Bent not Broken

by Lisa De Jong

  Kill me. Please.

  Get this creature that is clawing me inside out—get it out.

  I hate Eve. Stupid Eve and that stupid apple. What in the world was she thinking, eating that stupid fruit and causing all this affliction on womankind for the rest of forever.

  I get on the floor, desperate to find a comfortable spot, and am there when Papa comes home. He’s frantic. He calls the ambulance and they arrive quickly. They put an oxygen mask on me and several pairs of worried eyes look down at me. We get to the hospital and I’m wheeled directly to the delivery room. The contractions are making my eyes roll back in my head. I feel like I’m losing all sense of reality.

  I push when they tell me to push. And vow to myself that I will never ever let another man get near my nether regions to do this awful thing to me ever, ever again. Never in a million years ever.

  “Okay, Caroline, this should be the last push! Get a deep breath and when I say go, you push. Ready?”

  “I CAN’T WAIT,” I yell.

  This baby wants out of me and I want it out so bad. I bite down on a towel my nurse has given me to clutch and push until I can’t push anymore. Every cell shakes as the blaze ignites every crevice of my body. God, it hurts.

  And then she’s out. I hear a lusty cry and they flop her tiny body on my chest.

  ****

  Is this what love is? I look at Gracie Mae and feel like my heart is going to burn right out of my chest, it’s so full of love for her. She’s smaller than they expected. Just barely over 4 pounds. I look in her eyes and know the reason. I would have loved her no matter what. There is no doubt in my mind. Before she was even born, her love began healing me. But when I see her face, I shake as the sobs overtake me.

  She is, without a doubt, Isaiah Washington’s daughter.

  Chapter 23

  Saved

  A Year Later

  Gracie is going to be a year old tomorrow. In some ways, it’s gone much smoother than I expected. It’s true that having a child so young has made me ancient before my time, but I’m pretty sure I already was before Gracie ever came along. Maybe she’s the reason I had to grow up so fast.

  ****

  Ruby arrived the night before we came home from the hospital with Gracie. As soon as she heard the anguish in my voice over the phone, she left Harriet’s and packed everything she’d need to come stay awhile. Once she was here, we knew we couldn’t ever be apart again. She’s gonna go wherever I go and vice versa.

  Ruby was the angel I saw as we pulled into the driveway with Papa, bringing Gracie home for the first time. Standing out front, her white apron blowing in the slight breeze and her hand up to her mouth, she watched for us.

  Before I could get out, she was opening the car door for me and holding me tight. I don’t know whose tears fell more, hers or mine. I’d never been so happy to see someone in all my life. She saved me. Ruby and Gracie and Papa. They saved me.

  ****

  After I put Gracie to bed, I help Ruby make the cake for Gracie’s birthday. We’re having a party tomorrow, just something small to break the monotony of all the busyness that’s been going on around the plantation. I say small—the party keeps getting more elaborate every time Papa goes into town.

  “I just can’t resist giving her this one more thing!” he says.

  I just can’t resist anything he does. He is crazy over my girl and me. The love he and Ruby shower over us has been enough to make up for a lifetime of neglect. Every day I wake up excited to see my Gracie and happy to face a day with this family.

  It hasn’t all been easy. I don’t take Gracie into town very often because of all the looks people throw our way. The older she gets, the darker her skin turns and someone inevitably makes a comment. Her hair is getting longer, and it’s the most perfect shade of caramel. I like her curls wild and don’t want to have to tame them for going into town. I do, though, because it seems to invite trouble when I don’t.

  Miss Shelby bit her tongue many times from what I knew she was dying to ask, until finally, when Gracie was about four months old, I came out with it. I figured we’d worked together long enough that I should tell the truth and let her decide what to do with the information.

  Once I told her the full story, she was quiet for a long time. I apologized profusely for lying to her. I felt horribly guilty for my soldier story. She ended up saying she understood why I’d done it.

  “Truth of the matter is, I wish you hadn’t told me,” she said.

  She quietly admitted that she might not have given me the job if she’d known I was having a ‘colored baby’. By that time, though, she loved Gracie.

  “You can barely even tell she’s black,” she said. Like that was a good thing.

  It’s those little backhanded ways the people have here that makes it challenging. Painful. Jarring. On the one hand, they are kind and do care; and on the other, there are still prejudices that run deeper than the Mississippi River. Here we might as well be back in 1950. I know it would be that much worse in Tulma.

  I can’t shop at the corner market next to Shelby’s. Or go to the gas station across the street from the doctor’s office. More than once I’ve come home clutching my baby and whispering loving words in her ear to ward off all the evil that’s just been spoken over her. It was one thing when she couldn’t talk, now she’s starting to understand way more than anyone thinks. Just last week, I stood up to a woman in Shelby’s. When Papa came in with Gracie and she ran up to me to pick her up, saying Mama, the woman got a grotesque look on her face.

  “That baby yours?” she practically snarled.

  “Yes, ma’am, she sure is,” I said, kissing Gracie’s face. I took napkins out of my apron pocket to set on the woman’s table and as I was walking away, the napkins all scattered to the floor.

  The woman had shoved them off her table.

  “I aint gonna be waited on by no nigger lover,” she said.

  I covered Gracie’s ears, picked up the napkins off the floor, and said, “Well, I guess you better keep moving on outta town. Don’t settle here. I’m not gonna let my daughter be surrounded by people like you. And we’re not goin’ anywhere.”

  I acted tough, but I shook for about an hour after the encounter.

  It’s one of the reasons I’ve agreed to open a bed and breakfast at the plantation. Papa is the one who mentioned it first, once he tasted the heavenlies, otherwise known as Ruby’s cooking. In a month, we’re having our grand opening. I’ve already set it up with Shelby to quit working at the diner a week before we open the Inn, so I can help finish up the last-minute preparations.

  We talked it over with Brenda too, not wanting to take any business from her. But all her rooms are now rented out for longer stays, and she likes that better anyway.

  I’ll be able to have Gracie with me all day. We won’t have to go into town as much, and we’ll hopefully make a little money to keep everything running. According to Papa, we don’t need to do a single thing, he’d be just fine if we sat in the living room reading all day, every day. But he’s learned that Ruby and I don’t know the meaning of not working, so he’s just trying to be accommodating with us at this point, I think. And I’d venture to say, he admires our drive to do something worthwhile.

  He strolls into the kitchen with a glass of scotch. I hold out a spoon of cake batter for him to try and he rolls his eyes back in his head when he takes a bite.

  “How did I get so lucky to find you?” he asks.

  “You’re easy to please.” I laugh and reach out to lay down some stray brows that are covering his eye.

  “That’s not the truth. I didn’t even like cake before y’all got a hold of me.”

  “I don’t blame ya! I tasted what they’s eating at Shelby’s and that ain’t good for the soul,” Ruby claims. “Not using enough vanilla over there,” she whispers to me.

  “Well, when we open the Magnolia Inn, everyone is gonna be clamoring to taste your cooking, Ruby.” I lean over and kiss her cheek
. “They can’t help it that they’re not as good as you.”

  “Honey, you is getting to be ever bit as good a cook as me.” Ruby shakes her head and tries to tone down the smile that takes over her face every time I love on her.

  ****

  I wake up to little girl kisses on my eyelids. Gracie knows how to climb out of her crib already, and she dives into bed with me every morning. We cuddle for a while and then we go to the bathroom. I set her up on the toilet and she tinkles. She’s been doing this since she was nine months old. Nellie always said you just have to learn a child’s schedule. Take them every half hour when starting to potty train, until you learn when they go. She was right. It works like clockwork—either that or my little girl is just brilliant. However, Nellie had her brothers and sisters potty trained long before nine months, so I think she might have been onto something.

  Gracie is an early talker, too, like I was. I never believed my parents about all the things I was supposedly saying before I was even a year old, but now I’ve seen it’s possible.

  “Happy Birthday to you,” I sing as I run Gracie’s bath water. She hums along with me and happily splashes around in the bubbles.

  We hear Brenda before we see her. She comes in the bedroom, saying, “Where’s the birthday girl?”

  “We’re in the bathroom,” I yell.

  “Baffwoom,” Gracie echoes. “Buffday, Mama, buffday.”

  She wants me to keep singing, so I do. I’ve been singing her birthday song for a week. She’s still not tired of it.

  “There she is! I hear the birthday girl.” Brenda comes into the bathroom holding so many balloons, we can’t see her face.

  Gracie lets out a huge gasp and we get tickled at her. “Boooon,” she shrieks.

  “Oh, that was worth it.” Brenda laughs. “You like these ‘boons’?”

  “Ont boon!” Gracie tries to get out of the bath as fast as her chubby little legs will take her.

  “Slow down, Gracie. They’re not going anywhere!” I help her out of the bath and dry her off.

  Brenda hands her the balloons while she’s still naked and I give Brenda a mock glare.

  “What?”

  “I’ll never get her dressed now!”

  “Oh, oops.”

  Sure enough, Gracie takes off flying with the balloons, streaking through the house like a banshee. There’s lots of squealing and giggling, and then a single pop.

  Everyone freezes.

  And then the wail comes.

  “Booooooon,” she cries.

  “Come on, little nekkid jaybird, let’s get you dressed.” I pick her up, balloons and all. We navigate back to the bedroom, careful not to pop another one, and get the birthday girl ready for her big day.

  ****

  The boons, the cake and the wrapping paper are Gracie’s favorite gifts of the day. Among other things, Papa’s big gift to her is a tricycle, which looks huge next to her. She crawls up on it and then wants help getting off when it moves. It’s gonna give me a heart attack, I just know it. Ruby made her some pretty little dresses. How she found the time to do it without me knowing, I’ll never know. I save her present from me for last and give it to her right before she goes to bed. Her sweet face lights up when she sees it.

  It’s a baby doll, one that has a soft body and eyes that open and shut. She plays with the eyes for a long time in her crib. Open, shut, open, shut.

  When I lean over to kiss her goodnight, she wraps her arms tight around my neck and squeezes. I give her a butterfly kiss by her eyelashes, an Eskimo kiss by her nose, a monkey kiss with our cheeks, a giraffe kiss with our necks, and a Mama kiss on the lips.

  And then I have to do the whole thing with the baby doll.

  ****

  When I go back into the kitchen to start cleaning up, Ruby and Brenda stop in mid-chatter. They give me a guilty look and then try to start up a conversation that was obviously not what they were talking about before I entered the room.

  “What are you two sayin’?” I call them out. “You both look like you done swallowed a canary whole.”

  Brenda is the first to confess. “I was just telling Ruby that Charlie has a friend from Elizabethtown who has been coming over some weekends. He’s cute, Caroline! Really cute.”

  She looks at Ruby again and lets out a nervous laugh. Ruby gives her an encouraging nod.

  “I think you should go out with him,” Brenda says super fast.

  I groan and start shaking my head while she continues to rattle off facts about him. Ever since she started dated Charlie, she thinks I have to be with someone too.

  “How long have you been doin’ inventory on this guy, Bren? Doesn’t it bother Charlie that his girlfriend is so knowledgable about his friend?”

  She grins wider. “Charlie’s the one who told me all of this. He thinks Robert would like you so much and wants you to give him a try.”

  “Robert, huh. Well, does Robert know I have a little girl?”

  I already know the answer. It’ll be the same answer she gives me every time she tries to talk me into going out with someone.

  “Not yet, Caroline. But…”

  “But what? Why would I waste someone’s time when I already know they won’t be able to handle me already having a little girl?”

  We’ve gone round and round about this and Brenda usually backs off, but this time she does a little stomp with her foot and turns pink.

  “Once someone gets to know you, they won’t care! You’re seventeen, Caroline. It’s time for you to have some fun.”

  “Did you just stomp your foot at me?” I grin and then get riled up. “My life is never gonna be the typical, Brenda. I gave up wishing for that a long time ago. And—I’m not gonna like anyone anyway. That’s what you don’t seem to understand. I fell in love already. I had someone who was everything I wanted. I didn’t get to keep him. And I’ll never get over him.”

  Brenda and Ruby share another look, and I brace myself for what else they’ve discussed without me.

  “You need to tell him, Caroline.”

  I move to the chair and sit down, the wind knocked out of me. My eyes blur and I grip the edges of the tablecloth to keep my hands from shaking.

  “Isaiah would want to know, honey, you know he would. I’ve been tryin’ to give you time, but...our baby girl is a year old. Look at all he’s already missed out on,” Ruby says so softly I have to strain to hear her.

  I lay my head down on the table and the tears all drip onto the table. When I raise my head back up, I have to grab a paper towel to blow my nose.

  “You think I don’t think about this? Every single day. It’s all I think about. I feel so guilty for keeping it from him. He would love her so much. I just—I can’t go back to Tulma. I can’t. Gracie’s life is good here. It would be harder for her in Tulma, you know it would, Ruby. I just haven’t been able to put her through that, not even now when she’s too little to understand it. Everyone there knows my history.”

  “If you’d been there, it would have given everyone time to come around to the idea of you having Gracie. All your customers at Harriet’s—they’s not all bad people. They love you there. And they eventually would Gracie too.”

  “I was nearly killed there. Les and Leroy might be gone, but their families haven’t forgotten me. I feel like I’d be putting Gracie at risk there and myself too. And I can’t leave Papa,” I whisper. “He has changed my whole life by loving me. I can’t leave him.”

  Ruby walks over and stands behind my chair. I lean my head over on her stomach and she strokes my hair.

  “I don’t want you to leave Bardstown!” Brenda’s voice wobbles across the room. She finds the softer tissue and gives her nose a big honk. “But at least give Isaiah a chance to know about his baby girl. I think the guilt is killing you. You’re never without a smile, but I see the shadows around your eyes and the way you drift off into your thoughts after Gracie has just done something adorable.”

  “She’s right, darlin’, you�
��s needin’ some closure to move on with your life. And that baby girl in there, needs a daddy.”

  We hash over it for hours.

  Papa comes in and adds his two cents, which is, “Tell him.”

  They’ve all said it at one time or another, but now the three of them ganging up on me all at once is a bombardment. Darts all flying with single purpose straight into my heart and not letting me recover before shooting another, I heed their words.

  ****

  At two in the morning, I begin my letter to him.

  Dear Isaiah—

  It seems trite to start this letter off with any small talk. We were never about that, were we? But I do want to ask the questions that could seem like small talk if you didn’t know how much I cared to know the answers.

  How are you? That would be at the top of my list. What’s new with you? is another. I really, really want to know. Every day I think about you and wonder these things. I wonder if you’ve found love with the girl I saw you laughing with one Sunday after church. I wonder if you kiss her and have forgotten my kisses…

  I crumble it up and start over.

  Isaiah—

  I have something to tell you and I am so sorry for not telling you sooner. You will hate me and you will have every right to.

  We have a daughter.

  Her name is Gracie Mae and she is the most beautiful child you’ve ever seen. She has your eyes, Isaiah. That’s how I knew she was yours. She’s so smart, further proof that your blood is running through her veins. She is so full of life. It’s impossible to not smile when you’re around her.

  I came back to tell you I was pregnant. I knew you’d want to know, even if the baby wasn’t yours. I saw you with a beautiful girl outside your church. You walked with her and laughed with her...and you looked at her with the same adoration that you used to look at me. I just couldn’t ruin your life anymore, Isaiah. I couldn’t do it.

  I also couldn’t stay around to watch you fall in love with someone else. You will always have my heart, Isaiah. I’m not too proud to say it. When I fell for you, it was for keeps.

  The fact that I haven’t told you about Gracie has haunted me. Please know that it has never been out of anger that I’ve kept the truth from you. Our love was never without complication, and I’ve wished to spare you from any more of that. But that’s just not real life. And I know that I can’t keep our baby in a bubble for much longer. God knows I’ve tried.