The Transfer

The Keeper of Hours

Chapter 57: The Transfer

Naomi came to Park Avenue on the third Saturday of September, twenty thirty, with the small marbled composition book Tiana had given her on her fifth birthday and a specific question she had been working up to for eleven months.

She was eight years and seven months old. She had been formally under Tiana's teaching for thirteen months. She had, over that time, filled half of the small marbled book with drawings and names — on the drawings side of the book, the back; on the names side, the front — and had written, in careful block letters on the front of the inside cover, in April of twenty thirty: Naomi Hightower, keeper. Under Cousin Tiana's teaching from August 2029. Five sentences in my chest.

She had twenty-four names in the book now.

One of the twenty-four names was written in smaller letters than the others, in a quieter pen. The name was Jada Morris, age 8, my class at Sherwood. Naomi had written it on the seventh of October, twenty twenty-nine, three days after Jada's mother had been killed in a car accident on Highway 78.

Naomi had told Tiana about Jada that weekend.

Tiana had, in her own book at Park Avenue on that same Saturday in October of twenty-nine, added Jada Morris, age 7 turning 8, Sherwood Elementary, in Naomi's second grade class. Mother killed in a car accident October 4, 2029. Father is remaining parent. Maternal grandmother flying in from Nashville. Held from October 11, 2029, at Naomi's request.

Tiana had underlined at Naomi's request.

She had been praying for Jada every morning for eleven months and one week.

Naomi arrived at Park Avenue at ten forty-two.

The September day was the first of the small cool days — seventy-two at the height, the Memphis heat that had been at a hundred all August finally, in the third week of September, releasing its grip. The pecan tree was beginning, at the tips, to yellow. The pecans would be down in a month.

Tiana was at the kitchen table when Naomi and Sheryl came up the porch. Tiana had, since the wedding in February, been spending most of her Saturdays at Park Avenue in the mornings and then going home to the small house she and David had bought in April on Greenwood Street, three blocks east of Mt. Calvary, on the block where Mother Wells had lived until 2026.

The move had been quiet. David and Tiana had wanted a house. A small one had come up in April — two bedrooms, the same size footprint as Park Avenue — and they had bought it with the small inheritance Tiana had received when her grandmother's estate had finally been fully closed out in January twenty-twenty-nine, plus a mortgage David was carrying on his teacher's salary.

They had been in the house since May.

David was there this morning, grading papers for his Monday class. Tiana had come to Park alone. She had told David in August that Saturdays at Park were the sabbath of her week, the one morning she would spend without him in the room, because Saturdays were still — and would be for as long as Yvonne lived — the mother-daughter morning of the house.

David had said: Yes, Tiana. I understand.

Naomi sat at the kitchen table.

Yvonne had made biscuits. Carl was in the carport. The morning reading had been done at four with Tiana and Yvonne. The household was in its ordinary Saturday rhythm.

Naomi said: "Grandma Yvonne. Is it all right if I go to the porch with Cousin Tiana for a little while."

Yvonne, at the stove, said: "Of course, baby."

Naomi looked at Tiana.

Tiana nodded. She had, from the second Naomi had walked in, seen that Naomi had come with a thing.

They went to the porch.

They sat in the wicker chairs.

Tiana in Mama Tate's. Naomi in the second. The morning light was the soft gray-gold of mid-September, and the small breeze through the dogwoods across the lot was the first breeze of the coming fall.

Naomi did not, at first, speak.

She held the composition book on her lap with both hands.

Tiana waited. She had, over three years of teaching, learned the small patient waiting her grandmother had taught her.

After a while Naomi said: "Cousin Tiana."

"Yes, baby."

"I want to ask for a name back."

Tiana did not, for a moment, answer.

She looked at her cousin-by-the-book carefully.

She said: "Baby. Which name."

"Jada Morris. From school. The one I gave you last October. It has been eleven months and a week. She is in my class again this year — Mrs. Parker at Sherwood. She is — Cousin Tiana, she is not okay. She has been on my page since October of last year. I want to — I want to do a thing that I have been reading about in a book my daddy gave me in August. The book is on grandmothers' prayer practices. My daddy said Great-Grandma would have approved of the book. The book mentioned something called a transfer. The transfer is when one keeper asks another keeper to hand back a name she gave up. The handing back is a specific thing. I want to know if we can do it with Jada."

Tiana, on the porch, did not, at first, breathe.

She had not, in her own teaching, ever mentioned the transfer.

She had, in her own practice, received transfers — from Sister Doris's book in 2028 to her own — but she had not yet done one in the other direction. She had, in fact, not been sure, until this morning, that the transfer was a formal practice in her grandmother's line.

She said, carefully: "Naomi. Tell me about the book your daddy gave you."

"It is called The Women Who Held. It is by a lady named Dr. Carol Whitfield. She is at Drew Theological Seminary. My daddy found it because it came out last summer and it was reviewed in a magazine he reads and he ordered it. He read it first. Then he gave it to me in August. He said there was a chapter called The Small Rituals that he thought I should read. I read it three times. The chapter describes a thing called the hand-back. It is an old practice in Black Baptist women's prayer traditions. The book said it has been happening for two hundred years. It said the way it works is that one keeper formally asks for a name back from another keeper, and the second keeper decides whether the first keeper is ready to take the name back. If she is, the second keeper says specific words. If she is not, the second keeper says other words. The ritual is small. It takes less than two minutes."

Tiana said: "Baby. Are you telling me a practice you want to do, or a practice we are already doing by you asking?"

Naomi thought.

She said: "Cousin Tiana. Both. I am telling you. I am also doing. I am eight. I am asking you, as my teacher, to do the ritual with me for Jada. I am asking because I am ready."

"Yes, baby."

"You can say I am not ready. If you say I am not ready, I will — Cousin Tiana, I will be disappointed, but I will accept. You are the teacher. You decide."

Tiana did not, for a long moment, answer.

She looked at the pecan tree.

She thought about Jada — eight years old, a second grader, whose mother had been killed on a Thursday evening in October of twenty-nine in a three-car accident on Highway 78 and who had, in the eleven months since, been — Naomi had told Tiana over the year — withdrawing, small and careful and increasingly alone. Jada's father was, according to Naomi, working two jobs. Jada's grandmother from Nashville had moved in for six months after the accident and had gone back to Nashville in April. Jada had been largely alone in her house in the afternoons since then.

She thought about Naomi, eight and a half, who had been carrying Jada in the light version — what Mama Tate had called the child's share — for eleven months, and who was asking now to carry Jada in the full version.

Eight was young. It was younger than Tiana had been ready to formally give Naomi a transfer. Ola, at fourteen, had not yet done a transfer.

But Naomi had read a book. Naomi had brought the request. Naomi had, in asking, demonstrated the discernment that justified the readiness.

Tiana said: "Baby. Yes. You are ready. I will do the ritual."

Naomi did not smile. She nodded, the small grave nod she brought to important moments.

Tiana said: "Naomi. I have not done this ritual before. I have received transfers. I have not performed one. You said the book described it. Tell me what the book says."

Naomi pulled a small folded piece of paper out of the back of her composition book.

"I wrote the steps down. I did not want to forget. I can read them to you."

"Read them, baby."

Naomi unfolded the paper. She read, in her careful voice:

Step one. The two keepers sit facing each other. Step two. The keeper asking for the name back states the name and the reason for the ask. Step three. The keeper who has been carrying the name asks three questions. The three questions are: Do you have the strength to carry? Do you have the steadiness to continue? Do you have the humility to return the name if you find you cannot? Step four. The asking keeper answers yes or no to each. The answers must be honest. Step five. If all three answers are yes, the carrying keeper says, "I hand you the name. The Lord who kept her through my hands keep her through yours." She crosses the name out of her own book with a small notation. She does not underline. She writes the name in fresh on the asking keeper's book. She writes the date. Step six. The two keepers sit quietly for a count of thirty. The Lord confirms. Step seven. The carrying keeper closes her book. The asking keeper keeps hers open. The ritual is complete.

Naomi refolded the paper.

Tiana, on the porch, said: "That is the ritual as the book gave it."

"Yes, Cousin Tiana."

"Your grandmother — Mama Tate — did something like this with Mother Wells in June twenty-six. Mother Wells handed her the green book. The shape was similar. My grandmother called it the passing. She did not describe the three questions. She asked them differently. She asked Mother Wells: Are you ready for the carrying to continue past your hand? Mother Wells had said yes. The passing was done."

"Yes."

"The book's three questions are for a younger keeper asking back. The three questions test strength, steadiness, and humility. That is right for you, baby. You are asking as the younger. The three questions are for you. I am going to ask them. You are going to answer. You can say no. If you say no even to one — we do not do the ritual today. We try again in six months or a year. You do not lose the ask. You only pause it."

"Yes, Cousin Tiana."

"Are you ready for me to ask."

"I am."

Tiana set the composition book in her lap.

She turned to Jada's entry. She opened the book flat.

She said, in the small formal voice her grandmother had used for weighted moments: "Naomi Hightower. I am about to hand you back a name you gave me in October of twenty twenty-nine. Before I hand it back I ask you three questions. Answer honestly. You may answer yes, or no, or I do not yet know. The last answer, I do not yet know, counts as a no. You understand?"

"Yes, Cousin Tiana."

"Question one. Do you have the strength to carry Jada?"

Naomi thought. She did not answer immediately. She, Tiana could see, was taking the honesty of the question seriously.

She said, after a moment: "Cousin Tiana. I have enough strength. I do not have more than enough. I think I have what I need. I do not think I have a lot extra. Is that a yes or a no."

Tiana, who had been bracing for a child's fast yes, found the answer better than the fast yes.

"Baby. That is a yes in the honest form. You are saying you have what you need. That is what the question asks. Not more than enough — only enough. I receive your yes."

"Yes."

"Question two. Do you have the steadiness to continue? Not this week. Not this year. But for as long as Jada is in your care. The Lord may keep her in your care for ten years. Do you have the steadiness for that?"

"Cousin Tiana. I do not know what I will be like at eighteen. But I know what I am like at eight. At eight I have been doing the morning for two years and four months. I have not skipped a morning since the fall. I will keep going. Yes."

"I receive your yes."

"Question three. Do you have the humility to give Jada back to me if you find you cannot carry her?"

Naomi thought about this the longest.

She said, slowly: "Cousin Tiana. That is the hardest question. I want to say yes. I do not know — I do not know if, when the time came, I could admit I could not carry. I am eight. I am stubborn. I do not want to say yes if I cannot mean it."

Tiana, on the porch, had to press her hand to her mouth to keep from weeping.

She said: "Baby. Take your time."

Naomi breathed.

"Cousin Tiana. I will try. I will ask Grandma Sheryl and Daddy to help me see when I cannot carry. I will trust them to tell me. I will try to listen. I cannot promise I will listen. I can promise I will try. Is that a yes or a no?"

Tiana wiped her eyes.

"Naomi. That is the most honest yes I have ever received in a ritual of any kind. I receive it. The answer is yes. With the small true caveat that you are eight and stubborn. The Lord has received your yes with the caveat included. He is a Lord who takes the caveated yes gladly."

"Okay."

"The three yeses are received. I hand you the name. The Lord who kept her through my hands keep her through yours."

She picked up the pen.

She drew a single careful line through Jada Morris. She wrote beside the line, in small letters: Returned to Naomi Hightower, September 21, 2030. The keeping passes.

She did not underline.

She handed Naomi the pen.

Naomi opened her own book. She turned to the active list. She found a clear line. She wrote, in her careful block letters:

Jada Morris. My classmate at Sherwood. Mother killed October 4, 2029. Father works two jobs. Grandmother in Nashville. Returned to my keeping from Cousin Tiana on September 21, 2030.

She did not underline.

She set the pen down.

Tiana said: "We sit quietly now. Thirty seconds. The Lord confirms."

They sat.

Tiana closed her eyes.

She listened — in the small interior way she had been listening since she was thirty — for the Lord's confirmation.

It came, quietly, at about the count of twenty-two. Not a voice. A small warm release in her chest — the release of a weight she had been carrying for eleven months and a week, which the Lord had now transferred to the second keeper.

She opened her eyes.

Naomi's eyes were still closed. Her face was the small absorbed face of a child receiving something in a formal way she did not, at eight, know she was receiving but which her body was, without translation, accepting.

At the count of thirty, Naomi opened her eyes.

She said, softly: "Cousin Tiana. I felt it."

"I felt it too, baby."

"The Lord said yes."

"The Lord said yes."

"She is in my book now. She is not in yours."

"Yes, baby."

"I will carry her."

"I believe you will, Naomi."

Tiana closed her composition book.

Naomi kept hers open.

They sat for another long moment on the porch.

After a while Naomi said: "Cousin Tiana."

"Yes, baby."

"What do I do for Jada at school on Monday?"

"Baby. You do what you have been doing. You sit with her at lunch. You walk to the library with her in free time. You do not tell her she is in your book. You do not explain. You are her friend. The friendship is the form the keeping takes on this side. The Lord does the rest on the other side. You keep your book. You read her name every morning. You do not overdo it. You have been doing this for a year. You keep doing it."

"Yes."

"And if she — if she needs something you cannot give her, you tell me. Or your daddy. Or Grandma Sheryl. You are not carrying her alone. The floor is behind you. I am the keeper nearest to the carry. You come to me when the carrying feels too much. You hear?"

"Yes, Cousin Tiana."

"Good."

Naomi nodded.

She closed her book carefully. She put it under her arm. She slid off the chair.

She said, with the small practical turn of an eight-year-old ready to rejoin the day: Cousin Tiana. Can I help Grandpa Carl with the last of the tomatoes?

"Yes, baby. Go."

She went.

Tiana sat on the porch alone for a long time.

She thought about the ritual.

She thought, specifically, about the book David had given Naomi — The Women Who Held, by Dr. Carol Whitfield of Drew Theological Seminary — which had described a two-hundred-year-old practice in Black Baptist women's prayer traditions that Tiana's own grandmother had, in fifty years of teaching, never explicitly named.

Her grandmother had done the passing with Mother Wells in June 2026. Her grandmother had done the folding-in of Sister Doris's names in fall 2028. Her grandmother had, Tiana now realized, been doing the transfer in many small forms for decades without calling it by the book's name.

The practice had been alive in her grandmother's line without formal articulation.

Dr. Whitfield had articulated it. David had given the book to Naomi. Naomi had brought the articulation to the porch. The line — Tiana thought, receiving this — had been, in twenty thirty, reabsorbing the wider scholarly record of itself.

It was a new thing.

It was also, she suspected, the shape of the next twenty years. Her grandmother's unarticulated practice was being articulated in books by women at seminaries. Those books were being read by the young ones. The young ones were coming to her and asking to do the rituals they had read about. She was going to be, in the next decades, the practitioner who confirmed the written articulation against the lived practice.

She thought: Grandma. You did not read books about the keeping. You did the keeping. The scholars are now writing what you did. Dr. Whitfield has written a book. The children of the line are reading the book. They are bringing the articulated version back to me. I am reconciling the articulation with what you taught me. The line has gained a literature.

She smiled.

She said, in the small interior way: Thank You, Lord. Thank You for books. Thank You for Dr. Whitfield. Thank You for David, who gave Naomi the book. Thank You for Naomi, who did the reading. Thank You for the transfer. Thank You for Jada. Thank You for the small release I just felt in my chest. Amen.

In the back yard, Naomi was with Carl.

Carl had been in the tomato bed since eight. The last plants were coming down — the September heat had finally broken them, and Carl was collecting the last small green ones that would not ripen and was pulling the stakes from the ground.

Naomi, with her composition book in her arm, sat on an overturned bucket and watched him work.

She said, after a while: "Grandpa."

"Yes, baby."

"I received a name back today."

Carl, in the tomato bed, did not look up. He said: "Did you."

"Yes. Jada Morris from my class. Cousin Tiana had her. I gave her to Cousin Tiana in October of last year. Today I asked for her back. Cousin Tiana asked me three questions. I answered yes to all three. Cousin Tiana handed her back. The Lord confirmed."

Carl paused at a stake.

He said, quietly: "Baby. You did the hand-back."

Naomi looked at him sharply.

"Grandpa. You know what it is?"

"Yes, baby. My mother's mother did the hand-back with my mother's aunt in 1957 in the kitchen of a house in Cordova. I was four. I remember it. I did not know the name of what they were doing until I was in my forties and a history book at the small library on Poplar had a chapter on it. The book said it was an old practice. I had not thought about it since the kitchen in 1957. I thought about it again today because you just said the name."

"Grandpa. You remember."

"I remember. I remember my great-grandmother, who was doing the handing back, said — and I am going to say it the way I remember it — Sister, I hand you the carry. The Lord who kept them through me keep them through you. My grandmother had said yes. They had sat quietly. My great-grandmother had closed her notebook. My grandmother had kept hers open. I was four. I watched the whole thing. I did not know what I was watching."

Naomi stared at him.

"Grandpa. That is almost the same words Cousin Tiana said."

"Yes, baby. The words do not change much."

"Grandpa. You have been in this family your whole life. You have never told me this story."

"Baby. I have been telling it for fifty years. I told Mama Tate in 1997. I told Yvonne in 2003. I told Tiana in 2015. I have not told you until today because you had not asked. You asked, in a way, by doing it this morning. I am telling you now because the asking was the opening."

Naomi sat on the bucket.

She said, after a while: "Grandpa. You are part of the line."

"Baby. I am not a keeper in the book sense. I have never kept a book. I am the man at the door. Mama Tate told me in April of twenty twenty-six that every keeping floor needs a man at the door. I have been the man at the door for thirty-five years. My mother was not a keeper either. Her mother was. Her grandmother was — the one I watched in the kitchen. The line skipped my mother and me as book-keepers. We were, I think, the door-keepers. You and Cousin Tiana and Grandma Yvonne — you are the book-keepers. Different job. Same floor."

Naomi nodded.

She said: "Grandpa. I want to write what you just said in my book."

"Write it, baby."

She wrote it.

She wrote, in the small yard with the sun on the back of her neck, with the composition book open on her knee:

September 21, 2030. Grandpa Carl told me today that his great-grandmother did the hand-back with his grandmother in 1957 in a kitchen in Cordova. He was 4. He remembered. The practice is older than I knew. Grandpa calls himself the man at the door. His mother was not a book-keeper. The line skipped two generations of book-keepers on his side. Now it is back. The floor has men at the door and women at the book. Both are keepers. Grandpa is a keeper.

She underlined Grandpa is a keeper.

She closed the book.

She said: "Grandpa."

"Yes, baby."

"I love you."

"I love you, Naomi Hightower."

Inside the house, at the stove, Yvonne was making chicken salad for lunch. Tiana had come in from the porch and was helping. They were not, at the moment, talking. The kitchen held them.

After a while Tiana said: "Mom."

"Yes, baby."

"Naomi did a hand-back on the porch just now. She asked for Jada Morris back. I gave her back. The ritual came out of a book David gave her in August. I did not know the ritual had a formal name until Naomi described it."

Yvonne set down her spoon.

"Tiana."

"Yes, Mom."

"My mother did that with Mother Wells in 1994."

"Mom?"

"I watched it. I was twenty-six. Mother Wells had been carrying a child named — I do not remember the name — for twelve years. She had gotten tired. She asked my mother to take the child. They did the ritual in my mother's front room. I did not know it was a ritual at the time. I remember my mother asking three questions. I remember Mother Wells answering yes to all three. I remember them sitting quietly for thirty seconds. I remember my mother saying — Tiana, she said — Sister, I hand you the name the wrong direction, because the carrying has grown past you. The Lord who kept him through your hands keep him through mine. Mother Wells had cried. I did not understand what I was watching. I was twenty-six. I filed it."

Tiana, at the counter, did not speak for a long moment.

"Mom. You never told me."

"Baby. I had not thought about it until just now. You saying the word hand-back unlocked the memory. I have been reading Dr. Whitfield's book since August too — David gave me a copy in August when he gave Naomi hers — and I had not, in the reading, connected the chapter to the 1994 memory. The memory was filed under a thing Mama did one afternoon. The book is, I think, unlocking things in me for the next decade. I had not, until ten minutes ago, known it would unlock 1994."

"Yes, Mom."

"Mama did the hand-back, Tiana. In both directions. She was, in 1994, the receiving keeper. In 2026 she was the giving keeper with Mother Wells handing over the list. She had been in the ritual both ways. I watched her do it both ways. I did not, in fifty-seven years of being her daughter, know either was a named ritual."

"The line is getting older than we knew, Mom."

"It is, Tiana."

That night Tiana wrote at her own kitchen table in the Greenwood Street house. David was in the living room grading. The small framed photograph of Cornbread that Tamika had sent in December of twenty twenty-eight was on Tiana's desk.

She wrote, on the current active page of her composition book:

September 21, 2030. Naomi performed a hand-back with me on the porch. She asked for Jada Morris back. I asked the three questions. She gave three honest yeses. The Lord confirmed at the count of twenty-two. Jada is now in her book. Not in mine. Carl said his great-grandmother did the hand-back in 1957. Mom remembered that Grandma did the hand-back with Mother Wells in 1994. The ritual is older than our house. Dr. Whitfield's book has given us the name. The name is giving us access to memories we did not know we had. The line is getting deeper. I am going to buy Dr. Whitfield's book tomorrow and read it cover to cover. I am going to keep it on the shelf beside the composition book. The scholarship is the new instrument.

She underlined The line is getting deeper.

She closed the book.

She went to the living room.

David looked up from his papers.

He said, quietly: "Tiana. How was the morning."

"David. A thing happened."

"Tell me."

She told him.

He listened the whole way through. He did not, during the telling, interrupt.

When she was done he said, softly: "Tiana. The book did its work."

"It did, David."

"I was going to wait until Christmas to tell you. I have been emailing Dr. Whitfield at Drew since the summer. She has been receiving the emails. She has — Tiana, she has written back four times. She has been, very carefully, asking whether there are keepers in Memphis she could visit for a research interview in the spring. I had been waiting to tell you. I did not want to push."

"David."

"Yes."

"Tell her yes."

"You mean it?"

"Yes. Tell her spring. Tell her she can come to Park Avenue. Tell her Mom and I will sit with her. Tell her Naomi — if Sheryl agrees, which I think she will — can be part of the conversation. Tell her the line wants to be in the book too. The articulation can be in both directions."

"Yes, Tiana."

"Write her tonight."

"I am writing her tonight."

He wrote her that night.

Dr. Whitfield answered within twelve hours from her office at Drew. She would be honored. She would come in late March or early April. She would bring only a notebook and a recorder. She would sit for as long as the family let her. She was writing a follow-up book on specific living lineages of the practice, and she had been — she told David in the follow-up — quietly asking around for a lineage like this one for two years.

David forwarded the email to Tiana.

Tiana read it.

She sent it to Yvonne. Yvonne replied within the hour: Baby. The Lord arranges. Spring is the right time.

Three blocks west of Greenwood Street, in the small brick house on Park Avenue, Yvonne was in bed beside Carl.

She said, in the dark: "Carl."

"Yes, Yvonne."

"A scholar is coming in the spring."

"I heard."

"Mama would have liked that."

"She would have, Yvonne. She would have told the scholar to sit at the kitchen table and to not bring a notebook for the first hour."

"She would have."

Yvonne smiled in the dark.

"Carl."

"Yes, Yvonne."

"Our granddaughter-by-the-book did her first hand-back today."

"I know, baby. She told me in the yard."

"Eight years old."

"Eight years old, baby."

"Mama arranged this too."

"She did, Yvonne."

They slept.

Outside, in the mid-September night, the pecan tree was beginning, at the tips, to yellow. The first of the pecans would be down in the first week of October, and Carl — who had been gathering pecans from this tree for thirty years — would be out with his small basket every afternoon through the second week of November.

The house held its people.

The line, which had, in one Saturday morning on a porch, deepened by sixty-three years of its own history and found a fresh name for an old ritual, continued.

Jada Morris, who did not know about any of this, slept in a small bedroom in a small house on Raleigh LaGrange Road, beside a stuffed elephant her mother had given her in 2026 and which had been, since October of twenty twenty-nine, the thing Jada held at night.

Naomi Hightower, in her bed in Whitehaven, was, at nine-forty, writing the first entry of Jada's new page in her own book.

The transfer was complete.

The morning would come.