Rush Home Road

by Lori Lansens

“What’s that cord called, Mama? The one attached to me and you?”

  “That’s the umbilical cord.”

  “That’s the one the doctor cut?”

  “Mmm-hmm. Still there though.”

  Chick lifted her pyjamas to look at the twisted knot of her belly button. “No it ain’t.”

  “Just invisible now is all.”

  Chick burrowed into Addy’s chest. “How long before I came out and the doctor cut that cord?”

  “Well, I pushed and I waited and I pushed and I waited and your Daddy and Mrs. Yardley could have cooked and ate a ten-pound roast of beef before you decided it was time you’re ready. The doctor finally came, though I thought he was gonna miss the whole thing, then it seemed like it was just the one last push and there you were in my arms. You cried just a little and I took you to my breast and you was looking at me like you knew me and when your Daddy said, ‘It’s a girl. It’s Beatrice,’ you looked right at him like you knew him too. He said you even gave your eyes a little roll like to say, ‘Well of course I’m a girl, Daddy.’

  “Me and your Daddy loved you so much. We felt like you came as a gift from God and one we maybe didn’t even deserve. ’Cept for when we have our problems with you, Chick, ’cept for when you throw your fits, I think I’m the luckiest mother in the world. Those fits we’re just gonna have to work on and I think that’s me and Daddy’s fault for giving in to you too much. But aside from that, you’re turning into a sweet and gentle person and I’m very, very proud to say you’re mine. And you know how your Daddy feels, because even though his work takes him far away, you’re in every thought he thinks. Him and you like peas in a pod and you have been since the day you were born.” As the night was still warm, Addy took the extra blanket off Chick’s bed and kissed her sleeping lips good night.

  In the morning, Chick was grouchy from too little sleep. Addy kissed her cheek and said, “Happy Birthday, Beatrice Mosely.” Chick complained about her breakfast and wouldn’t drink her milk. She said, “I want my Daddy. Why can’t my Daddy come to my birthday party?”

  Addy’d thought to give Chick the gift from her father later, during the party at Hamond’s, but she could see the child needed some placating now. Without a word she took the gift-wrapped box from its hiding place in the kitchen cupboard and set it down on the table. Chick looked up. “From Daddy?”

  Addy nodded and watched her unwrap the present. She wasn’t sorry, when she saw Chick’s face, that she’d given in and told Mose to keep it. The porcelain doll was the best and most beloved gift Chick would receive in her life. Still, Addy was anxious such a costly thing would get broken, so she took it out of Chick’s hands and put it back in the satin-lined box before the little girl had a chance to give it a hug.

  Chick loved the white dress too and it was a perfect fit. She pulled it on before the party and twirled in front of the mirror, asking, “Will you teach me to sew, Mama?” It startled Addy to think that she herself had already been handy with a needle and thread by the time she was Chick’s age. She realized she hadn’t shown Chick much else in the way of housekeeping either. She hadn’t even taught the child how to make apple snow. She’d do that, she thought, this fall, when the apples were crisp and plentiful.

  There’d been some fuss over the pink bow for Chick’s hair. Chick hadn’t wanted the bow and Addy couldn’t imagine why. “It pulls!” Chick had whined. Addy tied the ribbon tighter, then worried that the child would throw a fit. There would be no fits on Chick’s birthday though. At least none of which Addy was aware.

  There were ten children invited to the party and Addy’d feared ten was too many to handle. She nearly cried when Hamond showed up with the blonde Shetland pony and every child in the whole East End came over to see. She’d baked a white three-layer cake with buttercream frosting and decorated it with candy rosebuds, but the cake wasn’t nearly big enough to provide for the extra children and neighbours who’d come to watch the pony trot up and down Degge Street.

  Chick was the birthday girl, so she naturally felt entitled to special consideration, but when Uncle Hamond told the crowd that Chick would ride the pony first, she froze. She’d never ridden an animal before, pony or otherwise, and was afraid she’d look foolish or, worse, that she’d fall and hurt herself or spoil her beautiful dress. She let another child go first instead and Hamond patted her back, whispering that he was proud to see her generosity.

  Later, more than a dozen neighbourhood children had ridden the pony and Chick still hadn’t taken a turn. Sammy and Ben kept shovels at both ends of the street and tried to keep up with the Shetland’s prolific output. Addy was in Hamond’s kitchen throwing together a pan of peach cobbler, thinking about Jesus with the loaves and fishes. No one seemed to notice that Chick had disappeared.

  A boy of eight, Abel Duncan, had three turns on the pony and was told he’d have no more. He couldn’t complain, seeing he hadn’t been invited to the birthday party in the first place. He was cutting through the Fergusons’ backyard on his way home when he heard a banging sound in the wood shed by the big pear tree. He wasn’t afraid, just curious, but he thought better than to go ahead and open the door. There was a small window on the side of the shed which he could just barely reach. He lifted himself up on tiptoes to see what was making the banging noise.

  He didn’t know what to think about what he saw inside the shed. Chick Mosely, dressed in her pretty white dress, teary and mad, was struggling to swing a hoe against the wall like a baseball bat. Abel started to walk away but came back, opened the shed door, and asked simply, “Why you doing that?”

  Chick was startled to see the boy. She dropped the hoe before she realized he wasn’t in a position to punish her. Abel watched her a moment longer, then said, “Why ain’t you out there riding the pony?”

  How could she tell Abel Duncan that she was afraid to ride the pony? How could she tell him that the Shetland pony had ruined her party? She picked up the hoe again. “Go away, Abel. You never was invited to my party anyway.”

  Abel looked at the shed wall where the hoe had splintered the wood. “If I was invited I’d say it was a good one. I liked riding that pony. And your Mama set out some cobbler and cake and fresh-baked cookies, too. If it was my party I sure wouldn’t be here in no smelly shed.” With that he turned and left.

  Chick picked up the hoe and swung it again but she wasn’t really mad any more. She could hear the children in the kitchen and reckoned they must have been invited inside for cake so she set down the hoe and headed for the house. Her mother met her at the back door, damp with perspiration, her dress soiled from baking. She kissed Chick and said, “C’mere, Baby, I put aside a slice of cake for you.”

  Seeing the giant piece of white cake made Chick wish she hadn’t splintered the wall in the shed. She asked, “Can Abel Duncan come have a slice?” Addy was not sure which of the Duncan boys was Abel or why Chick wanted to give him cake, but she nodded and watched her daughter race out the back door.

  It being a Saturday, the majority of folks would be getting up early for church in the morning, and Addy was glad she didn’t have to shoo out any stragglers at the end of the day. When everyone was gone and Samuel and Ben had cleaned up the last of the mess, Hamond carried the worn-out little birthday girl the few blocks home to William Street. Addy confessed she felt bad for giving Mose so much grief about the doll. And bad for making Chick wear the ribbon in her hair. And bad that she hadn’t thought to bake a larger cake, too.

  Before he left, Hamond kissed the sleeping Chick’s cheek, squeezed Addy’s hand, and looked into her dark eyes. “You’re just a person, Adelaide.”

  Addy nodded weakly, remembering the way Hamond had looked at her when he lifted her off the train at the Chatham station all those years ago. You know me, Hamond, she thought. You know all about me.

  Mose came home a few weeks later but he was not himself. He’d been to Nova Scotia to visit his mother and this time there had been no quick recovery and no fluffy rice. “She’s
dying, Addy.”

  Addy suppressed the urge to say, “She’s always dying, Mose.”

  “She can’t seem to catch a breath. Didn’t even get up when I came in the room. Aileen, that friend who comes around every day to take care, she says this whole last month Mama’s had to use a bedpan and last week there was blood in her urine.”

  Addy nodded. Maybe the old woman really was dying. Her heart ached for Mose. She sat down in his lap, glad that Chick was gone picking apples with her Uncle Hamond. She kissed her good husband’s face and said, “We should go see her. You, me, Chick. She should know her only granddaughter.”

  Mose shook his head. “Cost a lot of money, Addy. It’s a long way. I wouldn’t like to be working with you and Chick on the train. I wouldn’t want you to see me servile the way I have to be.”

  “Could we go together, on your days off?”

  “Cost a king’s ransom for three fares.”

  “It’s your mother, Mose.”

  Mose nodded and smiled and felt so lucky to love and be loved by this woman. “I don’t know how much time she’s got left.”

  “We should go sooner than later then.”

  They could not afford tickets for the sleeper cars and would not have been welcome anyway. Mose couldn’t in fact ever remember seeing a black face without a porter’s uniform during his trips back and forth across the country. Still, even without the luxury of a sleeping berth, the journey would be far more costly than they’d expected. In the end it was Hamond who made a gift of the cost of Chick’s ticket, waving off their thanks by saying, “Child should know her family. That’s gonna be a trip she’ll remember the rest of her life.”

  There was a great deal of preparation in advance of the journey, and even with the extra work, Addy’d grown excited at the thought of travelling. Mose had warned her that Africville was no paradise though, and the more he talked about it, the more she worried and wondered.

  “The place was settled by fugitive slaves but it’s not like Rusholme. Least not the way you described Rusholme. The thing is,” Mose said, looking ashamed, “it’s a slum. That’s just what it is. It’s good people there, don’t get that wrong, but the place is…it’s right next to the city dump, Addy. The houses are shacks. There’s no school nearby. Halifax won’t provide water, nor sewer.”

  Mose was flushed, like when he talked about the Brotherhood. “When I was a boy we all used to go over to the dump to scrounge. Friend of mine found a pocketknife that must have been thrown out by mistake. I found a few treasures of my own. A man who lived up the street from us got caught there by the police. He told them he was looking for breakfast for his family and they took him to jail.”

  Addy shuddered. “Why’d your father let you grow up there? He was white. He had money.”

  Mose squinted and looked away. “My father gave my mother ten dollars a month to help out with raising me. My mother used to thank him like he really didn’t have to do it. I didn’t expect he was gonna move us downtown with his white family but I never did forgive him for not doing more.”

  “Well if it’s so awful why’s your mother still there?”

  “I asked her to come live with us.”

  Addy tried not to cringe. “I know you did, Mose. I understand her not wanting to come all the way to Ontario, but why don’t she move somewhere else in Halifax? Somewhere better?”

  “Africville’s home, Addy. She was born there. Her friends are there. It’s all she’s ever known. The shame is not on the people who live there but the city who’d let them.”

  Addy swallowed a dry lump in her throat. “Sure it’s fine for us to go? Sure it’s safe? For Chick?”

  “It’s safe. Nothing’s going to happen. Not with me there. Besides, it’s just for a few days.”

  Addy nodded, suddenly feeling a rush of cold air and surprised to find the window behind her closed.

  Mose seemed not to have noticed the wind. “Maybe us being there will give my mother strength for a little extra living.”

  “What if us being there is just too much for her to bear?”

  “Don’t worry,” Mose said, kissing her lips. “You’ll like her. And I know she’ll like you.”

  “I’m not worried,” Addy bristled.

  “Natural for a mother to feel jealous of her son’s wife. And the other way around, too. But once you get in a room together, you’ll see. You’ll like each other just fine.”

  “I’m not jealous of your mother, Mose,” Addy said crisply.

  It was the night before they were to leave. The November cold hadn’t blown in yet and there were still three pink roses blooming on the bush out front of Mrs. Yardley’s window. Mose and Chick had gone to the market to buy food for the trip and a few special things for his mother. Addy had awoken that morning with a sore throat and fever and brought up her breakfast before she chewed her last bite. At first Mose was thrilled to see her doubled over and whispered, “Why, Adelaide Mosely, are you…?”

  “No,” she’d answered quickly. “No, Mose. I got a flu is all. Just a flu.”

  “You sure you’re not…?”

  “I’m sure,” Addy said, and she was sure she was not with child.

  “Flu? You be fit to travel tomorrow?” He looked panicked.

  “It’s not a bad one. Ain’t cold enough outside to catch a bad one. I’ll be fine.”

  “Me and Chicken’ll take care of the last-minute things. You just get in bed and stay there today. We’ll be back in a hour or so. You just rest.”

  Addy was relieved to be told to go to bed, for there was no other place she could be. She felt too weak to stand and too nauseous to think of cooking or cleaning or shopping at the market. She was packed already and thankful for that. Chick’s things and hers had just barely fit in the suitcase she brought from Poppa’s all those years ago, and Mose had his own bag, of course.

  Her fever had spiked and she was perspiring and shivering in her bed when she heard the knock at the door. She had not the strength to say “come in” and was glad when whoever it was took the liberty and turned the knob. Hamond stood in the doorway, looking grim.

  “What’s wrong, Hamond?” Addy croaked.

  Hamond approached the bed slowly. “You don’t look well, Adelaide.”

  “I’m not well,” she said, relieved there was nothing more important that was troubling him. “But I’ll be fine by morning.”

  “You won’t be fine by morning and you know it. You’ll be just as sick or sicker.”

  “Don’t look at me like that, Hamond Ferguson. I’m getting on that train with my daughter and my husband.” Addy could feel tears in her eyes. “I have to go, Hamond. I have to.”

  Hamond felt her forehead with the back of his hand. “I should call for the doctor.”

  “I just got a flu.”

  “Still.”

  “No.” Addy sat up in the bed and collected herself. “Maybe you could make me a cup of tea, Hamond. I’d be grateful for a nice hot cup of tea.”

  “Cup of tea ain’t gonna bring you back, Addy. I think you better get it in your mind you ain’t going east tomorrow.”

  Addy ignored the comment and watched him make his way to the stove. She remembered, “I wanted to bring those photographs of Chick to show Mose’s Mama. That one of her when she was two, sitting on Mose’s shoulders. And them ones with the boys from the corn roast last year. And those photographs of our wedding day. Oh no, I best not bring those. Can’t see nothing of a church in the background of any. You get them for me? Some’s on the shelf right there but I been keeping most of them in the butter box with the boys’ things. You move that old dresser so I can get at the attic, Hamond?”

  Hamond wanted to tell Addy his back was aching worse than he could ever remember and it had been an effort for him just to climb the stairs to see her. He wanted to tell Addy she should just wait until her big strong husband came home and get him to move that old dresser. Instead he said, “I’ll get the box. Just lay back down and wait for your tea. I�
��ll get the box.”

  Mose and Addy had inherited the big oak dresser from the old man who’d lived in the apartment before them. They were grateful for the man’s generosity, though they suspected the fellow mostly just couldn’t see how to get the hulking thing out the door and down the stairs to take it with him. The right leg had been broken and it wobbled a little when it got pushed clear of the attic door, but it was sturdy and large enough to hold Addy’s, Mose’s, and Chick’s clothes. Each time Mose moved the thing to get Addy’s safe-kept photographs, or to hide a present for Chick, he thought to get out his tool box and fix the leg, but he never did. Hamond had thought the same thing over the years. He thought it again this time when he moved the dresser and saw the leg was near broke clean off.

  One moment Hamond was planning how he’d come over while they were gone to Nova Scotia, for he knew Addy’d go, sick or not, and fix the leg for them. The next moment he was screaming in pain as the dresser leg collapsed and the weight of the thing landed squarely in the middle of his left foot. Addy flung the covers off herself and staggered across the room. She tried, with what little strength she had, to lift the dresser off his foot but couldn’t budge it. Martin Baldwin from downstairs appeared in no time, heaving and pushing too, but he was a tiny man in declining health and his bird-thin arms offered nothing but good intentions.

  They would all thank the Lord later that Mose arrived when he did. He and Chick had heard the screaming halfway down William Street and even with all their parcels had run home and bounded up the stairs, wearing that look of people afraid of what they’d find. Mose shoved Martin Baldwin out of the way, apologizing later if he’d been rough, hefted the massive dresser, and set poor Hamond’s foot free.

  They moved Hamond to the sofa and got a crate for his foot. They gently took off his old boot and everyone in the room wanted to weep for the state of his socks. Mose told Chick not to look when he pulled the cobweb of threads off Hamond’s foot, so she buried her head in her Uncle’s chest and wrapped her arms around his neck. Hamond was grateful Chick was there, for he had something sweet to cling to as the pain dug a groove from his foot to his brain.