The Brightest Day: A Juneteenth Historical Romance Anthology

by Alexander, Kianna

  “Come inside to find out.” When had she gotten so bold before? She needed one more thing from him…just one more.

  “Aww, honey, you know I couldn’t love you any more than what I do.”

  And she knew it was true.

  He came around to the side and lifted her down from the wagon into his arms. And sliding against him, she kissed him again. He pressed himself to her, and when they parted she smiled into his face. “I know you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but we are part of one another, just like we said, right?

  “Yes, honey lamb.”

  “Then, where are your daughters?”

  Arlo peered down at her in the moonlight. “Lord, Missy, you are something. I thought you was going to say no, we can’t go to the courthouse and help Miss Annie win her bet.”

  “That was the next thing,” she told him.

  He laughed out loud. “Their grandmamas have them. One in East Chattanooga and the other up near Franklin. That’s who I send the money to.”

  Her eyebrows came together. “Arlo, those babies are sisters, and shouldn’t be raised up apart from one another. They should be with you.”

  He got quiet for a minute. “You have a point. But I knew I couldn’t put those girls on Lona with all she got to deal with. I was roaming the countryside all that time until I just came here. That’s no good for girl children.”

  “No. But I can be. And now that I don’t have a job and…”

  “Yeah. I know where this is going, Missy. You putting that little ceremony into the play and all. Yes. We’ll get married just as soon as you say. You want my girls, I’ll go get them from where they are and bring them here.”

  “We can be a family, Arlo, but you never asked. You told me.”

  “Missy, will you please, woman, please be my wife?”

  He wasn’t on his knees this time. And she should make him go there. But now, he was less theatrical. Right now, she believed he was speaking from his real heart and that was what she wanted. “Yes. I will.” Missy reached up and pulled him close to her, because she wanted it. But the way he pulled her in close to him, as close as he could, made him know he wanted it too.

  “One more thing. I want a family, Arlo. I’m not having good thoughts about those girls being separated from one another.”

  “I understand. Let’s talk about it after I put up the mule.”

  She turned from him and went into the house. Praise the Lord. Her cousin wasn’t going have to die of shame to see her without her wedding band on. She would have one. Well, she already did. It belonged to her grandmother, forged by her legendary blacksmith artist ancestor Isaac Baxter—a cousin of hers somewhere. It was Milford tradition that he forge all of the wedding bands for anyone who married there. She wouldn’t be married there. But she had one, nonetheless.

  Missouri reached for the dresser drawer where she kept the ring. Touching the smooth, cool metal, a stitch of pain in her right side cut deep into her lungs and she nearly stopped breathing. What?

  Oh God, the baby was coming.

  Much too soon.

  Chapter 9

  He almost had to stop himself from humming when he tied up the mule in the barn shelter behind the teacher house. He hadn’t felt so relaxed, so good in years. It was almost like the time when he first set foot away from home, young and feeling good about the possibilities in the world. Still, the events that had happened over the past five years had changed him. He was almost pulled down so he couldn’t rise up. With first Ruth going on him and then May Ann checking out, through no fault of his own. But he found his way back through Missouri.

  Thank you, Lord.

  Her scream cut through the night and liked to stole his breath away.

  Dear God. That cannot be… He had just left her.

  He turned and ran into the house to see Missy gripping herself.

  She was panting, like a slop hound dog. “I feel so strange, Arlo. A pain in my side. I don’t know what happened.”

  Peace came over him. Why now? How strange, given everything that had happened to him before. How could he feel peace in this terrible moment when the woman he had just resolved to marry was falling ill in the same way other women in his life did? What held him up? Put away childish things…

  But he was calm. He guided her to the bed and helped her to lie down.

  “Keep calm, Miss. You getting upset will only get the baby upset, and you don’t want that. It’s going to be okay.”

  Tears ran down her beautiful brown face and ran into the corners of her mouth. “I don’t understand it. Why this? Why now? Why my baby?”

  Or mine. “You stay here and I’ll go get Miss Annie. It’s going to be all right.”

  He couldn’t stop to re-hitch the wagon. Instead he threw himself on the back of the mule and took the worn dirt path back to the old lady’s house they had just left not an hour before. Almost as soon as he pulled the mule up into the yard, a light came on from her kerosene lamp.

  “Hey there! Someone having a… Arlo! What you doing here?”

  “Something wrong with Missy, ma’am. She went to gripping on herself as soon as she got home.”

  “I’ll get my things. Don’t you have the wagon?”

  “Didn’t want to stop to hitch it up, ma’am.”

  “I haven’t ridden bareback on anything in years.” Miss Annie eyed the mule with suspicion.

  “Don’t worry. It’ll be okay.” He slid down to the ground, ready to lift her up.

  And him saying it made it so. What had happened to him?

  The old woman seemed to take forever to get her things. Thank the God above that she had not disrobed yet. When she stepped to the mule, he lifted her up and put her squarely on the front part of the animal. Miss Annie squealed and giggled as if she were a young girl Ruby’s age.

  “I got to ride on this animal with you?”

  “‘Fraid there’s no other way.”

  “By the time we get on back to the teacher house, I might charm you from Missouri’s arms.”

  Arlo jumped on the animal’s back behind her and reached around the soft, doughy midwife to grasp the reins. “You just might. Let’s go.”

  “Not too fast, though. I got rhumatiz.”

  Arlo had no idea what that meant or why it should matter in this case; he just wanted to get back to Missouri.

  Even with Miss Annie’s warnings and squeals in his ear, they got back to the teacher house fast. He lifted the midwife off the mule to help her into Missouri’s house.

  Somehow Missy had changed into a nightgown, but she lay on the bed looking frightened.

  “What’s going on, girlie?”

  “I felt a terrible pain across here.” Missy pointed out places on her stomach.

  “Feeling it since?” Miss Annie’s old fingers went to poking and prodding at his future wife.

  Dear Lord. Let her be fine. Help the baby, Lord, and let them both live this time.

  “A little.”

  “Yeah, I thought so. That baby is trying to come. Make a party to join its cousin.”

  “It’s not time yet.”

  “I didn’t think so. ‘Less you counted wrong and you carrying big. Nothing to do for it but wait it out. A child might not be coming tonight, but you got to stay off your feet. Good thing the school year is over. Stay on your back for as long as you can. No funny stuff.”

  She turned and eyed Arlo, her glance at him softening. “I’m needing your sweetheart man to give me a ride back. Me and Ruby come by to see you every day.”

  “That’s all you got to say?”

  “Honey, there’s nothing else to do for it. Your job is to keep that baby inside you for as long as you can. Got to give it a chance to grow. Your man will come and get me if anything happens. Won’t you, Arlo?”

  “I surely will.”

  “Yes, no riding in the bumpy wagon. Just bring the mule, like you done tonight.”

  “I’ll do my best to accommodate you.”

  �
�That’s fine. He’s going to be right here with you.” She turned to Arlo. “No leaving her alone anymore. Don’t know when her time will come. It still may come soon, but every day the baby stays in there is good. She can get out of bed for the chamber pot, but she got to get right back in as soon as she can. You got that?”

  Arlo nodded. His mouth was dry and knees nearly crumbled to bits with relief. No more curses. Was God giving him a second chance? It surely seemed that way. He’d take it.

  First chance he would get, he’d hang a sign on the door of his place in the woods. “Closed.” He had another job to do.

  Missy moaned and turned her face to the wall. “I was supposed to go to Milford in the morning.”

  Miss Annie shook her head. “ You go some other time to your people. Less you want to give up on that baby, you ain’t going nowhere. Arlo done said he’s going to take care of you. You’ll be fine. Take me home now. I got to get my rest.” Miss Annie fairly pranced out, saying, “I’ma get my stovepipe yet.”

  When Arlo got Miss Annie to her home, she gave him a tin of salve. “Rub this on her belly twice a day. Once in the morning, once at night.”

  “Yes.”

  She grasped his hands and forced him to look at her, and he pushed down a feeling of irritation. He had to get back to Missy. What did the midwife want from him now? “This a tender time. Everything you do for that girl will say whether that baby wants to be here or not. If that’s what you want, you’ve got to make up your mind. It can’t be about you. It’s got to be about her.”

  “Yes, Miss Annie. I got the sense of that.”

  “Sense of? You’ve got no sense, that’s for sure. You look like the devil himself must look, but you can’t be like him. No way, no how. You don’t do right by that girl, I’ll make it mighty uncomfortable for you to stay in Winslow.”

  “It’s going to be okay. Just like I told her.”

  She let go of him. Arlo opened the tin to sniff the salve. The sharp scent of the ointment made him feel as if he had been punched in the nose. “She really needs this?”

  “If I say she does.”

  A dark thought entered Arlo’s mind. “Getting your stovepipe isn’t part of this, now is it?”

  “I do as God tells me and mind the rest. You would be smart to do the same, young man. Get on back to your woman.”

  Arlo was only too happy to oblige.

  ~~~

  The next day, when Ruby and Miss Annie came to visit on their rounds, Ruby brought his grip and his guitar. With that, his move from his sister’s house to the teacher house was official.

  He bent down to kiss her round cheek. “My lovely niece knows me so well.”

  Ruby pulled back and touched Missy’s forehead. “How are you feeling, Miss Baxter?”

  “I can’t say. I don’t like being in this bed much.” His woman’s frown touched him and made him ache in his middle. He would do anything to bring her smile back.

  “Ruby brought the guitar, Missy. I’ll play.”

  Arlo strummed on the guitar and they sang a rousing few choruses of “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” Missy sat up in bed, and clapped and sang with them. She might have been getting better because of their visitors, who helped to see that she got better, but he liked to think it was the music.

  Over the next few weeks, people heard that Missy was sick and had to stay in bed. Still, he was surprised that people came. Well, he knew John and his family, except for Lona, would come as they could. But they didn’t have to worry about cooking. Folks came and saw to it that they both had food to eat to keep their strength up. And it didn’t even matter if the people were his former customers; they came and didn’t appear to judge him or Missy.

  When the minister came by one day to pray, Arlo took him to the side afterwards.

  “Will we be able to marry here?”

  “Oh yes, but you need your marriage license. If you can’t get her to the courthouse in Calhoun, you can’t get a license. Both of you have to be present for that.”

  That hardly seemed fair, but there it was. He knew that Missy wanted to be married before the baby came, but he didn’t know how to make that happen. Even if they married when she was well and healed and could go to Calhoun, the baby wouldn’t be born a Tucker. And he knew that bothered her something powerful.

  When Miss Annie and Ruby came to visit that day, he told them he had to go to Calhoun. They agreed to stay and be with Missouri.

  He took the long journey to the courthouse in Calhoun. Stepping to the counter in his best tan suit, he put on his completely respectable air. “Ma’am. I’m in need of a marriage license.”

  The middle-aged woman had a frowzy, fuzzy gray-blonde pompadour and blue eyes. She looked unhappy about her hair and life in general. “How’s that? You can’t marry yourself.”

  “Not trying to do that, ma’am. I want to marry a young woman who is bedridden. She’s not able to come here with me to the courthouse.”

  “You’re going to have to wait until she gets up.”

  “And if that possibility may not happen? How much extra will I have to pay to have you come with me to get her signature to witness it?”

  It took a great deal of his money to convince the woman and her husband to come with him after she was off work. The woman couldn’t go with Arlo alone, so the three of them set off in the wagon to the teacher house. It was money well spent. Missy was right. If it was to make her happy, he could transform the sad money to happy. He liked the way that made him feel.

  The woman was a little put out when she saw the reason Missy was in bed, but the husband considered it a kindly thing to do. Arlo couldn’t help but note how lucky the woman was to have anyone who wanted to be bothered with her in the first place. Some people had all the luck.

  And he did, too.

  After he took the white couple all the way back to Calhoun to their home, as they insisted as if he were their coachman, he went to Reverend Farmer’s house to get him. “Reverend, I got the license. Come on with me. I got some getting married to do.”

  When Mrs. Farmer heard what Arlo had done, she cried and said she hadn’t heard of anything so wonderful in years. It put an extra set to the reverend’s lip, but Arlo ignored it. On the way back to the house, he picked up all the assorted Bledsoes who wanted to come. Even Lona.

  She kissed his cheek as he loaded her into the wagon with everyone else. “Oh, brother, I have longed to see you on your wedding day. I’m coming. It’s been two weeks, so I should be fine. I wouldn’t miss this for anything.”

  “Thank you, Sissy.”

  By the time they got to the house, there was quite a festive party to prepare for the wedding.

  Ruby ran outside to greet them with a stern look on her face. “The baby’s coming now. You, everyone, will have to stay outside.”

  His heart sank. It had only been two weeks of wait. The baby had more growing to do.

  What would happen now? Arlo had tried to do right. Didn’t it matter?

  A claw gripped at his stomach and left track marks of pain behind. It was happening again. He thought of the preacher and his Bible as some kind of talisman against the same thing happening before, but it wasn’t. He was a cursed man.

  Dear God, if he could only have something to drink. Put away childish things…put them away.

  There was no time for that. John patted him on the back as he took leaden footsteps into Missouri’s home. It was time for his child to be born.

  Chapter 10

  Missy had just one request, and she voiced it: “Please, stop sitting on me.”

  She knew no one was sitting on her. It just felt that way in her body.

  “Is she okay?” Arlo’s worried face hovered over her.

  “She’s fine. She going to be fine; all of them folks over in the church praying for her.”

  “I need to pray too.” Arlo dropped to his knees, clasping his hands together.

  If only she could lift her limbs and reassure him.

 
“That would be a better use of your time. This child ain’t got no business coming now.”

  It’s my fault. I worried and cried too much while this child was trying to grow. Made it a bad place for her inside of me.

  Her.

  She knew the baby was a girl. She had known it all along. She just didn’t want to tell Arlo, because if she had told him, he would walk out on them. Just like the others. Now that she knew what had happened, she understood. Arlo would go and get those girl babies, Katie and Addy, and she would be their mother. They would be a family.

  Wake up. Wake up from dreaming.

  “Come on now,” Miss Annie said. “You got to help, honey. Push.”

  God, help me.

  The force, she didn’t know what else to call it, felt as if a giant bear got up off her and let the baby come into the world.

  Someone screamed. Was the baby okay?

  She was the one who had screamed.

  “Lord, look here at this peanut.”

  The fog started to lift from her mind. Missouri edged up to see Miss Annie holding a long, skinny baby about the color of a fresh peanut by the ankles. “She going to have long legs for the men folks to be looking at.”

  Miss Annie chuckled as she slapped the baby to get the air into her lungs. “Look at her!” Ruby said with rapture.

  “Yes. This child, she something else. She skinny, but got a good, strong way about her.”

  Missouri’s daughter’s wailing was like music to her ears. The tears slid into her eyes.

  “Look at her, Missy. It’s a girl.”

  Arlo hovered nearby. She could see his face as moist as John Bledsoe’s had been.

  She opened her mouth to speak, but it was so dry. Ruby came in and held a cup of water to her lips. Bless the child. Now she could speak. “Do you like her, Arlo?”

  “Like her? Look at those fingers! She looks like she could play the violin right now. She’s wonderful.”

  Missy said, “I want to hold her.”

  “An old woman can only move so fast now,” Miss Annie said. “Arlo, stop that crying and get that woodstove going. It’s June, but it got to be warm in here. This baby child here, she always going to do the opposite of what you say. I hope you all knows that. You in for it.”