Indigo pulled the hat off her head, thought a second. Stood in front of her mother with a desperate air.

“Mama, I’ll make the other lil girls new dollies, honest I will. I promise. But I want you & me to have a ceremony for my dollies & let em rest till I have a baby, or till Cypress or Sassafrass has a baby. Please Mama, I want them to stay with the family.”

It was true. After Indigo there’d be no more babies in the family till one of her girls was grown enough to bring one home. Hilda Effania couldn’t agree more with Indigo’s familial fervor. After all, she was devoted to her daughters. Now, Indigo, all of 12, was saving her most treasured possessions for the daughters to come. This made sense to Hilda Effania, who’d seen those other two grow up much too fast. This was the day that Indigo caught up with them.

“Okay, what sort of ceremony do you want to have?”

“I want you to sing some holy song, while I carry them one by one to the attic. That’s what I wanta do, Mama. Then I wanta come downstairs & help you make the gumbo for when Cypress & Sassafrass come home. Can I, please?” Indigo was excited, beginning & ending the largest segment of her life.

Hilda Effania changed her clothes once she got in the spirit of things. She put on a crêpe dress with pearls & black velvet round the shoulders, a little lipstick, some mascara. At her suggestion, Indigo put on her white taffeta Communion dress. Hilda Effania stationed herself at the foot of the second-floor stairs leading to the attic. Indigo solemnly carried each doll up the curving steps, as her mother’s voice rose behind her to the rafters:

“Jesus lover of my soul

Hide me, oh my Savior

Hide me till the storm of life is past

While the stormy waters roll

While the tempest still is high.”

Chapter 3

“Mama, this gumbo is ridiculous.” Sassafrass was eating so fast she could barely get the words out of her mouth. “Mama, you know if I told them white folks at the Callahan School that I wanted some red sauce & rice with shrimp, clams, hot sausage, corn, okra, chicken & crab meat, they’d go round the campus sayin, ‘You know that Negro girl overdoes everything. Can you imagine what she wanted for dinner?’ ” Cypress was at the side board of the sink doing pliés which Sassafrass’ story had interrupted.

“Hey S., don’t tell no more jokes. I can’t do my exercises.”

“I helped Mama make that gumbo, Sassafrass. I’m so glad you like it,” chirped Indigo at the table, working on a doll for some little girl her mother said Santa wouldn’t be visiting.