Page 51 of It's Me They Follow
“I need to push.” Elle followed, bearing down on the back of the pool. “Please do your part,” she whispered to The Shopkeeper, with desperation in her eyes. “Please.”
The Shopkeeper had made up her mind. She didn’t need convincing. She’d catch the baby and hand them to her sister in one fell swoop; if the touch shocked her, she’d fall forward, but at least the baby would have her sister. She told herself,Fall forward and not back.The first few pushes did nothing. There was a lot of noise and pain. But finally, there was a push that moved that entire sac through the narrow passage feetfirst. The baby held on tighter and tighter to the hole in their bag. Their heart rate escalated, their blood pressure on the rise, and when they finally slid feetfirst toward their auntie’s wide-open arms, even under the pool water, they never let go of their sac as the herbs and spices decorated them.
The Shopkeeper caught it, a baby still inside a slippery, fleshy bag of cloudy, nutrient-rich water, and flung them to her sister, who had the entire bag pop right there on her face and her chest. Inside the bag was her baby, who stared blankly at them both for a second, which madethem all think that maybe something was wrong. Elle said, “Breathe,” to the baby, but everyone needed to breathe, and so they did. The baby let out a holler like they couldn’t believe. Elle smiled, and The Shopkeeper fell back into the water instead of forward as she’d planned. As she went under, baptized, the water jolted her back up and above it immediately. Herbs and flowers in her face and mouth.
“It’s a girl,” she said.
“Emmy.” Her sister said the name.
“ME?” their grandmother asked. “Like the man who was here yesterday?”
The Shopkeeper was soaked and stupefied. “Who?”
“Yeah, a man stopped by here yesterday smelling some kinda sweet. Told me he was a monk in training, and I told him I don’t train monks. He said his name was ME. I said, ‘Oh, like ME?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’ He told me he was my sister friend’s nephew and therefore my nephew and he needed some guidance. He was at a crossroads on his journey and a bit lost. I liked him so much, we had a bit of mint tea and honey on the porch.”
I knew it, The Shopkeeper thought to herself. That they’d get along. “Did he ask about me?” The Shopkeeper said.
“He asked if I really thought you could do this. I told him you were the only one who could and thanked him for helping us pull it off with the love letters. But now ME was really in love with you.”
The Shopkeeper was in love too. “ME,” she said to herself,laying her head on the side of the pool. She stared at her newborn niece, even more in love. “It’s not ME they follow, it’s you.” She smiled and then drifted off to sleep.
“Exactly, and now you get it,” their grandmother agreed. “The footsteps that follow.”
Grandmother always speaks in riddles, The Shopkeeper thought as she dreamed.
She woke up three days later in her childhood bed to piping hot mint tea and honey and their grandmother reciting her incantations out loud.
“The truck is packed when you’re ready,” her grandmother said, and then went back to reciting.
“What truck?” The Shopkeeper whispered, her voice quiet from underuse.
“The baby is fine,” their grandmother added. “Cute as a bunny. Your sister is fine too. We put a blessing on you when you were asleep.” Their grandmother puffed weed smoke in The Shopkeeper’s face as she looked her over. “You’re ready.”
“What truck?” The Shopkeeper asked again.
“ME sent it. It had furniture in it too. Him and a few of his friends loaded it with the books you need to open the bookshop.” She winked. “So, like I said, the truck is packed when you’re ready.”
“Where is he?” The Shopkeeper asked.
“He said he was sad that you two had missed each other, but he had to go back to training. He whispered sweet nothings in your ear for a good long time. And kissed your lips before he left.We figured it would be okay since you were already passed out. He said you tasted like soul food. When he was done, he disappeared off behind the weeping willow tree. Nice guy, just a bit confused about his calling.” Their grandmother winked. “It happens, sometimes what you hear and what you want to hear are two different things.”
The Shopkeeper licked ME’s kiss from her lips and dozed back off to sleep.
Chapter 27
JANUARY 26, 2020
8:33 A.M.
The Shopkeeper drove back to Philly in silence without stopping or taking any breaks. She should have made it back in time for The Good Doctor’s funeral, but somehow she missed it as she whirled about in her apartment unpacking, watering her plants, and trying to find the right thing to wear.
She hadn’t been the best student in The Good Doctor’s class; she might have been the worst. She still wondered if they’d learned anything that they couldn’t have taught themselves. She caught herself staring into outer space and laughed at memory after memory of herself sitting with her arms folded and her mouth scrunched up in disbelief at the things The Good Doctor had to say. Finally, The Shopkeeper admitted to herself that she didn’t really want to go anywhere—especially not to another funeral. So she got undressed and was settling back onto the couch to read ME’s journal when a huge blackbird flew from out of nowhere and smacked right against her window. She put herbook down and looked around to see if that had been real or in her imagination. She stood up, and—smack—another blackbird slammed against the glass even harder than the first had. Then another and another. “What in the Alfred Hitchcock?” She went to check on them, worried they had broken their wings. But as she opened the window, the first bird got back up and flew away—the others followed behind it.
As she was about to close the window, she swore she heard the faint chanting of The Good Doctor saying, “Oh, what the heck, do whatever it takes,” riding on the wind. The Shopkeeper had learned something in class after all, even if it wasn’t the lesson she’d been seeking. She didn’t need The Good Doctor, and she never had.
And although The Shopkeeper knew this, she also knew the loss was hard for her writers’ group. Today would be the last day she’d see them, so she tucked her book back into the couch, put on her scarf and hat, and decided it best to go to the burial to be there for her friends. It was an abnormally windy day, with leaves and debris and birds flying every which way as The Shopkeeper walked toward the cemetery. But she didn’t let any of that stop her.
She arrived at Laurel Hill just as the others from her writers’ group were pulling up. They gathered around one another, holding their clothes to themselves as though they were trying to keep parts of themselves from blowing away. Four young men—The Good Doctor’s former students,The Shopkeeper thought—tried to harmonize Boyz II Men songs a cappella off to the side of her casket. They didn’t sound great, but at least they tried....To yesterday, ehhhh.
