May the Road Rise Up to Meet You: A Novel by Peter Troy

and Momma set to arguin’ first time ever. Momma saying how Misses Leroux wasn’t any good. Saying how the only thing she ever had was a pretty face to draw the Massa into marryin’ her. Saying how the
real
Misses Leroux, the Massa’s Momma back in Nawlins, didn’t like the second Misses Leroux nothin’ a’tall. But Daddy wasn’t hearin’ anything like that. Said it wasn’t nice to talk that way, even if the Misses
was
up in Charleston all that summer. Didn’t even come back to nurse the Massa through his sickness. Momma asked why he think the Massa ain’t got no children of his own. Asked how that gonna happen when they ain’t shared a bed in goodness knows how long. How they ain’t shared a
house
even all this time. Even with the Massa sick.
    How I got time t’think ’bout that?
Daddy said.
Up ’fore sunup workin’ in ’at field by torchlight, workin’ all day down on the levees, an’ den anotha hour or two by torchlight up in ’at field agin. When I got time t’think ’bout anythin’ but work?
    It was the most cross thing he’d ever heard Daddy say to Momma. And Micah wished he’d been asleep the whole time insteada just lyin’ on his bed listening to their conversation.
    Sorry ’bout that, Sugar
. Daddy said, after a moment.
I don’ mean t’be cross wit’ you. I’s jus’ over-tired’s all
.
    And that was the end of that argument. ’Til the Massa took a turn for the real bad not long after and the Misses finally came back to
Les Roseraies
. Too late to do any good. Like she come back just to watch him die. Momma’d say. And Daddy didn’t like hearin’ any of that, but he didn’t say it wasn’t true, either.
    For all the things Momma said about the Misses during those days, there was no gettin’ around the fact that the Misses did put on a nice funeral. Folks came in from all around. Black sheets draped over the porch railings and outside the upstairs windows. All the slaves got the day off. Got to walk past the Massa’s coffin. Touched it. Threw flowers on it. Then he got stuck in the ground, and the white folks went to celebrating. The Misses most of all.
    A week after the funeral was the start of the harvest. Took in a good crop of rice that year. Took four weeks to get it all in, set it to dry out. Bundle it up. Then Micah and his Daddy walked out to the indigo field late that first night after the rice harvest was all done. Resta them back celebratin’ the harvest like always. Momma and Isabelle too, ’cause Daddy said it was a
man
thing he gotta talk to Micah about. And there he was with Daddy, standing over that field, gettin’ ready to harvest it. That’s when Daddy told Micah how there wasn’t gonna be a indigo harvest that year. How he talked with the Misses, best as he could. How she didn’t know nothin’ ’bout nothin’ when it come to that agreement he made with the Massa the day Micah was born. How there wasn’t gonna be no inheritance, least not like they’d figured.
    But before first light the next mornin’ Micah went out to that indigo field anyhow. Started tearing up the indigo plants. Figured he’d finish what they started that spring. ’Course, first light brought Daddy out to the field to fetch his son. Still kind of dark, but light enough for Micah to see the tears rolling down his Daddy’s cheeks. First time he ever seen that. And it was like the world had got all turned upside down, then. This mountain of a man, everything Micah wanted to be someday. Left with just tears. Askin’ his son to come on home back to the cabin. This mountain of a man reduced to that.
Askin’
.
    So Micah walked back with him. His Daddy’s great arm drapedover his shoulders. And then it was Micah’s tears he was tryin’ to talk away through his own. Tellin’ him it was gonna be okay, Son. Tellin’ him maybe it weren’t the Lawd’s plan for him to see his son be free. That maybe that’s gonna be Micah’s thing to do. That someday he’d have a son. And maybe