Bothered

Celia wasn’t sure why anyone would knock on her door at this hour, so when she first heard the tap–tap-tapping, she ignored it. Maybe it was the wind. Maybe it was a group of bemused children, upon hearing that she was a hoodoo woman and a heathen, making bets about who would dare disturb her, and then, once discovered, running away from her door, shrieking gleefully. Maybe it was a dead limb from the peach tree in her yard. Though once thriving and fertile, it now stood rotting, sticky knots of sugared-over black sap stuck to its trunk.

No, she thought to herself, I’ll just sit here and wait for the botheration to pass. But the knock came again, and this time it was so deliberate and so loud that she could no longer sit and will away the interruption into the background.

Thunk.

Thunk.

Thunk.

“Who out there playin’?” Her voice trembled. “Why you beatin' on that back doe like that?”

In response, there were three more hard raps.

“Y’all gone home and stop messing ‘round my doe, now!” Celia tried to sound angry, but in reality, she sounded like exactly what she was, a lonely old woman long banished by the rest of the town. Celia was the stuff of threats to young children who misbehaved. Most people assumed her house stayed up to par because her powers somehow extended beyond the land of the living, past the consecrated dirt of the grave, and right up to the front gates of hell.

Her husband was long dead. Sixty years ago, he was hanged in the town square as a message to the entire town that, regardless of the law, uppity negroes – even those who owned a little bit of land – simply would not be allowed to vote. That was doubly true for those who had the nerve to dispute a white cashier over the cost of a can of RC cola after trying to do so.

LOCAL NEGRO MAN DIES FROM SUICIDE, the local paper declared, but there was no doubt about what happened behind closed doors. The others, all of whom owned land, left the town that same day.

They didn’t need to wait to read a newspaper headline.

Celia and her husband never had any children. Her own family once lived on the other side of the river with the others who’d left town after that day in the town square. But that didn’t matter either, because the river flooded the year after her husband died, and the few members of her family that survived the deluge died of the croup soon after, wheezing and coughing thick yellow-gray gobs into cups at the sides of their beds.

Only Celia was left to say prayers and gently roll their bodies into the river. “Long ago, we came over on the waters,” she said to each of them as she waved her hands in the wind, “and now may the waters carry you home.”

So, truly, there was no way anyone should be knocking, bothering her, and interrupting her loneliness while she was letting the blueness of the civil twilight wash over her.

The floor shook as something heavy dropped on her porch. Tiptoeing to the window, Celia peered out, careful not to be seen by the intruder.

A large, spectacular box sat on the threshold of her door.

Celia stood for a moment at the window gazing at it. For just a few moments, she allowed herself the pleasure of taking in the ornate lettering, the bright bits of color that adorned its top, and the single piece of shimmery silver tape that sealed it closed.

Her eyes drifted beyond the back yard, and she relaxed. No one was there.

“No,” she said aloud. “I don’t trust that box. I don’t trust anything from anyone who doesn’t have the decency to answer me when I ask them who’s there,” she cleared her throat. “Ain’t even decent enough to come to the front, shoot.”

In the following days, Celia went about her business praying, cleaning, and tending to the small vegetable garden behind her house. She didn’t touch the box or attempt to move it. Instead, she stepped over it, going out of her way to make sure she didn’t disturb its place. After a few days, the box looked smaller. There was dust on the lettering, and the top and edges sagged from cool, dewy mornings, hot mid-day sunshine, and tepid, humid nights.

Celia was cleaning her supper dishes when it happened again.

Thunk.

Thunk.

Thunk.

“Who there?” she crept to her door and listened. “I’m glad you came to get that ole box because whatever it is, I don’t want it! So gone ‘head and take it on back.”

“That’s impossible,” a tiny voice said. “I can’t take back a gift once it’s been given.”

Celia opened the door to a small girl standing on her porch. Her skin was brown and shiny, rubbed soft with Vaseline. Her coily hair sat neatly in small black cotton bolls all over her head, each one perfectly adorned with a tiny red bow. Dressed in patent leather Mary Janes, white socks, and a red dress with tiny silver polka dots, the little girl pointed to the box.

“Open it.”

“No, Child,” Celia leaned on her door. “Why you bring me this box?”

The girl again pointed at the box. “Please, Good Mother, open it.”

“Sweet girl, I am not yo’ mother,” Celia shook her head.

The girl’s face darkened. “You ungrateful old hag, this is your box, and yet you refuse to open it? How dare you deny such a beautiful gift!”

Celia closed the door. She stood with her back against it, eyes shut, and her hands pressed over her ears. After a while, she peeked out of her window.

The box and the little girl were gone.

Several weeks passed. Celia made herself forget about that box and the little girl who brought it. Then, one evening, just as the sky was turning dark blue, she was bothered again.

Thunk.

Thunk.

Thunk.

“Who there?” she yelled.

But there was no answer, just the thud of something heavy being dropped on her back doorstep.