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13 2 Exile and Instability Hurston’s ominous visions were followed by the first significant trauma of her life: the death of her mother. After returning from a visit to Alabama where she tended to her dying sister, Lucy exhibited troubling signs of depression and exhaustion. Her trip back home reignited old conflicts about her marriage to John, and she was reminded of the mysterious death of her favorite nephew, Jimmie. After attending a party, the boy was found headless next to the railroad track. Known for his good looks, he may have been the victim of a jealous rival, or it is possible there was a racial motive for the attack. Either way, Lucy’s grief returned, and her despair was exacerbated by the strain of raising eight children, then ranging in age from five to twenty-one, as well as the humiliations of an unfaithful hus- band. Though only thirty-nine years old, she took to her bed. One September day in 1904, Lucy called her youngest daughter to her and told her to obey her carefully. Lucy’s requests centered on rejecting a series of superstitious customs usually followed among the dying. She did not want a clock or mirror to be covered, nor was her pillow to be removed from her head as she passed. Though Hurston promised her mother not to follow these customs, she had not expected Lucy to pass so quickly. She was playing outside before she at last joined the commotion in her moth- er’s room and found neighborhood women performing the very acts Lucy had hoped to evade. Though Hurston tried to stop the adults, she was only a child and was unable to prevent the will of others, including her father, who physically restrained her from interfering with the customary death