no. sorry.
oh wait.
i don't know. maybe we should have moved.
you remember halle.
the boys wouldn't have left if halle were here.
just got a few more things to do, then i'll start supper.
what is it baby?
i don't know.
she's mad like a baby gets mad. you forgetting how little it is. she wasn't even two years old when she died. too little to understand.
no more powerful than the way i loved her.
oh, i don't really pray anymore. i just talk.
oh, about time. how some things go. pass on. some things just stay.
like, the place i was at before here - sweet home. even if that whole farm and every tree and blade of grass on it died - it'll still be there. waiting. and if you go and stand in the place where it was, what happened there once, will happen again.
nothing ever does. that's why i had to get my children out. no matter what. that's why you can never go there.
you don't need to know nothing else.
white? maybe it was my bedding dress. describe it to me.
buttons. well, that's not my bedding dress. i never had a button on nothing. what else?
a bustle?
you say it was holding on to me. how?
well, i'll be.
what plans?
maybe. maybe it does.
paul? paul d.? is that you?
you looking good.
how long has it been?
eighteen years.
you want to soak them? let me get you some water.
you're not leaving right away, are you? you stay awhile.
dead.
eight years now. almost nine.
soft as cream. being alive was the hard part. sorry you missed her though. is that what you came by for?
come on inside.
it finds everyone.
i suppose.
i wouldn't have to ask about him, would i?. you'd tell me if there was anything to tell, wouldn't you?
no. i think he's dead. it's just not being sure that keeps him alive.
same. ha, listen to her, all her children dead and she felt each one go the very day and hour it happened.
1855. same day my baby was born.
had to. couldn't be no waiting.
almost. a white girl helped me.
we got spare rooms. you could stay the night, if you had a mind to.
oh it's. it's truly meant. i just hope you'll pardon my house.
on and off.
it's not evil. it's just. just sad. come on. just step through.
oh that's not baby suggs. that's my daughter. the one i sent ahead with the boys before i run off.
no.
no, they alive - they run off before baby suggs died. the one i was carrying when i left sweet home is all i got left.
me and denver.  my daughter.
it's all right by me. i cook at a restaurant in town. sew a little on the sly.
you look more done in by a walk through my front hall than all those eighteen years of walking put together.
won't you stay a little while? can't nobody catch up on eighteen years in a day.
baby, this here's paul d. garner. paul, this is my denver. paul's the last of the sweet home men.
of course he did. i told you, he's from sweet home. paul may stay with us a while. won't that be nice, having an old friend stay a spell?
i don't see how it could be lonely spending every minute with us like it does.
girl, mind yourself!
but it's where we were. all together. it's where i met your father. and it comes back on us whether we want it to or not.
denver, start up the stove. paul must be hungry.
bread's no trouble. the rest i brought back from where i work. least i can do, cooking dawn to noon, is bring dinner home. you got any objections to pike?
we'll figure it out.
what's the matter with you! i never knew you to behave like this!
that's just it. she got no cause to act up with a stranger.
baby, what is it? did something happen?
can't what? what can't you?
it's the house. people don't.
denver!
it's easier than some other things. come here, baby.
no!
no. no moving. no leaving. it's all right the way it is.
i got a tree on my back and a haunt in my house and nothing in between but the daughter i'm holding in my arms. no more running - from nothing! i will never run from another thing on this earth, you hear! i took one journey and i paid the ticket but let me tell you something, paul d. garner; it cost too much! do you hear me?! it cost too much! now sit down and eat with us or leave us be!
huh?
it's there all the same.
white girl. that's what she called it. i never seen it and never will. but she said that's what it looked like. a chokecherry tree. leaves, branches. that was 18 years ago. could have cherries by now for all i know.
i had milk, see. i was pregnant with denver but i had milk for my baby girl that i sent ahead with the boys. i hadn't stopped nursing her when i sent her and the boys ahead of me. anybody could smell me long before they saw me. nothing i could do about it. all i knew is i had to get my milk to my little girl. nobody was going to nurse her like me. nobody was going to get it to her fast enough or take it away when she had enough. nobody knew she couldn't pass her air if you held her up on your shoulder, only if she was lying on your knee. nobody knew that but me.
schoolteacher's boys drag me into the barn and took my milk.
held me down in that barn and took it.
they were like boulders on me. their hands over my mouth and on my shoulders and my legs.
i couldn't move. alls i could see was the loft above their heads.
i told mrs. garner on them. she had that lump on her neck and couldn't speak but her eyes rolled out tears, i remember. them boys found out i told on 'em and schoolteacher made one open up my back, and when it closed it made a tree.
and they took my milk.
and they took my milk!
why don't you. take a rest. i'll call you when we're ready.
no. you'd just get in my way. denver and me'll do it.
here?! out in the open?!
don't talk stupid.
you sure nobody can see?
i'll call you when there's something to eat.
ain't much. river mostly. and hogs.
all right. it's. it's fine with me.
don't worry about her. she's a charmed child. nothing ever touch her too bad. from the beginning. everybody i knew dead or gone, but not her. you got to know something, though - this here ain't no better life. it's just not that other one. what i do here - all i ever do - is keep denver from that other. so if you stay, there's no more talk about sweet home or anything else. i won't let the past in my yard again. getting me and denver through this here life is all that matters. you understand?
don't be asking me to choose, paul d. there ain't no choice here.
maybe we should leave things the way they are.
we get along.
i don't go inside.
i don't know. i don't know.
all right. we'll see how it goes.
well. some of it.
nothing. nothing's wrong. lay back down.
don't know.
no, he hasn't. he won't. he. he wants to takes us to the carnival next thursday.
dress up a little bit. wear our hats. what do you think?
maybe. all right. all right. can i ask you something? i was wondrin'. what you think about us. maybe.  maybe thinking we could start. if we got an idea to, thinking we could start.  countin' on.
something.
you from around here?
what might your name be?
that's a pretty name beloved. take off your hat and i'll make us something. we just got back from the carnival over near cincinnati-
course.
is she feverish, denver?
then she is. fever goes from hot to cold.
denver likes her. she's no real trouble.
didn't mention one. i thought we'd wait until her breathing got better. she still sounds a little lumbar.
sometimes the body needs that sugar for strength when it's trying to recover after an illness.
funny? how?
she can hardly walk without holding onto something.
you didn't?
denver. come in here a minute.
paul says you saw beloved pick up the rocking chair in baby suggs room with one hand. that so?
who?
she need a marker. somethin' to tell me where she is. but i ain't got no money.
i was thinking what the preacher say at the funeral. dearly beloved.
oh!. i didn't know you were there.
help what, honey?
work. i work in a restaurant.
little after the sun come up. i like to make a loaf of bread before i go. how you feelin'?
you remember your mother at all?
diamonds? what would i be doing with diamonds?
wish i did. hmm. come to think of it, i had some crystal once. a present from mrs. garner - woman i worked for at sweet home.
gone. long gone.
well. this lady i worked for in kentucky gave them to me when i got married.
what they called married back then. i remember going up to her in the kitchen to tell her. i'd help her make ink for mr. garner in the kitchen. i was fool enough to think i was going have some kind of ceremony. maybe even a new dress.
best unbraid that hair.
today's always here. tomorrow never.
comb it everyday, it won't.
my woman?. you mean my mother?
if she did i don't remember. i don't think i saw her but a few times.
i remember once, she picked me up and carried me behind the smokehouse.  the only thing i do remember in fact.
she opened up her dress and right on her rib, right here, was a circle and a cross burnt right into the skin.
what?
anyway, she points to this mark and says to me "this is your ma'am. i am the only one whose got this mark now. the rest all dead. if something happens to me and you can't tell me by my face, you can know me by this mark". scared me so.  i couldn't think of anything to say so i said "yes ma'am. but how will you know us? mark me too. mark the mark on me too."
no. she slapped my face. i didn't understand it then. not until i had a mark of my own.
don't know. everybody done?
paul, stop it. denver bring those dishes.
must be somebody from the old days.
paul d. stop picking on her.
you all right?
what's the matter with you?
what you care who's holding on to who? feeding her is no trouble. and she's nice company for denver.
is that what's got your teeth on edge?
you wanna feel somethin!? .  feel how it is to have a bed to sleep in and somebody there not worrying you to death about what you got to do each day to deserve it. and if that don't get it, feel how it feels to be a colored woman roaming the roads with anything god made liable to jump on you. feel that!
well, that makes one of you in this world.
no. not two!
ha, what'd he leave then if not me, huh?
then he did worse - he left his children.
he wasn't there! he wasn't where he said he would be! i had to pack my babies off ahead of me, on their own, so i could stay behind to look for him. underground agent said by sunday we had to leave.  sunday came and he wasn't there.
loft? what loft?
he saw? he told you he saw?
he saw them boys do that to me and let them keep on breathing?
what did he say?
what did you say? didn't you say anything to him?
couldn't?! why the hell not?!
i didn't plan on hearing it.
let it alone. just sit down and leave it be! yeah that would be nice. would be even nicer to lose it altogether - if i had my choice. halle did. other people's brains stopped, went crazy. how sweet that would have been. me and halle squatting by that churn, smashing cold lumpy butter in our faces, not a care in the world.
what a relief to just stop it all right there, huh?!! close it shut! squeeze that butter. but i had three children on their way to ohio and nothing would have changed that! and you tell me he didn't leave me!!
lay'em down. sword and shield.
running.
am i in ohio?
i'm still in kentucky.
no, ma'am.
i expect this baby ma'am is gonna die in these wild onions.
where you on your way to, miss?
boston - is that far?
must be velvet closer by.
if i did, i didn't know it. what's it like?
lu.
i can't get up.
i can't get up.
how far?
well, he may come but i can't stand up, let alone walk. and god help me, i can't crawl.
i'll do what i can, miss.
yeah, you good.
milk. got to get my milk to my baby girl.
i think this one is dead.
i ain't nothing but in a hurry, miss. got to meet someone. help bring me and my milk to my baby girl.
say what?
pull!!
that's pretty. denver. real pretty.
yes sir.
yes sir. my mother-in-law over in.
thank you. what's your name - so i can remember you right.
what sign?
my mother-in-law's. name's baby suggs. she got my other three children i sent ahead.
yesterday. i hope she makes it.
he wasn't there.
where are the children?
feel what?
soon.
oh wait. look and see if there's something knotted up in the petticoat. wedding present. from mrs. garner.
i don't know. he wasn't where he said to meet him at. i had to get out. i had to. he'll make it. if i made it, halle sure can.
paul? paul, you home?.
paul d. what if the girls came in?
i have to cook.
i thought i'd make some snap beans.
fry up a little corn?
oh paul.
thank you lord.
paul?. paul?
i called you two or three times but i gave up round midnight. i thought maybe you went out somewhere.
i'll make some breakfast - you get yourself washed up.
man, you make me feel like a young girl, you coming by to pick me up after work. nobody ever did that before. better watch out, i might start looking forward to it.
got to rinse this out.
you get off early or what?
anything the matter?
not cut back?
well say it, paul d. whether i like it or not.
you came by here to ask me that!? you are one crazy-headed man. you right; i don't like it!. don't you think i'm a little too old to start that all over again?
mercy.
i been on my feet all day, paul d.
stop! i don't have the legs for this!
you need some babies. somebody to play with in the snow.
i'll say. very, very willing.
crazy girl. you out here with nothing on.
you got to learn more sense than that.
evening, girl.
now i know you not sleeping out there tonight, are you paul d.? you come upstairs tonight. where you belong. and stay there.
what you think about schoolteacher?
i mean, is he different like mr. garner was?
well, he and mrs. garner - they ain't like other whites i seen before. mr. garner always spoke soft, for one. mrs. garner too.
mr. garner let you buy out your mother. found that house for her to live in from those friends of his in ohio.
well?
still, he did it. let you work off her fee, lending yourself out on sundays. he could of said no. he didn't tell you no.
he always treated you fair. called you all men - said he never wanted niggers on his farm.
when we walk, don't matter what they call you. you'll be free.
what you mean?
but. then. how you gonna buy yourself out? or them? or me?
halle. what we going to do?
you mean? but what if we caught? what'd they do to us? to the children?
want me to loosen it up with a little water?
yes ma'am.
yes ma'am. look like it.
they don't need telling.
yes ma'am.
here!
just go with her! do what i tell ya!
put sugar water on that cloth for her to suck so she won't forget me til i come.
halle wasn't there. i gotta go back.
take em out. now! i'll get there myself. i got her milk. i'll get there. don't worry.
go. go! now!
already fed the girls. you eat? want something?
best you come inside.
i don't have to tell you about sweet home. what it was. but maybe you don't know what it was like for me to get away from there.
i did it. i got us all out. without halle too. up til then it was the only thing i ever did on my own. decided. and it came off right like it was supposed to.
we was here. each and every one of my babies and me too. i birthed them and i got 'em out and it wasn't no accident. i did that! i had help, of course, lots of that, but still it was me doing it; me saying, "go on" and "now!". me having to look out. me using my own head. but it was more than that. it was a kind of 'thinking-about-myself' i never knew nothing about before. it felt good. good and right. i was big, paul, and deep and wide and when i stretched out my arms all my children could get in between. i was that wide. look like i loved them more after i got them here. or maybe i couldn't love'em proper in sweet home 'cause they wasn't mine to love. but when i got here, when i jumped off that wagon - there wasn't nobody in the world i couldn't love if i wanted to.
i had 28 days. 28 good days of free life.
of getting up like i always did, getting dressed before the sun came out, and then realizing i had to decide myself what to do with the day.
days of watching my children sleep away the morning. and taking care of my baby like it was the most important thing i had to do.
i'd hear my boys laughing a laugh i ain't never heard. and for a second i'd get scared - scared someone might hear them and get mad.
then i remembered. and if they laughed that hard til it hurt, that would be the only hurt they had all day.
we had us days of company.
of ease and real talk. talks about the fugitive bill, dred scott or book learning. talks as quiet or as stormy as we wanted.
and when everyone would gather to hear baby suggs, i saw something i ain't never seen before in my whole life.
something in me knew halle was never gonna knock on our door. he was never gonna see what i saw that day. i saw what men look like. and i saw mothers, for the first time.
i think it was stamp paid who started it. he walked six miles to the riverbank, slid into a ravine, reached through blood drawing thorns, suffered mosquitoes, wasps and the meanest lady spiders in the state just to bring us those berries.
she's too little for that, stamp. her bowels be soup.
it was real nice of him.
how 'bout if i make a couple of chickens to back it up?
and that's how it began.
three pies became twelve. two hens became five turkeys.
and ella and john turned into almost ninety others.
 everybody ate so well and laughed so much.
it made them angry.
the pies, the turkeys. the bread pudding and shortbread. the one whole block of ice brought all the way from cincinnati - it made 'em mad. loaves and fishes were jesus's powers. they did not belong to an ex-slave who never had a white boy beat her, who had her freedom bought, who rented a house from white folks that hated slavery worse than they hated slaves. it made'em furious - her thoughtless generosity and un-called for pride. she had over stepped. offended them by giving too much. and they left their disapproval there so's you could smell in the air the whole next day.
later on i wondered why no one warned us. why no one saw them coming and ran to 124 to tell us.
there's a look whitefolks get. a look every negro learns to recognize along with his ma'am's tit. that righteous look that's like a flag going up the pole. the righteousness that announces the whip, the fist, the burning, the lie. long before it happens in the open.
howard!. bulgar!
the shed!. get in the shed!. run!
love is or it isn't. thin love ain't love at all. i did stop him. i took and put my babies where they'd be safe.
it worked.
they ain't at sweet home! schoolteacher ain't got'em!
it ain't my job to know what's worse. it's my job to know what is and keep them away from what i know is terrible. i did that.
i should have gone back there? taken my babies back there?
what way?
after all i told you, paul d. and after telling me how many feet i have, you think saying goodbye is gonna break me into pieces?
you're a sweet man.
so long, paul d.
my lord. where'd you dig up those?
go ice skating? ha.  why not?
strikes me that after your man leaves, it might just be the wrong time to be scrubbing floors.  might just be the perfect time to go ice skating.
go get the shawls. and find me an old shoe for that half a pair.
"here. look here. see this mark? if you can't tell me by my face, look here."
i made that song up. i made it up and sang it to my children.
nobody knows that song but me and my children.
back stiff?
could be that fall you took.
no, let her rest.
i'll make sure she does. but first i'm going make up a nice, big breakfast against that cold outside.
don't matter. first time i'll be late in nine years. no great trouble. whatever goes on out there goes on with or without me showing up on time.  don't matter.  the world is in this room, baby. this is all there is and all there needs to be.
don't talk to me, mr. sawyer. don't say nothing to me this morning.
i'm telling you don't say nothing to me.
make it the way i always do.
beloved, she my daughter. she mine. she come back to me of her own free will and i don't have to explain a thing.  she had to be safe and i put her where i knew she would be. but my love was tough and she back now. she come back to me in the flesh. i won't never let her go. i'll explain to her, even though i don't have to. why i did it. how if i hadn't killed her she would have died and that is something i couldn't let happen to her. when i explain she'll understand, cause she understands everything already. and she ain't even mad. when i put that headstone up i wanted to lay in there with you, put your head on my shoulder and keep you warm and i would have if bulgar and howard and denver didn't need me, because my mind was homeless then. i couldn't lay down with you then. no matter how much i wanted to. i couldn't lay down nowhere in peace, back then. now i can. i can sleep like the drowned, have mercy. she come back to me, my daughter,
you came back because of me?
you never forgot me?
do you forgive me?
will you stay?
morning.
you hungry?
baby, don't be like that.
don't talk like that. your mama loves you.
don't say those things. you forget about those dreams.
mama told you - i'd give up my own life, every minute, every hour of it to take back one of your tears baby. my children my best thing. you my best thing!
that's not true. i told you, i had to get you out, make you safe. so's you and me could be together on the other side, forever.
hold back denver - i'm fine. you. you go on upstairs. i'll do the cleaning up.
go upstairs i said!!
we don't have nothing sweet no more, baby.
no. since mama lost her job, we don't have no more pies.
no!. she wanted me to do it.
baby!
nobody. no sir. that's right. nobody's going be doing that. nobody going be writing my daughter's characteristics on the animal side. no sir. i don't care. ain't laying that down. no sir. i refuse. that's right. that's right.
she likes this dress.
no. no, he's not coming into my yard. he not taking my best thing. no.
no. no. no.
no. no. no. noooooooooooo!
paul d.
you shaved.
no, you looking good.
she comes in the daytime. she still with me, my denver.
i'm tired, paul. so tired. i have to rest a while.
oh, i don't have no plans. no plans at all.
she left me. she's gone again.
she was my best thing.
me?. me?