Grace by Natashia Deon

field with ’em.
    â€œI wouldn’t go favorin’ none of ’em,” Nelson say. “They get jealous, making more work for me.”
    George keeps in Josey’s direction, walking like an old man or like one leg is shorter than the other. He uses the hoop as a walking stick over the moist and uneven ground. I get beside him, follow him in.
    He stops in front of Ada Mae and Josey. They get to looking busier than ever like they don’t see him. He slaps the hoop on Ada Mae’s closed bag ’til the bag blossoms open and shows its brown, dying weeds.
    â€œMassa George?” Ada Mae say. “We was workin so fast, we didn’t see you come up.”
    â€œThat’s good work y’all doin there,” he say to Ada Mae, pretending not to notice Josey. He dabs his throw-up rag on his fo’head, clearing the sweat. He talks to the air around Josey. “I got this here wheel. It’s a game, see, a toy called a rolling hoop.” He taps the hoop on the ground in front of Josey with it. “You push it with this stick, make it go.”
    Ada Mae sits up but Josey keeps her eyes low, working, and only say, “Yes, suh.”
    â€œI was looking for some good worker to reward. Any idea who deserves it?”
    â€œNo, suh,” Josey say.
    â€œYes, suh,” Ada Mae say.
    â€œNobody?” he say to Josey, nudging her with the hoop, then dropping it down in front of her.
    â€œDon’t think it be right for you to give it to me, suh,” Josey say. “We all work hard.”
    George’s face flushes red and he grabs the hoop, “It wasn’t for you no how!”
    â€œYes’sa,” Josey say, keeping to her work, her head down.
    â€œI got better things to do!” he yell. “You just remember that I’m the one who decides who gets and who don’t.”
    â€œYes’sa.”
    â€œI own you!” he say and yanks Josey’s bag from her hand, dropkicks it across the field, spilling weeds. But his kick snatches his other leg from under him and he lands flat on his back, moaning in the dirt. He rolls over and grabs his hoop before hopping up to a stand. He tosses the hoop to Ada Mae and hobbles back across the field to the road.
    â€œLook it, Josey!” Ada Mae say. “Look what I got.”
    â€œI thought he was gon’ pass us,” Josey say, bitter, brushing dirt off her knees. “Where’d my bag go?”
    Ada Mae squats down and rests her hoop on her thigh and reaches for a weed, pulling it careless, then slices her hand with it. She yelps and sucks the edge of her palm but Josey don’t ask if she’s all right. Instead she say, “Cain’t nothin good come from him favorin’ you, Ada Mae. Not all gifts is good gifts.”
    Cotton castaways float up from Ada Mae’s bag and get pushed away by the moving silence of her breath.

12 / FLASH
    Conyers, Georgia, 1847
    I AIN ’ T ALLOWED IN the garden since what happened yesterday.
    Cynthia say from now on I got to wake her up in the morning before I start my day’s chores, but, “Yours ain’t the first voice I want to hear in the morning,” she said. “So just tug on my toe before you go.”
    She left for a date on Bernadette’s bed a little while ago. Said Bernadette ain’t making her money no way so I’ve been making the most of my time in here alone. I been sitting in front of Cynthia’s mirror, twirling her tiny pot of red lip stain. Stroked her small brush across its mouth.
    One of the legs on this chair is missing a bottom piece, broken. It wobbles from side to side, like a gimp man dancing.
    I read my Bible.
    But, if I’m honest, I’m just laying my face on it, crossing my eyes to see the words. Candle wax is cooling in bumpy lines down the candle-holder. I scratch my nails down it, let its softness pack under my nails and push back the meat. I flick it out with my thumb and drop the