A Long Time Comin'

by Robin W. Pearson

  Sarah had a bus to catch. And she was even more determined now to make it. “Mama. I didn’t want you to try and stop me. This is something I’ve gotta do. I was going to let you know when I got settled.”

  “Oh, ain’t that nice. But don’t worry, I wouldn’ta tried to stop you. Nobody stopped me when I got it in my fool head to do some runnin’.” Mama shook her head. “But how you s’posed to make it in New York if you cain’t even stand up to yo’ own mama?”

  Sarah wasn’t sure how to answer the question, so she kept her mouth shut.

  Mama watched Sarah for a moment before she sighed. “Well, it’s late, and I guess now I got yo’ chores to do in the mornin’.”

  “Look, Mama. I’ve got to go. I’m gonna miss my bus.” She thought about reaching out for a hug or a kiss, but she thought better of it and instead grasped her mother’s dry hand. Surprised, she looked down at what had been pressed into her own. “Mama? Your Bible?”

  “You gon’ need it more’n you need those newfound friends of yo’s.”

  “But your mama gave you—”

  “My mam gave me lots of thangs, includin’ yo’ name. And you ain’t got no problem takin’ that wit’ you to New York. You got a long road ’head of you.” Beatrice stared into the darkness.

  Sarah did hug her mother quickly then, before she backed away. “Like I said, Mama, don’t worry about me. It’s New York you need to worry about. You watch and see.”

  Sarah retreated a few more steps as Mama continued to stare at her with that look of hers. “I love you, Mama. Really.” But she wouldn’t miss her. Sarah clasped the Bible to her chest and withdrew another step before she turned and ran. The dark soon swallowed her.

  ——————

  Sarah panted heavily as her run slowed to a trot and then to a walk. Finally she stood still, thinking back to the day she’d made her great escape—what her husband, Samuel, called her long-ago trek to the city. Sarah never did make it back to Spring Hope. Not to stay. But after reading her mother’s letter in the bright sunshine of a Manhattan summer morning, she wished that she could go back. Today. Right now. Sarah stepped off the treadmill and picked up the letter again. She skipped past the introduction and read.

  So you made it in the big city. You should know how all the people here in Spring Hope talk about you and your fancy life with the doctor. They think you something right out the television—remember The Jeffersons? Those folks on that show didn’t seem all that happy to me, but you know how people is with their money. As long as they got that, they think everything’s all right. Is everything all right with you? I hope you got more than money keeping you warm at night in that big old apartment. At least when y’all was young, we was warm here in this little house even if you wasn’t always happy.

  Well, I been doing some running of my own, girl. The doctors say I don’t have much time, and believe me, I wanted to run away when I heard it. Not because I’m afraid of death. I just figured I had more to do here than I do over there. But I’ve stopped running. God says it’s ’bout time to come home. I know your husband might have a better understanding than the rest, so I’m leaving word with my doctor to tell Samuel the particulars.

  Sarah, I been thinking a lot about that night you left here. I bet you almost peed in your drawers when you fell out the window and seen me. I didn’t tell you, but I understood your leaving. I was much younger than you when I left my own mam and pap. Sometimes I wish I had hopped on a bus to some big city instead of hitching up with your daddy to come here to Spring Hope. There really ain’t been that much hope here for me.

  You did what you needed to, and I guess it turned out all right. I know you expected me to drag you back inside, but to tell you the truth, it’s good you made the decision to get on with your life. I didn’t have money to give, but I gave you all I had. I just wanted you to think about what you was doing, what you was getting into, and I wanted you to have the best of me with you.

  Nobody did that for me when I had it in my head to get, so I wanted to do that for you. You really didn’t need me to hug you or kiss you. That might have led you to think you shouldn’t go, that your home needed you. But you was like our Abraham, sent out from all his peoples, and just like him you got what God promised you. And at last count of that family of yours, you off to a good start.

  Sarah, we both knew you needed to go, that you had to go. And you knew you could have come back if you wanted to, not that you’d have wanted to. I didn’t have that choice. Much as I might have wanted to, I couldn’t never go back. Just as much as I knew what you needed then, I feel like I know what you need now, at least from me.

  If you was here, I would put my arms round you. Really, I would. I’d tell you, you done a good job, but that you still got some traveling to do on that road of yours. You got six children to care for and a husband to look after. And you got some work to do for yourself. That’s the important part I don’t want you to forget. Don’t get so wrapped up in what others need for you to do that you leave out that most important part. I didn’t do such a good job of that, and I have to live with it.

  Pray on what that is and get back on the bus, girl. You got my Bible and you got plenty of money, so you can afford to ride a good long time. I love you.

  Your mama

  Sarah tucked her mother’s letter back into the envelope and set it in the tray atop the treadmill, covering up the number of calories she had burned, her pace, and the miles she had run that morning. Sarah considered the words to the Frost poem—“. . . and miles to go before I sleep . . .”—until the activity inside the brownstone captured her attention.

  Even at this early hour, the boys were at it again: Nicholas and Sam Jr., tussling on her Aubusson rug over some insult or misdeed, real or imagined. Grace and Victoria, wide-eyed, omelets forgotten. Sarah grabbed the handle of the French door, intent on breaking up the commotion before they woke four-year-old twins Evangeline and Benjamin, but then she stopped herself. “He’s the one who says he wants to do this, so let him handle it.” Sarah stretched, focusing on the view beyond their sunroom to tune out the hullabaloo inside.

  After a few moments Sarah was ready for the rest of what her mother had to say. She positioned herself in the sun that rebelliously beamed through the tinted glass, the farthest point away from the growing din inside—ah, there go the twins!—and took extra care withdrawing the second letter. It crackled as she flattened it. The faded words leaped from the page:

  Saragirl,

  You dont member me, I spose. You only called me daddy wonse in yo year of livin wit me. I member the firs time you sed my name I was seein to the truck. You came up hind me and like to scard me to deth. I jumped a mile and you cried so. I was the won sorry makin you cry like that. Jus like Im sorry now littel Sarah. I wonder if you dun much cryin over my leavin, but you probly dun wit it by now. Yeh I magin you got yo own reasons to cry now that dont hav nuthin to do wit me. I can still see you runnin roun bare butt with B tryin to git you in the tub. You was so yung and still had that free hart. Milton jus layin ther cooin and goin on. Nether yall new wat life was realy like. Not like the rest of us. I hope you still runnin free werever you is. Even if you got to do it in yo hed like I did.

  I ben thinkin bout all I had to leav. All I got in Jasper is work. No woman. No kids. No home to call mine. Jus this job and a room over the sto. The woman who hired me is like yo ma. She dont take no mess and I can trus her. But she also trus me wit her bisness. B dint never trus me wit nuthin speshally you chillun. She probly thank I proved her rite in the end. But I kep secrets. Dint never tell nobody but I the won payin for it. And that aint fare to me or my boy. I hope yall unnerstan somday. If you see roun it come see me at 23 Reedy Creek. Im here. War Im gon go now? Take care of yoself.

  Henton Agnew

  Daddy! He wrote me. He missed me! He hadn’t wiped the dust off his feet and forgotten them. He’d taken the time to write that he wanted to see her. Wait! Is he still alive somewhere? Did he send thi
s letter to contact—?

  With an almost-audible thump, Sarah landed on earth. Daddy’s dead. If not, the Social Security Administration had screwed up ten years ago. Sarah squeezed her eyes shut, feeling like she had lost her father yet again. Her right hand curled into a fist.

  “Sarah?”

  She answered her husband absently. “What is it, Sam?”

  “The little ones are up and . . . I’m not sure. They’re kind of cranky. What do you usually do when you’re teaching the others?”

  Sarah looked up into Henton’s face, at least how she remembered it. She pictured him in his clunky boots, a toolbox in one hand and his gray hat in the other. Behind Henton she saw her brothers and sisters playing on the floor, their fight resolved.

  “Henton” cleared his throat. “Hon?”

  Sarah blinked and her vision cleared. Of course, those were her own rambunctious bunch, not her siblings. And Sam was holding a wailing four-year-old, not a toolbox or a hat. Her husband, the brilliant doctor who commanded an emergency room. The faithful provider who had bought her this beautiful brownstone and whisked her away from a life as a waitress and a tiny walk-up in Brooklyn. The struggling father who had saved others’ lives but was woefully out of place in his own family’s.

  For a painful moment she considered letting him suffer.

  “Excuse me, Sarah, but a little help here?”

  “Of course, Sam.” Sarah reached for Benjamin, who was still half-asleep, and she snuggled his pillow-soft cheek. She gave Evangeline the eye, and immediately the child’s screeching quieted to a whimper, then finally rolled over and died.

  “How do you do that?”

  “Well, dear, it’s not brain surgery.” Her lips hinted at a smile. “Are you sure you’re up for this?”

  This—Evangeline, whose copious tears and runny nose had left wet spots all over his Brooks Brothers dry-clean-only shirt. Homeschooling, running the household, the sports, the lunches, the baths. Her life Samuel had decided to take over for the foreseeable future until he could call her family their family. The relinquishing of the life he loved at the hospital, the patients who adored him, their fast-paced, well-to-do urban lifestyle.

  “Of course.” Sam met her gaze unflinchingly. He used his shirttail to wipe Evangeline’s nose. He promised her a cookie and his iPad once she had breakfast and read Dick and Jane. Then he scooped her up, and she tucked her head under her father’s chin, mirroring her minutes-older brother. He turned and stepped into their family room, completely out of his element.

  But not for long, she prayed, she believed. Sarah loved him, this anti-Henton who’d left everything else behind for his family instead of the other way around. She knew that ten, twenty, thirty years down the road, her own children would be safe from reading their own “Dear John” letters from an absentee father, and she was grateful for God’s grace in sending her this man. When she stepped into the family room and beheld the stain on her antique rug, she held on to that prayer and looked the other way. Now was not the time to fuss about the incomplete English lessons, the mess, the broken naps, or the crying. It wasn’t the time to look at the past and mourn what once was. She had a new life ahead of her, perhaps a new career, something other—not more—than orchestra, soccer games, textbooks, and playdates.

  Her heart filled with hope, her brain with newfound resolve, and a squirming armload, Sarah mentally tucked away her mother’s letter for the moment and put Henton’s in cold storage. Smiling internally, she murmured, “‘War Im gon go now?’”

  Chapter Seventeen

  BEATRICE—YESTERDAY AND TODAY

  “Mama. Mama.”

  Beatrice’s thin chest heaved one last time and her fingers stopped fussing with her hair. She couldn’t stop the tremulous sigh from escaping her parted lips. Brusquely swiping her caramel-colored cheek, she expelled a sigh of a different kind. “What is it, chile?”

  The girl hesitated as if gauging her mama’s mood.

  “What is it, Mary?” She clenched her teeth to stop herself from grabbing her knee baby by her frail shoulders.

  “It’s Thomas.” Mary’s voice was even smaller than her tiny frame.

  At that moment, Beatrice’s ears trained on her young son, screaming his fool head off in the front room. Her brows furrowed. “What’s wrong now?”

  “H-h-he ’bout cut his finger off.” Mary’s chest absorbed her threadlike voice because that was where she’d tucked her chin.

  “What?”

  The three-year-old sank closer to the floor, but she looked up, revealing the panic in her hazel-flecked eyes. She held her finger aloft and pointed to its tip. “His finger. It’s bleedin’ all over.”

  “Goodness gracious.” Beatrice edged Mary out of the way and stomped from her bedroom. She found Elisabeth huddled over a screeching Thomas. And Mary was right. Blood was everywhere—including the rug she had scraped together for months to buy from Fulton’s. Elisabeth was working to put a Band-Aid on the situation—even if she couldn’t put one on Thomas’s wound—by trying to shush her panicking brother and directing Little Ed and Ruthena in their unsuccessful attempts to clean the mess.

  “Lord, help. Boy, what happened?” She pushed his nursemaid aside and applied enough pressure to Thomas’s index finger to make it turn blue. When Thomas yelled even louder, Beatrice slapped him, not hard enough to leave a mark, but enough to bring him to his senses.

  Thomas’s cries ended abruptly as if someone had lifted the needle on a record player. He stared up at his mama, his honey-colored face streaked with blood, snot, and tears.

  “I said, what happened?”

  “My f-f-finger. I h-hurt m-my f-f-f-finger.”

  “I can see that, boy. How did you hurt it?” She dragged Thomas from the chair into the kitchen. Elisabeth followed. The others fell into line.

  “Aahh!” Thomas’s cries resumed as Beatrice ran cold water over his wound. The water ran deep Egyptian river red at first, then pink, and finally clear. Thomas continued screeching, but Mama focused on her mission, her lips moving soundlessly as she prayed. She sent her assistant for a clean rag and tore it into wide strips. Roughly she wrapped each strip around his finger and secured them with masking tape. By the time she was done, Thomas’s screams had tapered to whimpers, and his bandaged finger appeared three times its size.

  “Is somebody gon’ tell me what happened?” Beatrice wiped up the blood and water around the sink. Clenching the threadbare towel, she turned to face the remaining members of her brood. Mary, wide-eyed and tearful. Little Ed, unblinking, appearing to await the next blow or an accusation. Elisabeth, who pulled Ruthena closer.

  “Well?” Beatrice decided to wrest the truth from the victim or culprit, but Thomas only had eyes for his injured digit.

  “What’s goin’ on here?”

  All heads—including Beatrice’s—whipped toward the low voice at the door. She scowled at Henton’s lanky form.

  “What’s wrong with that boy’s finger?” As usual, the words seemed to drag their way through molasses before slowly drizzling from his tongue. Henton nodded the question at Thomas, still pointing his finger toward heaven.

  “He near cut it off.” Beatrice turned her back to the children and to Henton—and the scent of cheap alcohol that rolled off him in waves—as he stepped into the kitchen.

  “How he do that?” Henton doffed his soft-gray hat and twirled it around his right index finger once, twice.

  “You need to take off them dirty boots and leave ’em by the back do’.” Beatrice didn’t face Henton. She ignored his question even if she couldn’t ignore the acrid smell of his sweat. She listened to the door squeak open and to the clump-clump of his shoes on the stoop. The door clicked closed. “And put that dirty hat somewhere ’sides my kitchen.” Beatrice added ballast to the barrier she’d erected between them and secured it with the same words she told him every day.

  Like always, Henton retreated. Without argument, he set his hat in the front room. When he reentered
the kitchen, he squeezed Thomas’s shoulder, nodded to Mary, Elisabeth, Ruthena, and Little Ed, and slipped out without saying a word.

  “Well, if y’all ain’t got nuthin’ to say, then get on outta here. I got better thangs to do than—” But she couldn’t squeeze out the order. Pressing the back of her hand to her mouth, she pushed Ruthena aside—who almost knocked down poor little Mary—and left the kitchen as fast as she could without actually running. Beatrice flicked away hot tears as she strode back and forth across the breadth of her room, her chest tight. She fought to suppress the sobs that threatened to erupt.

  Through the window Beatrice saw Henton standing in his bare feet, watching Elisabeth, who’d returned to her chore of sweeping the front yard. “That fool-headed man. That fool-headed man.” And the dam broke. Like a madwoman, she tore at her clothes, at her hair. Beatrice pushed away from the window as Elisabeth dropped the rake and stood, mouth agape, in the yard. Beatrice clawed her throat, her chest, her thighs.

  Over the loud cries that kept coming and coming and coming, Beatrice heard Elisabeth yell for Henton. Ruthena stumbled over Mary and Little Ed crouching on the floor in her mama’s bedroom doorway as she went to scoop up baby Sarah, who’d slept through all the to-do. When Mary reached for the knob to pull it closed, Little Ed swatted away her hand.

  Then . . . Henton was at Beatrice’s door, his eyes looking as wide and wild as hers when they met. She could do nothing but sob and shake her head as she watched him shoo away the children. Little Ed grabbed Mary and pushed everyone toward the front room. The screen door closed with a clap.

  Only Thomas, forgotten, huddled near the kitchen, shivering, still holding his bloody finger high in the air. His face was the last Beatrice saw before Henton slammed closed her bedroom door. He must have heard the lock click into place.