Mrs. Caldwell, who presided over the grits, directed another woman to take up the task of stirring. “Nettie,” Mrs. Caldwell gestured to her, “come here.”
Mrs. Caldwell took her to a corner of the room and whispered to her, “You shouldn’t have come here looking that rumpled, dear.”
“What?”
“I mean, you don’t look your neat, normal self.” Mrs. Caldwell’s eyes refused to meet hers.
“I was taking care of Goldie all night. She was sick.”
“Yes, I know. Adam and Ruby said, but no one expected you to stay there all night.” She seemed to squirm under Nettie’s gaze. “People are talking about it, honey, that’s all I’m saying. You know I think you did right, and Jay is a good man, despite what people say, but…”
“But I stayed all night.”
“People will not send their children if they think you aren’t right with God. They say the minister was going to offer you some type of position here as a youth pastor. They never have done that with a woman.” Mrs. Caldwell sighed. “But they aren’t likely to now.”
“Because I stayed with a sick child all night?”
“And her father.”
She threw up her hands and turned on her heel. “If anyone wants to judge, let him or her cast the first stone.”
“Don’t be mad, honey.”
“No, it is what it is. I just feel sorry for all of the children in the neighborhood who won’t have the opportunity to learn anymore.”
How surprising she had been so highly regarded. Still, she was more stunned that she had lost such a wonderful opportunity. A youth pastor? That was a job she had dreamed of doing.
She left the charity kitchen and vowed never to return. Oh, she hated to cry, but she couldn’t help it. Goldie was more important than the judgment of a bunch of snooty people.
Nettie went to Adam and Ruby’s house and knocked on the door.
Adam gave her a mournful look when he answered the door, but said nothing.
She went upstairs to change clothes and packed a small bag with necessities, to be ready to take care of Goldie. Now she could take care of the child since she didn’t have the school anymore. A sharp knock sounded at her door.
Ruby.
Nettie immediately reassured her of Goldie’s health.
“I’m glad to hear Goldie’s fever has broken. That means that she is better.”
“She is. I’m going back over there to relieve Jay.”
“Jay? You mean Mr. Evans? You are relieving him so he can go to work? To earn his ill-gotten gains?”
“I’m going to do my job. I promised to take care of that child. Adam and Asa were after me to get some type of vocation, and now that I have one, no one wants me to do it. I can’t have the school at your church anymore, so I have to do something.”
“You don’t have to continue to risk your reputation.” Her sister’s quiet voice alarmed her. Ruby tended to bellow more.
She kept packing her bag, her heart failing her even as she spoke words of resolve, “According to you, I don’t have one.”
Tears formed in her sister’s eyes. She stayed her hand on her arm. “Of anyone in the world, you know I know what a ruined reputation is all about. I don’t want you to have to go through the kind of pain that I went through.”
Nettie’s heart twisted at the memory of her sister’s hard time when she was still in Georgia, where no one believed Ruby had been attacked and compromised by Adam’s half-brother. Everyone chose to believe she had seduced the scion of the town’s mill owner. Ruby had only been vindicated on the deathbed of her attacker. Yes, she knew that Ruby knew.
But Goldie’s sick eyes haunted her. The opinions of small-minded people shouldn’t matter. She had never felt so confused before.
She sat down on the small bed, facing Ruby. “If you want me to leave, I will.”
Ruby looked alarmed. “You know I love you. You’ll always have a place to stay.”
“Thank you. And right now, I’ll stay with Goldie and Jay until I’m sure that she is okay.”
“And then? When did you start calling him Jay? I have never known you to be anything less than proper.”
She had slipped into the name so easily that Nettie hadn’t even been aware she had let her guard down. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? Oh my, you’re falling in love with him.”
“I’m not worried about that now.”
“Does he know you can’t have babies?”
She reached over and closed her grip with a snap. “Why does everyone think that’s what my worth is? I’m worth more than being a baby factory.” She wanted to take the mean words back, knowing how many pregnancies both her older sisters had been through, but all of this was about her.
Ruby put a hand on her arm. “Every man wants a son to come after him. If you can’t give him one, he won’t want you.”
“I told him. He doesn’t care.”
“Do you think he told you the truth? I’m only trying to stop you from being hurt.”
“Really? Or is everyone in the family just trying to keep me in my place, to keep me down after all these years? So I can continue being the barren, sickly one?”
Ruby drew her hands away from her sister, clearly hurt, and she felt a small pang of guilt. For just a second. Something else was stronger in her now. The love she had for Jay. And Goldie.
“Nettie.”
“I don’t care. Tell Mags anything you want. You get together and have your sister time that you always left me out of. I’m going to take care of that child.”
“I know that you have to do what you think is best, but men in his line of work are used to women being disposable. Nettie,” Ruby grasped her arm, “does he know how special you are?”
“I don’t know.” She picked up her grip and shifted it in her hold. “But it seems like no one else knows how special I am either.”
She took up her grip with more determination and left Ruby standing there in the middle of the room.
How could it be that a man who floated the policy game was the one who’d made her see the truth of her life? God did work in mysterious ways—ways that Nettie thought she understood, but now knew that she did not. Everything that had seemed to be so sure to her before, now appeared cloudy and obscured.
Still, she kept going. It took pain to create something new. By moving closer to Jay, that’s what she was doing. Becoming a new Nettie. A better one.
With each forward step, she got closer and grew more in determination to reach the large frame house on the top of the hill.
Chapter Fourteen
“You told me she would be my mama.” Goldie’s hazel eyes, so much like Jay’s own, were on him and would not release their hypnotic hold.
“I said that one day someone could be your mama.”
They were walking to the charity kitchen, since Nettie had not shown up at his house that morning yet. It was Thursday and Goldie was well enough to get some breakfast, and he wanted to surprise Nettie to show her how much better she was.
“Why can’t it be her?”
“When you are a grown-up, Goldie, you will see it’s not so easy to ask someone to marry you.”
“She wants us, Daddy. I know she does. I’m a woman and I know these things.”
“Listen, woman,” Jay tried to stop the smile from spreading across his face—his girl was something, “your Daddy does things that Miss Nettie doesn’t like.”
“You mean the game, Daddy? She doesn’t like it?”
“No. She does not approve.”
“Then do something else, Daddy. You’re smart with numbers.”
“Thank you, honey.”
That was easy enough for a seven-year-old who’d grown up in a world where everyone looked like her. He’d worked hard to keep her happy in
the Hill District, but the day would come when Goldie would venture out into the world and see that not everyone would believe her to be so delightful and cute just because of the beautiful, smooth brown color of her skin. He hated that the day had to come. Maybe it had already and he just didn’t realize it.
“I’ma try.”
“If it means getting Miss Nettie to marry us, you can do it.”
He held the door open for his little lady and they walked through.
“Smells like oatmeal.” Goldie wiggled her nose.
“Whatever it is, we will eat it.”
They walked into the large basement and saw a few people eating. Some of them weren’t too ashamed to wave to Jay and he gave a friendly greeting back. However, the room had a different feel to it. Nettie was not here. She was only one person and yet she had such a huge impact on the place. Without her, it was gray and dark. Maybe it had always been, but he had not noticed with Nettie there.
A hush came over the room.
Mrs. Caldwell came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on an apron, cornering him near the stairwell so they couldn’t come too deeply into the basement to eat. “Let me speak with you for a minute, Jay.”
Mrs. Caldwell never acknowledged him this way. In public. He faced her, not appreciating that Goldie wasn’t going to get breakfast. “What’s going on? Where’s Nettie?”
He did not like the way he was being ushered out of the basement and back into the stairwell that he and Goldie had just come down. He would have said something to that effect, but Jay wanted be a good example of behavior for his daughter to follow or he would have told Elodie Caldwell a thing or two.
“Nettie’s not here.”
“Is she okay?” His heart thudded. Nettie was fine when she came to the house yesterday and cooked for them, though she had been very businesslike and made sure not to be alone with him. Still, his mind went back to what he had just gone through with Goldie. Had Nettie caught what Goldie had?
“She’s fine, as far as I know.” Mrs. Caldwell shook her head. “She just doesn’t work here anymore. She quit.”
“She quit? She didn’t tell me that.”
Jay cast his mind over the past few days. Instead of coming to the kitchen first thing, Nettie had fixed them breakfast, lunch dinner at the house, but she had not stayed for dinner any day. They had talked yesterday about her coming to them a little later in the morning today. He presumed that she was coming to work at the charity kitchen first.
“She hasn’t been here since last week. There were some questions about her associations.” Mrs. Caldwell stopped, but Jay waited for her to make her point. “There was a thought about making her a youth pastor, but with her associations—”
“That’s the second time you said that word. Do you mean me?”
“People do talk, Jay.”
“The same people who would steal the last nickel their mother had and give it to me for policy.”
“Maybe, Jay, but the ministers here didn’t see it that way.”
Nettie had talked some about Freedom Christian being full of snobs. Now he knew why. “That’s a shame.”
“It is. She should not have stayed with you that night.”
“My daughter was sick. Nettie loves her and would not leave even when the Morsons begged her not to stay. Nothing happened.” What a terrible thing that someone as good as Nettie should have to suffer the wounds inflicted by this crowd of hypocrites.
“I know that. But to these folk…” Mrs. Caldwell spread her hands.
“Do you know where she is?”
“I don’t. She’s probably at the Morsons’ though.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Caldwell.”
“I want oatmeal.” His poor daughter. Goldie’s crestfallen face had nothing to do with oatmeal and everything to do with Nettie.
Mrs. Caldwell stopped him. “If you care about her, you would just leave her alone. It is hard for a woman’s reputation to recover from such a thing.”
“Can you honestly believe that?”
“I do. If she’s fallen off one time and there’s no baby in a few months, people might forget and let her be with their children again. But not yet.”
“Mrs. Caldwell, I have to say that is the silliest thing I have ever heard.”
“But it has impacted Nettie, so it’s not so silly.”
He could not get his daughter out of there fast enough. He had worked hard not to allow his daughter to learn such self-hatred. He wasn’t going to let it touch her.
Goldie’s little legs could not keep up with his at such a fast clip. He was half tempted to pick her up so that he could walk faster, especially since she had just been ill. Still, Goldie was such a little lady she would not appreciate being treated like a baby.
What had happened to Nettie? Why wasn’t she at the charity kitchen? Jay’s mind raced and zoomed through several possibilities, but kept coming back to only one—something was wrong with her, despite what Mrs. Caldwell had said.
Please, God, let her be okay. Let her be okay. If Nettie would be okay, then he would—
His mind stopped short. Who was this beautiful, graceful, outdated-clothes-wearing woman who had captured him so completely in just a month’s time? If he wasn’t careful—
But as he stepped with Goldie in front of the Morsons’ door, Jay straightened the lapels on his brown suit, smoothed down his hair and gave a fond pat to Goldie’s braids as he checked her hair over for any stray lint. This was bad. Falling for a woman made him vulnerable, especially on top of the gunshot.
He was not scared. That fact alone was shocking. He didn’t care if Ruby came to the door. At least, Jay thought he didn’t care.
When Mrs. Morson came to the door, he could see she wasn’t happy to see him. The petite woman was dressed in her nurse’s apparel and wearing a sharp, pointy white hat. Kinda like a witch. He kept his face perfectly still, no grins allowed. He would show her respect, even if she didn’t give it to him in return.
“Yes?”
“We’re looking for Miss Nettie, Miss Ruby,” Goldie, his child emissary, said. “She wasn’t at the church this morning for us to eat breakfast. I was even sorry I said bad things about the oatmeal.”
The look of pure rancor on her faced changed as Mrs. Morson regarded his daughter. She gave Goldie a fond look and a smile. “Miss Nettie isn’t at the church, honey. We don’t have oatmeal for breakfast this morning, but if you’re looking for something to eat, you can have cream of wheat.”
“Okay?” Goldie turned her face up to her father for his approval and he nodded.
Ruby stepped to the side to let Goldie through, but stepped to the doorway again when he made a move to come in as well.
“Thank you for feeding her. I wish I knew how to make these things, but it’s hard trying to retain a cook when her family won’t let her come to work. Where is she?”
“She’s here. She’s getting ready to go to your house. You can wait out here for Goldie to eat her breakfast, or let her stay here if you want to.”
“I wouldn’t want to impose.”
Ruby’s face softened. “I know that Nettie loves that child. However, she has jeopardized her reputation, and Nettie is far too naïve to understand what she has done.”
“Maybe she understands more than you think she does. You should let your sister be a grown woman.”
Ruby shut the door a bit more. “I don’t appreciate lawbreakers coming to my front door, telling me how to run my family.”
“Nettie is not someone to be run.”
Adam appeared over his tiny wife’s shoulder, with a frown on his distinguished face. Doc Morson was someone who, a long time ago when he was in a much darker place, might have been a person he wouldn’t have thought twice about beating up. Morson’s classical bearing, coupled with his light skin and gray eyes, would have mock
ed him. Now, since he was successful at what he did, he was not ashamed or afraid of this educated man.
“What’s going on here?”
“I’m asking why Nettie is not down at the church.”
“We did not want her to continue to have the school. She had to face vicious rumors and small talk behind her back.”
“She’s a grown woman. Why can’t she decide for herself?” Why couldn’t people see how clear it all was?
“This is our family and I have the say in how we run it. Goldie is here and she’ll be fine with us until Nettie is ready to get on with her day to take care of her. Now, unless there is something happening with your wound, you’ll excuse us.” Adam reached around Ruby to shut the door. In his face.
I should lie just to get in there.
Not a pleasing prospect on the new path he walked. Jay stuck his hands in his suit pockets. “You’re all grown up, Nettie!” he shouted through the door as it closed. “You can decide!”
The heavy wooden door slammed in his face.
But he did not care.
Snobs.
Just like she said.
He straightened his tie and went down the street to work, knowing that Nettie had heard him. He rejoiced in that.
His voice, deep and melodious, floated in to Nettie. She was upstairs getting ready for work when she heard him. She ran to the window and saw him retreating from the house.
You’re all grown up. You can decide.
Jay’s voice threatened to undo her and his words did not help the quivering turmoil that had upended her soul and the world she lived in. She was grown up. She could decide.
Jay was not a church man. That was it. As much as a kiss from those incredibly shapely lips of his had changed things, that was one thing that had not changed.
But what if he were? Maybe that’s why she was meant to be a part of his life.
So hard to imagine. For much of her life, she had always been told she could not ask for what other women had—a home and a family. A husband and children were not for her and she had never wanted them. She’d never had the desire. Or had she? Maybe this was her chance to have what she really wanted.
A Treasure of Gold Page 16