Curtis

The Keeper of Hours

Chapter 44: Curtis

Curtis Wells came home from Nashville for the first week of November.

He had finished his first semester at Vanderbilt Law School the week before — the December semester did not start until January, and the small Thanksgiving break had expanded, by his professor's courtesy, into a two-week leave because Curtis had written every paper early and had asked permission. He had driven in on Sunday night. He had stayed at his grandmother's house — which had been held for him by Pamela since June, and which had been, until this week, empty since Mother Wells had gone in June of last year.

He called Tiana on Monday morning at seven.

"Tiana."

"Curtis."

"Cousin."

"Cousin. You in town?"

"I got in last night. I am at Grandma's house. I am — Tiana, I am at Grandma's kitchen table. The house is cold. I lit the pilot light in the water heater this morning. I am going to open it up for the week. I wanted to call you before I got into the opening."

"Yes, Curtis."

"Tiana. Can I come by Park on Saturday? I have a thing I want to show you and Miss Yvonne."

"You come, Curtis. You come for lunch. I will tell Mom. She will feed you."

"Yes, Tiana."

"Curtis."

"Yes."

"Did you eat this morning?"

"I ate a granola bar, cousin."

"Curtis Wells. You come to Park Avenue tonight for supper. My mother will kill me if I let you eat a granola bar in your grandmother's kitchen without feeding you. You come at six."

He laughed.

"Yes, ma'am. Six."

He came to supper Monday night. He came Tuesday night. He came Wednesday night. By Thursday Yvonne had, without announcing it, set a standing place at the table for him for the week.

Tiana had watched her mother do this. She had watched her mother fall into the small pattern of feeding a grandson who was not her grandson but who had been her mother's god-grandson in the small unofficial way Mama Tate had maintained with Mother Wells's family since Curtis had been in second grade. Yvonne had, in her mother's absence, inherited the unofficial care the way she had inherited the matriarchy — without planning to, by the small slow insistence of the pattern.

On Thursday evening, over chicken and rice, Curtis said: "Miss Yvonne."

"Curtis, baby. Yvonne. Mama was Miss. I am Yvonne. You have been eating at this table four nights. We are past the Miss."

"Yvonne."

"Yes."

"I want to show you something Saturday. Tiana knows. I have been — I have been preparing the thing since August. I wanted to wait to bring it until I was home from school. I am home. I am going to bring it Saturday at lunch. You and Tiana and Carl. Maybe Marcus if he is around."

"Marcus is in Atlanta for a work thing until Sunday."

"Then the three of you. Is that all right?"

"That is all right, Curtis. You come at noon. We will feed you lunch. You show us. Whatever it is."

"Yes, ma'am."

Saturday he came at eleven forty-five.

He was in a gray sweater and jeans. He had — Tiana noticed at once, though she had been told in general terms by Curtis on Thursday — a small manila folder under his arm, and tucked inside the folder, the small green hardcover Tiana saw the corner of.

Her grandmother's green book.

Mother Wells's book, which Mama Tate had carried for seven months before she had gone, which Tiana had inherited at Mama Tate's going, which had been on the side table in the front room beside her grandmother's prayer book and her grandmother's composition book since January fifth of this year.

The small green book was — Tiana had thought, until ten seconds ago when she saw it in the folder under Curtis's arm — on the side table in the front room.

She turned and looked at the side table.

The book was not on the side table.

She looked at Curtis.

Curtis said, gently: "Tiana. Your mother gave it to me last month. I called her. I asked if I could borrow it. I did not want to tell you until I was done with what I was doing with it."

Tiana did not, at first, speak.

She looked at her mother, at the stove.

Yvonne did not turn around. Yvonne said, without turning: "Tiana, baby. Curtis called me in early October. He had a thing he wanted to do with Grandma Wells's book. He asked me not to tell you because he wanted to show you himself. I said yes. I am sorry I did not — Tiana, I am sorry I did not tell you."

"Mom. You do not have to be sorry."

"I am a little sorry. It is your book as much as mine. I did not want to make the decision for you without telling you. I also thought Grandma Wells would have wanted Curtis to come at it the way he needed to. I picked one over the other."

"Mom. You picked right."

"Yes, Tiana."

Curtis set the folder on the kitchen table.

"Tiana. Yvonne. Carl. Sit. I want to show you what I have been doing."

He opened the folder.

He took out the small green book.

He set it gently on the table. He did not, at first, open it. He looked at the three of them.

"My grandmother — Grandma Wells — gave this book to Mother Tate on the last Friday of May last year. She said, on her bed, that she wanted Mother Tate to take the list and fold the names into her own. That arrangement was what the two of them had worked out in advance. Mother Tate folded the names into her own composition book over the summer. That is in your book, Tiana, in the new composition book that Mother Tate and Tiana kept together — I have seen the folded-in names in your book. That part was the first inheritance. The green book itself went on the side table and was — after the folding was done — more of a keepsake than a working book. It has been a keepsake for eighteen months."

"Yes, Curtis."

"I called your mother in October and I asked if I could borrow it. I asked because I wanted to do a thing that I had been thinking about since last year. I wanted to transcribe my grandmother's handwriting — in full, every name, every marginal note, every dash, every underline — into a clean new book, with each entry numbered, and with — Tiana, with a small set of notes I have been adding. The notes are what I have been doing since August."

Tiana watched him.

He opened the small green book. The book was the book Tiana had read hundreds of times. She knew its pages by sight.

He turned to the first page — Lillian Wells, 1899 to 1971, Greenwood, Mississippi — and he showed them what he had done.

He had, in a separate small leather notebook he pulled from the folder, transcribed the entry in his own careful hand. Beneath the entry, in the new notebook, he had added:

Great-Great-Grandmother Lillian Wells. Kept by Mother Wells from 1953 to 2026. Kept by Mother Tate from 2026 to 2027. Kept by Tiana Brooks from January 5, 2027 to present. Four generations of keepers. Great-Great-Grandmother Lillian's practice — which Grandma told me about once in 1998 when I was six, and once in 2020 when I graduated from college, and which I have been writing down since August — was done in Greenwood at five-thirty every morning in the back room of her small house. She had a small list of eleven names. She carried those eleven names for forty-seven years. The eleven names included four of her own children, three of her neighbors, two cousins in Chicago, and two names I have not yet been able to find in any family record. I have been researching. Two of the names may be from Grandma Lillian's first husband, who died young, who was named Thomas, and who had two sisters named Vera and Naomi who lived in Memphis. I am not sure. I am still looking.

He paused. He looked up.

"That is what I have been doing."

Tiana, at the table, did not speak.

Yvonne, across from Curtis, had her hand over her mouth.

Curtis said: "I have been transcribing one entry a week since August. I am through the first sixteen names. I have forty-three total to do. I will finish by April. When I am done, I am going to give you — Tiana and Yvonne — a full clean transcription, with my research notes, for the active book. I am also going to give Pamela a copy. I am also going to keep my own copy at law school. I want all four of us to have the full book."

He paused.

"I am also going to — I want to ask you, Tiana, if I can begin my own list."

The kitchen went still.

Tiana said: "Curtis."

"Yes."

"You are beginning."

"Tiana. I have been thinking about it since August. I have been — I have been praying about it. I am twenty-eight. I am in law school. I am busy. I know that. I am not asking if I should begin. I am telling you I am beginning. I am asking if — Tiana, if you will teach me. The way Mother Tate taught Denise on the porch in August of twenty-six. I want the short-form teaching. I want to hear it from a keeper. Pamela has been teaching me from Atlanta in pieces, but Pamela has been a beginning keeper herself for six months, and she has said — Pamela has said I should learn from you. She said you learned from Mother Tate. She said the line is clean."

Tiana looked at her mother.

Yvonne, across the table, did not nod the way she had nodded at Malik in August. Yvonne looked at Tiana and lifted her chin once — the small lifted chin that was becoming, in Yvonne, the small signal that was also her mother's.

It said: yes, baby. Teach him.

Tiana said: "Curtis."

"Yes."

"Come to the front room. Carl, you come too. Mom, you come."

They went.

Tiana sat in Eldridge's chair.

Curtis sat on the couch. Yvonne sat in the wooden chair by the door. Carl stood behind Yvonne with his hand on her shoulder.

Tiana said: "Curtis. My grandmother gave Denise the teaching in one session in August of twenty twenty-six. It took about twenty minutes. I was there. I have been carrying the teaching in my memory for fifteen months. I have been giving it myself in small pieces since Denise came to me on the first Saturday of January. I am going to give it to you the way Grandma gave it to Denise. Is that all right?"

"Yes, Tiana."

"Good. Listen."

She told him.

She told him the sentence — Lord, I am here. Who do You want me to carry today. She told him about the waiting. She told him about the three breaths per name. She told him about the composition book — she said Curtis, you use a plain composition book, because your great-grandmother's green book is a keepsake, and your practice is a practice. The keepsake is for looking. The practice is for writing in. She told him about the privacy for the first year. She told him about not tearing pages out. She told him about the rotation system. She told her about the Mothers of the floor — that he was not alone, that he would be one of now nine keepers in the immediate line of Mama Tate's teaching, that any of the nine would help him rotate names in a hard month.

She told him the sentence her grandmother had said to Denise that Tiana had said to Denise on the first Saturday: The keeping does not depend on the keeper knowing the inside of what he is keeping. The Lord knows the inside. You carry the outside — the name, the face if you have one, the small note of what is pressing. He carries the rest. You do not fix. You do not manage. You carry.

She told him what Yvonne had told her on the morning of her bad day: The keeping is not a test of endurance. The keeper who breaks herself is not the one the Lord is asking for. You rest when you need to. You rotate when you need to. You sleep. You eat. You do the law school work. You become a lawyer. You keep the book alongside. The book does not replace your life. It is part of your life. It fits in.

She told him, last, her own sentence — the one she had learned through the last year of trying to do too much: You are going to carry names that are not in the book. Patients. Students. Friends. The names that are not in the book can still be on your chest. When they start pressing — when they begin showing up in your morning when you are not praying for them — that is the Lord telling you they belong on a page. You put them on the page. Do not wait. I waited with a patient this October. She died before I wrote her. I wrote her after she went. I am not telling you this to shame myself. I am telling you because I want you to not wait. The delay is not a kindness to anyone. You write. The Lord arranged the nudge for a reason.

Curtis listened.

He did not, during the teaching, write anything down. He listened with his hands folded in his lap.

When she was done he said: "Tiana."

"Yes."

"I am going to begin tonight. At Grandma's kitchen table. I am going to write three names tonight. I have been holding the three names for two months. I will tell you them if you want."

"Tell me, Curtis."

"My mother. Tamika has not been able to — Tiana, my mother. My mother has been estranged from our family too. Different reasons from Aunt Mika. My mother has — my mother has been unwell. She is in a facility in Atlanta. Pamela has been handling her. I do not see her often. I have not known how to carry her. I am carrying her now."

"Yes, Curtis."

"My first law school classmate who befriended me. A young man named Malachi Reeves from Greensboro. His father just went on dialysis. Malachi is the oldest of four. He has been carrying his siblings from two hundred miles away since the diagnosis."

"Yes, Curtis."

"My grandmother — Grandma Wells — by name and date. I am putting her on the legacy page of my own book. I have been carrying her in my chest since she went in June of last year. She needs to be on a page in my own hand. I am writing her tonight."

Tiana nodded. She did not, for a moment, speak.

She said, after a while: "Curtis. Those are good starting three. The Lord has been pressing them on you. You write them well."

"Yes, Tiana."

They ate lunch.

Curtis ate well. Yvonne piled his plate. Carl told a story about the hardware store that made Curtis laugh in the small genuine way Tiana had not, in six months of his occasional visits, heard him laugh. Curtis, at the end of lunch, looked across at Tiana and said, quietly:

"Cousin."

"Yes, Curtis."

"I have been the kind of young man who has been studying how to do this. I have been reading about it. I have been reading the small books from seminary I did not take classes at. I have been reading Pamela's notes. I have been reading — I have been reading my grandmother's book for eighteen months. I have known, in my head, how to do it since September."

"Yes, Curtis."

"I have not been able to start until today. I was not going to start until I sat in this room and heard it from a keeper in a chair. I know — Tiana, I know that sounds superstitious. It is not. It is — I wanted the small permission you gave me today. I wanted Mother Tate's line to reach me. Pamela does not carry Mother Tate's line in the exact way you do. The line I wanted was from Mother Tate through you. I have been waiting for it. I am sorry it took me until November. I am ready now."

"Yes, Curtis."

"Thank you."

"You are welcome, Curtis."

He stayed through the afternoon. He walked with Tiana and Yvonne to the porch. They sat on the porch in the November cold — Yvonne had pulled the small quilt from the front room for her mother's chair out onto the wicker chair for herself, because the wicker chair had not, since August, been her mother's — and the three of them watched the pecan tree.

The pecans had mostly fallen. Carl had brought the large basket from Cordova two weeks ago and the three bags of shelled pecans for Thanksgiving were already in the pantry. The tree, now, was nearly bare. The last few hands were yellow at the tips.

Curtis said, after a long stretch: "Yvonne."

"Yes, Curtis."

"I want to ask you something. It is not urgent. You can say no. You can say not this year."

"Ask."

"I want to bring my Thanksgiving to your table. Pamela is flying back to California this year — Terry's mother is not well, and the family is doing Thanksgiving in Oakland. I had been — I had been going to spend Thanksgiving alone at Grandma's house. I had — I had planned to cook a small meal for myself. I had planned to be all right. I am fine with being alone. I have been. But if there is room — if you would have me — I would come to your table."

Yvonne, in the wicker chair, had her hand on her tea cup.

She said, without looking at him: "Curtis."

"Yes."

"You are coming to this table for Thanksgiving. You are not eating alone in your grandmother's kitchen. The Lord is not asking you to. I am not asking you to. Tiana is not asking you to. You come at one. You bring a side dish if you want. You stay all afternoon. You are family, baby. I am done letting you not be family. Mama said, three weeks before she went, that the Wells kin were part of our kin by the book and that we should act like it. We have been casual about it. I am being deliberate about it. You come."

Curtis could not, for a moment, speak.

He nodded.

He said, softly: "Yes, Yvonne."

"Good."

"Yvonne."

"Yes."

"Thank you."

"Curtis. You thank me by showing up."

"Yes, ma'am."

He left at four.

He hugged Yvonne at the door. He hugged Tiana. He shook Carl's hand. He walked to his car with the folder under his arm. Inside the folder was the small green book — his grandmother's — and his own leather notebook with the sixteen transcribed entries, and the small new composition book he had been carrying in the folder but had not, Tiana would later learn, shown them today.

He had not shown them the composition book because, Curtis would tell Tiana on the phone on Sunday evening, he had wanted to write the first three names in it tonight at his grandmother's kitchen table, alone, the way Mother Tate had told Denise that the first writing was a sacred moment that should not have another keeper in the room.

He had honored Mother Tate's sentence without Tiana having to remind him.

Tiana, on the phone with him Sunday, did not say so. She let it be his private small sacred thing.

He drove away.

Tiana, on the porch, watched the car turn at the corner.

She said: "Mom."

"Yes, Tiana."

"Curtis is beginning."

"He is, baby."

"Grandma's floor is wider."

"It is, Tiana."

"Grandma would have — she would have been —"

"Baby. She is. Right now. She is at her floor on the other side. She is — I do not know how to say it without sounding like I know more than I know — she is, Tiana, probably teaching the ones the Lord has assigned her up there. The floor on her side has its own structure. She is at it. We are at ours. The two are connected. That is the whole of the theology I know. I am not a theologian. That is what I know."

"Yes, Mom."

"Now. Thanksgiving is in ten days. I have to call the butcher tomorrow for the turkey."

"Yes, Mom."

"Curtis is coming. That is ten at the table."

"Yes, Mom."

"I am going to need you to pick up groceries Monday on your way home from the unit. I will text you a list."

"Yes, Mom."

Tiana drove home in the early dark.

The November afternoon had gone to evening by five, and the streets of Memphis had the small pre-holiday feeling of a city beginning to prepare — a few early Christmas lights on some porches, the small occasional wreath, a sense of gathering.

She thought about her grandmother.

She thought about Curtis sitting at his grandmother's kitchen table tonight with a new composition book and three names and the specific small silence of a young man who had been waiting for a moment of starting and had been given the moment today.

She thought: Grandma. The floor is wider than it was when you went. I did not know, when I started, how much of the work would be watching. I am learning.

She drove home.

She sat at her kitchen table with the composition book.

She opened it.

She added, on the current working page of the active list, a small note:

Curtis Wells, age 28. Vanderbilt Law School. Began his practice November 11, 2027. Great-grandson of Lillian Wells of Greenwood. Grandson of Vera Wells. Under Mother Tate's line.

She closed the book.

She set her hand on it.

She said, to her own kitchen: Thank You, Lord. Thank You for Curtis. Thank You for the line. Amen.

She went to bed.

Two blocks east of Park Avenue, Curtis was at his grandmother's kitchen table, in the small yellow-walled room where Mother Wells had rolled out biscuits for fifty years. The kitchen was the kitchen. The small composition book was open to the first page. The pen was in his hand.

He wrote, slowly, in his careful young-man's hand:

Vera Elizabeth Wells. 1935 to 2026. My grandmother. She raised me. She kept me. She is in the cloud. I am adding her tonight, in her own kitchen, as the first name of my own book. The keeping continues.

He underlined The keeping continues.

He sat with the page a moment.

Then he turned to a new page and wrote the next two — his mother, his classmate Malachi — and by ten-thirty the first three names were in. He closed the book. He set his hand on it.

He said, in his grandmother's kitchen, in the voice he would, over the next forty years, use at her table every time he came home: Grandma. I started tonight. I love you. Thank you.

He went to bed in his grandmother's guest room.

In Memphis, in Orange Mound, in the small brick house on Park Avenue, Yvonne was at the couch. Carl was beside her. The composition book was on the side table. The small green book was not there this week — but it would be back by Thanksgiving, once Curtis had finished reading it for the week.

The pecan tree was nearly bare.

The house held them.