aside bowls, slammed it shut and yanked open another, pushed aside cups and glasses and took out a large, hardy glass that could put a person into a coma if it hit the head just right. She poured herself a drink, opened my freezer. “Shit! No ice!” She closed it and turned and looked at me.

“I drink tea,” I said.

“You drink tea,” she said. She walked into the dining room and sat down. “Sit down!” She ordered. I sat down.

She stood up and yanked at the legs of the too-small jumpsuit she was wearing. “Damn,” she said. This fit last summer.” She remained standing. “I just want us to understand each other, we’s neighbors.”

“Yeah. And I’m glad to have you as a neighbor.”

She looked down at me. “You are glad to have me as a neighbor.”

“Yes.” She continued to look at me as though she needed convincing. Because I couldn’t say I’d been worried when she’d moved in because we’d have to try harder to talk and I didn’t mind trying harder, I said, “I’ve learned a lot from you.”

“You’ve learned a lot!” She rolled her eyes, drank, refilled the glass and drank again. “I am going to live in that house a long, long time and I am raising my kids and I want you to understand some things. I just want you to understand.” She looked around the dining room.

My mother’s Royal Copenhagen china set, a service for twelve, was in a cabinet across from her.

“I am raising those kids alone and they mean everything to me.” Tears came to her eyes. “I didn’t know my own mother. My aunt raised me and I don’t always know what a mother should do.” She took another drink, her hand trembled. “My kids love you.”

Tears came to my eyes. “They’re beautiful kids. I love it when they visit.”

“Yes! And they love you. And you are white and I am black and that’s why I have to tell you, stop talking to my kids. You can tell them all kinds of things I don’t know, you know what’s growing out there and you got things in here, you know all about. I’m sorry but you are white and me and my kids is black and I can’t trust you.

I can’t tell you what I’ve been through, stuff no one should have happen and you don’t even know about it, but I’m sorry but I have got to tell you to stop talking to my kids. I’ve told them they are not to come into your yard no more. They can say ‘hello’ to you and nothing more.”

Martha was still standing and she put the decanter on the table and opened her arms. I was too shocked to say anything. What she was saying was too stupid and too real, and too easy to believe. I loved her kids and all I wanted was to be friends, to not have color matter, to understand each other, to get past color, to be best friends and to be neighbors. I sat there, out of control, rejected, speechless, shit on.

“We’re neighbors,” she said. “I hope you understand.”

I did not understand, but I understood the talk was over. I rose and she hugged me. I felt Martha in my embrace, soft skin, soft fat underneath and beneath that, hard as a rock. She let me go, she took her decanter and she went back to her house, her side of the property line, her world. Her kids stopped talking to me.