Tomorrow's Bread

by Anna Jean Mayhew

  He heard shuffling, hesitant steps and turned to see an old woman with a cane headed his way, eyes down. She stopped, lowered herself heavily onto the other end of the bench with a groan and a sigh. “Oh, my. Oh, my.” She rubbed her hip through a voluminous skirt. “Sure am glad to sit for a spell.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m grateful for this bench, too.”

  “The sun feels so good. Makes me want to lie down in it like I did when I was a girl.”

  He tilted his head. Sidelong he saw age spots on twisted hands, ridges of purple veins in the pale skin that conferred such privilege on her. Did she ever think about that? Of course not.

  “That collar. You a preacher or something?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Reverend Polk of St. Timothy’s Second Presbyterian.”

  “Reverend, huh? Do y’all take confession? No, I guess that’s a Catholic thing.”

  He stopped himself from saying “yes, ma’am” again. “I can offer reconciliation, for those who want it. Not many do.”

  “Reconciliation? A mighty fancy word for admitting our sins, wouldn’t you say?” She rubbed her hip again.

  “Arthritis?”

  She looked toward the skyline of Charlotte. That she hadn’t answered him made him uneasy, but he waited.

  The quiet filled with birdsong, a faint diminishing siren—trouble somewhere.

  “Okay, yes,” the woman said.

  “Yes, arthritis?”

  “I do have arthritis, but I sat down here because of your collar.” She stopped, dropped her head, fiddled with the cloth of her skirt. “Reconciliation? Is that what I get if I confess?”

  “That’s possible. There’s no guarantee, of course.”

  “Catholics promise absolution. Not sure about Presbyterians. I reckon you’ll give me a penance, too.” The skin of her face sagged as if gravity affected her more than most. A pinkish flaky residue filled the lines to either side of her nose. Her eyes, a watery hazel, had bruise-like depressions under them that she’d apparently tried to hide with powder. She yawned, exposing teeth too perfect to be real, evoking in him an unfathomable pity.

  “Our church suggests penance, but I don’t try to tell anyone what they must do to absolve themselves of guilt.”

  “Who said anything about guilt?” She shifted away. An odor came from her, fetid, as if part of her was dying.

  “Sorry.” He stood. “I must get back to work. I’m in my office at St. Tim’s, over on McDowell, if you—”

  Her laugh was loud, more of a bray. “Can’t take the heat, huh?”

  “I beg your pardon?” He felt a need to escape. “Good day, ma’am.”

  She pushed herself up off the bench with one hand on the painted planks, the other on her cane, banging it on the paving. The rubber tip made dull thumps as she pumped it up and down.

  “All right.” He sat back down. “I suppose I can take confession on a park bench.”

  The woman walked a few paces, pounding her cane on the unforgiving sidewalk. She looked over her shoulder. “You’ll do.” She sat down as far away from him as she could get on the narrow bench. Surely half her hip must be off the end of the plank seat. “Cancer. It’s my fault and I cannot sleep for thinking about that. If I hadn’t smoked all those years, and if I’d eaten right, exercised properly. The doctor tells me I might have got it anyway, but I don’t believe him.”

  “Why would you believe me?”

  “Because you’re a man of God.”

  If only she knew his doubts. If she knew that he stayed away from those parts of the Bible he didn’t like. That his followers would desert him if they learned of his misgivings. “Having cancer isn’t something to confess.”

  “Hating my husband is.”

  Her abrupt shift rattled him. “What does your husband have to do with your cancer?”

  “I wouldn’t have smoked if it hadn’t been for him. And now that my lungs are rotting, he keeps on smoking, blowing it in my face. I hate him for giving me my first cigarette and for smoking when I can’t.”

  He put his finger inside his collar, pulled it away from his neck. “Maybe I can help you with the hate you’re feeling.”

  “Don’t need help with hating. That’s easy. But I sure don’t like it that I have to live with someone I hate. Don’t like that one bit.” She tapped her cane on the sidewalk again, as if the motion gave her solace.

  “Why do you stay with him?”

  “He pays the bills, plain and simple. Nowhere else for me to go. Kids won’t have me, family won’t have me.”

  That no one would want her, this was something he could understand. Her problems went too deep for any ministration he might offer, but it would be wrong to walk away without giving her consolation. That was his job. Even if she wasn’t in his church, she was in the congregation of humanity. “Where are your children, your family, here in Charlotte?”

  Again that derisive, dismissive laugh. “They got out as soon as they could. Daughter in California, son in Hawaii, a beach bum I’m sure.”

  “Any other family?”

  She shook her head. “Maybe my sister is still alive, in Virginia, but I haven’t heard of her in many years.”

  Her misery touched a chord in him, resonated with his own sense of aloneness. “So I gather that your husband is the only family you have now.”

  “Such as he is.”

  “You must have loved him to have married him.”

  “Sure, before he changed.”

  A fleeting notion crossed his mind. His only stumbling block was his lack of belief that he could help her. That he could help her, help Brooklyn, that he could relieve the members of St. Tim’s of the pain of relocation. Could keep the graveyard intact—was it really so simple that all he had to do was believe?

  “And you,” she asked. “What of your family, where are they?”

  Her question startled him. Oscar’s future unknown. And Noah, who was back with his father, though that could change any day. “My family are mostly—”

  She got to her feet. “What am I to do?”

  He understood: He could help her but he couldn’t change her fate. Couldn’t change his own fate, couldn’t have saved Nettie even if he’d known about the cancer when it was just one twisted cell in her womb. Couldn’t keep the bulldozers away from St. Tim’s. Could only do what he’d been doing all his life, offer comfort. He took the old woman’s hand. “Pray for forgiveness in your heart. That’ll bring you peace.”

  She looked hopeful. “Pray to forgive or to be forgiven?”

  “Both.” He stood, touched her shoulder. Enough, this was enough.

  “All right.” In a three-pointed gait she headed toward Independence, cane, left foot, right foot.

  He walked back to the manse with a buoyancy he hadn’t felt in months. He took a shortcut through Bell Court, passing the house where the Swinson family had settled after the fire. Elmira had planted a determined garden behind the shotgun houses that fronted First Street. Over the summer, with little evidence of a design, she’d created an explosion of blossoms, many still blooming on this fall day. The colorful clusters put him in mind of the ladies’ hats he saw from his pulpit every Sunday.

  CHAPTER 23

  “You’ll meet Noah today.” Blaire started the car. “The kid at the parking lot.”

  “The car wash boy you’ve talked about?” Persy asked, settling into the passenger seat. “How old is he?”

  “Not easy to tell with blacks, you know?”

  She wasn’t sure about that. “A guess?”

  “Maybe thirteen when I met him last year. Some holiday. Washington’s birthday? Anyway, out of school. Came running up, toting pail, brushes, sponges.” Blaire’s voice goes high, mocking the words, “Wash yo car, mister? I’m de bess in Charlotte, anybody tell you, Noah Polk’s a first-class car wash boy.”

  His mimicry made her uncomfortable.

  “Mitchell says Noah’s okay.” Blaire had worked with Mitchell Spalding, the city attorney, since leaving p
rivate practice.

  When they pulled into the College Street lot, a raw-boned black boy ran up, his eyes large. He waved, saying something they couldn’t hear, sealed in the warm car, the heater going full blast, morning news on the radio. She nudged Blaire. He leaned forward to pull his wallet from his back pocket, extracted two dollars. “Half goes to Danny,” he told her.

  “Who’s Danny?”

  “Guy who runs the lot.”

  She wondered what a dollar meant to the boy.

  On that bright February afternoon, Noah didn’t seem to have the slightest awareness of the frosty air. There was only the dirty car in need of cleaning, and his head in need of a hat. She and Blaire had other concerns beyond crumbs on the passenger-side floor mat, an overflowing ashtray, and bird droppings on the hood from the tree beside their driveway.

  Blaire gave the keys to Noah. “Soon as you’re done, you give these to Danny, okay?”

  “Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yo car safe with me, Mista Marshall.”

  “I’m sure it is.” Blaire paid ten dollars a month for parking in the lot, and often said it was highway robbery. In fact, the rate was much less than what he would pay for parking in the town lot behind his offices, and included unlimited ins and outs, an assigned parking space, and the dependable boy who sang while he worked.

  They started for the County Courthouse on East Trade, walking swiftly to stay warm, with Blaire shifting his twenty-pound briefcase from hand to hand. For seventeen minutes morning and evening, he could not do a blessed thing but walk. He’d told Persy how much he hated wasting time, but having no choice, he put one well-shod foot in front of the other. Black wingtips on a court day like this, and brown oxfords otherwise. The smooth leather reflected his sensibility, his choice of what looked right as opposed to what pleased him. If he lived in a world where there were no penalties for nonconformance, he’d be wearing suede derbies, slender across the toe. Persy wondered if Blaire guessed that she knew these intimate things about him.

  She looked at trains on spurs as they crossed Brevard. The windows of four sleek passenger cars showed the indistinct faces of travelers heading out of Charlotte. What would happen if, one morning, she and Blaire got on the nearest one? A witness had done that a month ago, skipping out of a deposition at the last minute, leaving four attorneys cooling their heels. Blaire said he’d known most of what the absent witness would have added to the facts of that case, but had been looking forward to going fishing to see what might pop up.

  In law school, one of his professors had preached a common dictum: “In court, never ask a witness any question to which you don’t already know the answer.” Blaire said he’d secretly believed the professor a fatuous fool, but nonetheless took the advice to heart until he accepted the truth of legal Q&A. There were questions he had to ask to which he could not possibly know the answer. His hope was that opposing counsel believed the dictum.

  He broke the silence. “Today’s hearing is to get a temporary restraining order. I hope you’re not bored.”

  “Why would I be? What’s the case?”

  “The city wants a certain property. The title appeared to be free and clear until a lien holder showed up. If the claim is valid, the debt has to be satisfied before any sale.”

  “How was it discovered?”

  “We got a copy of the lien from the fellow’s lawyer. It’s Jerry Parker, by the way.”

  “Wow, old home week. Wasn’t there a title search?”

  Blaire looked at her. “You’ve picked up some things along the way.”

  “I remember the search when we bought on Sterling.”

  “The lien holder may be trying to pull something, but he has what appears to be a legitimate document from over twenty years ago. It didn’t show up until he did.”

  “Where’s the property?” They were approaching the courthouse.

  “All will be revealed in the fullness of time. Maybe you won’t be bored, after all.”

  A clerk in the courthouse told Blaire, “Sorry, Mr. Marshall, but the only space available this morning is Courtroom Seven, and there’s a jury trial due to start there at ten. Y’all be done by then?”

  “I guess we’ll have to be. Are the parties here?”

  “Everyone’s in Seven, getting ready.”

  Persy would have preferred anonymity, but being the only observer in the courtroom made her presence obvious. The defense attorney, Jerry Parker, a partner in Blaire’s former firm, greeted her. “Hey, Persy, what brings you here?”

  “Good to see you, Jerry. I enjoy sitting in on Blaire’s trial work whenever I can.”

  Blaire said, “I told her today’s hearing will be a big bore.”

  Jerry raised his eyebrows. “You may be wrong about that, Blaire.”

  Persy sat toward the back to be inconspicuous, but could hear what was going on as clearly as if she were seated beside Blaire. He and Jerry, now adversaries, were still friends outside the courtroom, often played golf together. She’d almost become used to this paradox among lawyers.

  The judge convened the hearing. “Consideration of a temporary restraining order.”

  The lien holder was sworn in, stating his name, “Laird Carson.” Persy felt an instant dislike of the small man, his oiled hair, his eyes flitting back and forth.

  Parker established Carson’s name and residence, and that he held a lien of forty thousand dollars pursuant to a loan he made to a property owner in 1941. A document detailing the debt was marked as evidence of the transaction.

  “Mr. Carson, for the record, what is the address of the property on Exhibit One that’s now up for sale to the city?” Parker asked his client.

  Blaire held up his hand. “Objection. Based on a fact that hasn’t been established.”

  Before the judge could rule, Parker turned to Blaire, “Oh, c’mon, Blaire. We all know the city wants it. That’s why we’re here.”

  “Establish it for the record and I’ll withdraw my objection.”

  The judge said, “Fair enough.”

  Parker consulted a paper, then asked the witness, “Where is the subject property?”

  “Five-seventeen East Third Street.”

  Persy thought the address was in Second Ward, might be in Brooklyn.

  “And what is on the property at that address?”

  “Wholesale Auto Body Parts, or it used to be. Closed now.”

  “Is the property for sale?”

  “Yeah, the owner put out a sign last month.”

  “Is there a prospective buyer?” Parker sounded smug.

  “I heard the city wants it.”

  Parker nodded at Blaire. “With regard to Exhibit One, your interest is an outstanding lien for forty thousand dollars, is that correct?”

  “It is.”

  After a few more questions about the history of the property, Jerry spoke to the judge. “That’s all I have at this point.”

  Blaire began his examination of Mr. Carson slowly. Persy smiled to herself. Blaire could put someone at ease, then attack before the witness knew what hit him.

  “Mr. Carson, Exhibit One represents a lien you took on the property in, let me see, I believe it was January of 1941, so twenty-three years ago, is that correct?”

  “That’s right.”

  “In the amount of some forty thousand dollars?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “A sizeable sum of money in 1941, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Objection, calls for a conclusion,” said Jerry Parker.

  “Sustained,” said the judge. “Can you restate the question?”

  “Never mind.” Blaire consulted his notes, appeared to be in deep thought, then said, “I want to clarify. Were you present when the lien was executed, or was the loan carried out by an intermediary?”

  Carson cleared his throat. “An intermediary, I guess you could call him. My attorney.”

  “And is your then counsel now deceased?”

  “Yes.”

  “The property owner who borrow
ed forty thousand dollars from you, he’s dead as well, is that correct?”

  “That’s right, and that’s why . . .” At a look from Parker, Carson stopped.

  “That’s why, what?”

  “Nothing. I got the lien papers after he died, that’s all.”

  “Are you saying you forgot about the debt until the papers showed up?”

  “No, no, didn’t forget, but . . .” His voice dropped off.

  “Because it would be hard to forget such a sum, right? Are you a wealthy man, Mr. Carson?”

  Parker stared out the window, his voice flat. “Immaterial.”

  “Noted,” the judge said.

  “Let me ask it another way. When you received the papers upon your former counselor’s death, did you then remember the transaction?”

  “Asked and answered.” Parker sounded bored.

  “Asked and evaded, is more like it,” Blaire mumbled.

  “Sir?” the court reporter asked.

  “Counsel’s opinion is irrelevant and insulting.” Parker yawned.

  The reporter’s fingers moved on her keyboard.

  Exhibit One appeared to be a legal document. The judge issued a temporary restraining order, pending an additional title search; if the lien was upheld, the sale of the property to the City of Charlotte could not proceed until the debt was satisfied. As Persy and Blaire left the courthouse, Blaire said, “I don’t think another search will clear things up.”

  “Then what? Right back where you started?”

  “Not exactly. I believe we need to look more closely at Mr. Carson.”

  As they headed back to the parking lot, Persy asked, “The disputed property is in Second Ward, right?”

  “It is.”

  “Brooklyn?”

  Blaire started to cross Brevard, stepped back on the curb when the signal turned red. “On the periphery, but yes.”

  “So that’s why the city is buying the property, urban renewal.”