by Erin Bartels
By the time I got back to the old white farmhouse with the faded orange door, I was resolved. I would take the job, move back to Detroit, and resume my real life.
forty-four
Detroit, July 1967
Nora settled an afghan around Margaret’s shoulders.
“Thank you, Evelyn.”
Nora didn’t correct her anymore. On her second and third visits it had taken so long to get through the exact same conversation about brothers and fathers and grandparents that she simply let her great-aunt think she was a nurse with time on her hands for long conversations. Sometimes she was Eleanor, sometimes Evelyn, and once Lisa.
No matter what Margaret called her or who she thought she was, the old lady loved having someone to talk to. Nora was happy to oblige. She had grown quite fond of Margaret, and with each visit she painstakingly put together the pieces of her family’s past. There were still gaping holes. But she felt certain that someday Margaret would reveal the key to unlocking her father’s mysterious comment years ago about black people ruining the family. It had to be more than mere resentment on the part of a few young boys who didn’t want to be teased at school for their unconventional living situation.
“Where was I?”
“The attic.”
“Oh yes, that’s right. I wasn’t supposed to be up there. The third floor was just for the men.”
Nora nodded as though she had not heard this part of the story at least three times already.
“But I sneaked up there one day.” The old woman wore a conspiratorial smile. “I went up there during the apple picking one year. The men and boys were out. Mrs. Farnsworth was busy making soup in the kitchen. And those boys had made me so cross. I was going to show them!”
She laughed, then seemed for a moment to forget that she had been talking. Nora’s heart fell as she realized she might need to start over and get Margaret back on track. But the old woman recovered.
“No, I guess it wasn’t all the boys. It was Little George. He was always mean to me. So I went up there to find out once and for all whether you could see faces in the window.”
“Faces?”
“Yes, they were always talking about the faces in the window. I thought they were trying to scare me with ghost stories. So I was going to see if they were real.”
“I’ve never noticed any faces in the window. Were they pictures someone had pasted up there?”
“Of course you haven’t, dear. I’m talking about my house, not yours,” Margaret said. She gave Nora a look that might suggest she was concerned about her nurse’s mental acumen. “Anyway, they weren’t pictures like you mean. They weren’t pasted on the window, they were in the window, in the glass.”
“I don’t think I understand.”
Margaret thought for a moment. “Do you ever take photographs?”
“No, but my husband is a photographer. He takes lots of pictures.”
“Okay then. You know the little images, the ones on the little strip?”
“You mean the negatives?”
“Yes! The negatives. Long ago when cameras were much bigger, they didn’t use those little strips. They used glass. And when my father came home from the war he brought a whole mess of these big glass negatives with him, and that’s what they used to make the window. So each pane of glass had a portrait of a soldier on it. And those were the men in the window my brothers talked about.”
“But I’ve never seen anything in that window,” Nora objected.
“Dear, I think you’re confused,” Margaret said, patting Nora’s hand. “I’m talking about my old house. The window was in my house.”
“Yes, I’m sorry. Go on.”
“They’re long gone now. Faded away. The sun makes them disappear.”
“But you saw them?”
“Only faintly. They were nearly gone by the time I saw them. And they were definitely gone by the time Father and I moved out. But I did see them once, even with my bad eyes.”
She fell so quiet and so still that Nora almost called the real nurse.
“It made me sad to think of those men,” she said finally. “The boys played at war. They pretended to shoot each other, and then they’d squirm around on the ground and go still. After I saw those men in the window, I couldn’t stand watching my brothers play at war. It didn’t seem a thing to play about. They used those stones in the field for their forts and hiding places, leaping and jumping all around on them. I didn’t think that was right. George was always jumping on them. You’d think those stones were placed there just for their amusement.”
“Ms. Balsam,” came a voice from the door, “it’s time for you to take your medicine.”
The nurse gave Nora a pointed look. Further explanations would have to wait.
“Margaret, it was so nice talking with you. You’ve led such an interesting life.”
“Well, I don’t know how interesting it is”—she laughed—“but I do like talking. When you’re busy living life, everything’s a blur. It’s not until you get to be my age and you’ve got nothing more to do than think that you start to see it for what it was.”
“I’ll see you again soon,” Nora said.
“Okay, Evelyn. Come any time.”
Nora drove home at a leisurely pace befitting a hot Sunday evening and tried to recall everything Aunt Margaret had told her. William would be especially interested to know about the faces in the window. But the moment she pulled up to the house, William burst out the front door, suitcase in hand, and ran to the car before Nora even had time to turn off the engine.
“Thank God you’re home, Nora.”
“Why? Where are you going?”
William opened the car door. “Detroit.”
“But I was just there.”
“And I’m glad you’re not anymore,” he said as he helped her out of the car. “Do you know what’s going on down there?”
“Nothing seemed to be going on at all.”
“There’s a riot growing—a real one this time—and it’s just a few blocks from Mama’s house.”
Her hand flew to her mouth. “Is she okay?”
“She and Bianca were going to go to Aunt Dee’s, but they can’t find J.J.”
“Of course they can’t.”
William gave her a chastening look as he slipped into the driver’s seat.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But you can’t tell me you’re surprised.”
He slammed the car door.
“You can’t go down there,” she said through the open window.
“I have to.”
She clamped her hands on the door. “No, you don’t, William. You did your part last year. If he can’t stay out of trouble, there’s nothing you can do to make him. He’s chosen his path in life.”
“He’s only sixteen, Nora. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.” William pushed Nora’s purse at her through the window.
“How are you going to find him in a city that size? Where will you even start looking? It’ll be a needle in a haystack. I don’t want you down there.”
He put the car in gear and looked at his watch. “Baby, I have to go. It’s going to be dark before I can even get there. I got the call from Bianca a half hour after you left. That was six hours ago. You know how much can happen in six hours?”
This felt like bad déjà vu. Nora looked at the sun beginning to sink in the western sky. It must be shining directly through the attic window. She thought of the ghostly images of soldiers that had once covered the glass, of the attic full of former slaves who finally got the chance to live free and be paid for their labor. She thought of her family’s legacy of equality that had been twisted into bigotry over the last century, of that photo of her enraged father. And in her heart, Nora knew William needed to go. But she also knew he was not prepared to enter a riot zone.
“Wait, please. Just wait thirty seconds more.”
“For what? I gotta go.”
“Just wait!” she called over her shoulder as sh
e ran into the house. She came back out a moment later with his camera bag.
“You think I’m gonna have time to take pictures?”
“These are the kind of pictures you always wanted to take, William. Important pictures. Pictures for the newspapers. So go find J.J. if you must. But don’t miss this moment in time. When it’s over, people are going to want to know what really happened.” She pushed the bag at him through the window.
“Baby, I love you.” He pulled her in for a kiss. “I’ll call you as soon as I get him to Aunt Dee’s.”
“Okay.” Tears welled up behind her eyes. “Don’t forget.”
“I won’t. You know I won’t. Love you, baby.”
She nodded. He let his foot off the brake and pulled away. The car disappeared behind the row of pine trees. Nora heard it move into high gear. When only the sound of cicadas remained, she walked back into the house and shut the door.
Deeply unsettled, she turned on the radio and sat down to work on the binding of her yellow quilt. If she could get it done, it would be a nice surprise for William. When they had gotten home from church that morning, she had considered finishing the quilt once and for all now that there was only one last step. It would feel so satisfying to have it done and on the bed after her daily work on it over the past year. But William had convinced her to go visit Margaret again instead.
“You won’t be able to go for another week if you don’t go today,” he’d said.
Now she wished she’d stayed home.
She turned the dial from station to station, but little news about the riot seemed to be leaking out. Just a “disturbance on Twelfth Street.” Maybe William had blown it out of proportion.
By late in the evening, the binding was finished, the quilt was laid on the bed, and Nora was pacing. The cool green lights of fireflies blinked in haphazard patterns outside, and William still hadn’t called.
That night, every little sound had her reaching for the phone. But it was never ringing. On Monday morning the news was still sketchy, but the tone had changed from detached to anxious. No one answered at the Rich house, and she couldn’t find Dee’s number. She needed a distraction.
Nora flipped through William’s record collection and pulled out everything on the Motown label. Nothing drove away bad feelings faster than the Supremes, the Temptations, Stevie Wonder, and Gladys Knight. She turned the stereo up, moved the furniture to the margins of the room, rolled up the rug, and got down on her hands and knees with a pail of soapy water and a scrub brush.
When William came home, everything would be shining like new.
forty-five
Lapeer County, October 1873
Mary looked down the road in either direction. “Are you sure there is nothing to be done?”
“Nothing but wait for Jacob,” George said.
The bay gelding at the wagon tossed his head and stamped a foot.
“Oughtn’t we try to get him out of the sun?” Mary asked. “It’s warm for October and he’s had a heavy load.”
George unhitched the horse and led him toward the woods on the north side of the road. “We’re not far from Pine Creek. Could give him a drink and get him hitched again before Jacob is back.”
“Yes, let’s do that. If you know the way.”
“I know the way.”
The forest was dressed in the fiery hues of autumn, made more brilliant by the sinking sun. The only sounds were of their footsteps upon fallen leaves. They walked due north until Mary could hear trickling water in the distance.
“There’s the creek,” George said. “Just ahead. Though with the dry summer we’ve had it won’t be much.”
“I can’t believe I never realized you didn’t ride.”
“No, I don’t care to ride.”
“In all of your letters, that never came up.”
Mary wished she hadn’t mentioned the letters. They had been on her mind since she determined several days ago that she was once more with child. Her first instinct had been to tell Nathaniel, but after their last disappointment she held back. Instead, she took the letters out of their hiding place and pored over George’s words to her during the years of their private yearning. The love she had for him blazed forth like a fire that had been long smoldering but not snuffed out.
When they reached the creek, the horse drank of the meager stream of water.
“It’s so cool and beautiful here,” Mary said. “I wish we didn’t have to go back to the dusty road.”
“We don’t have to go right away.” He looped the lead line around a low branch and left the horse nosing around the forest floor.
Mary walked a few steps along the creek and stopped. “We won’t be lost, will we?”
George smiled. “As long as we follow the water we won’t.”
They walked in silence. Mary chose her footing carefully, her smooth-soled, heeled boots being far more suited to carpets and hardwood floors than roots and rocks.
“Do you know I haven’t been out for a walk in the woods since I was a child?” she said. “Though I don’t imagine those trees are there anymore. That part of Detroit is nothing but houses now.” She snagged her foot on a root.
“Watch it, there!” George grabbed her arm and pulled her close. “You okay?”
Mary caught her breath and looked up into George’s face. Twelve years had aged him gently. His once-shadowed eyes were ringed by fine lines, and as they met hers they still held the tenderness she’d seen in them at the kitchen door so many years before.
“I wish you would kiss me,” Mary said, astonished that she had finally voiced her long-silent desire. She had revealed that yearning once before—in the letter that Bridget had mistakenly sent to Nathaniel during the last months of the war.
George hesitated but a moment, then pulled her closer and covered her lips with his own. Then he gently pushed her away. “I can’t do this.”
She stepped toward him. “George, please, I—”
He pulled back and gave her a hard look. “You know this isn’t right. You shouldn’t have allowed me to kiss you at all.”
“I would allow it again.”
She reached for his cheek, but he intercepted her hand and pushed it back toward her. “We shouldn’t have come out here.”
“George, I don’t love him. I’ve tried. I even thought for a while that I succeeded. But I don’t.” She searched his face. “I love you. And I know that you love me.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Mary felt a tear trickle down her cheek. “I know he’s been unfaithful.”
George looked away. Had he known? What did the men talk about when there were no women around?
“Please,” she said.
Then George buried his fingers in her hair and laid her down upon the newly fallen leaves. And beneath the veil of the silent trees, a decade of yearning came to an end.
“We been gone too long,” George said without looking at Mary.
She didn’t correct his grammar. How could she correct anything? She had expected to feel utter bliss at the fulfillment of her long-delayed desire, and so the swirling mixture of anxiety and shame in her stomach took her by surprise. What had she done? She buried her face in her hands and tried to steady her breathing. The trees that had hidden them from sight moments before now appeared to be witnesses to her crime. The sun filtering through the leaves was like the burning eye of God, the righteous judge from whom she would not be able to escape.
George led the way back to the horse. Mary conjured up an explanation of their tardiness for Jacob, who would no doubt be waiting for them with the other wagon. By the time they reached the road, the sun had dipped below the horizon, leaving a blush in the west that was swiftly being swallowed up by night.
But there was no Jacob and no extra wagon.
“He should have been back by now,” George said. “Something must have happened.”
George helped Mary onto the gelding’s back and they started off down the road, which grew darke
r and darker. They had been walking nearly half an hour when the animal beneath her stopped. George clucked his tongue and tugged on the lead, but the horse remained planted.
“What is it?” Mary asked.
George shuffled around in the road, straining to see in the dim light of a crescent moon. Then his foot connected with something. He felt around in the dark. “My Lord!”
Mary slid off the horse and landed hard on the packed dirt road. “What is it?”
“Some poor soul left for dead.”
Mary gasped. Together they pulled the unconscious man off the road and placed him on the horse’s back.
She felt the man’s ears. One whole, the other misshapen. “It’s Jacob.”
“Horse must have thrown him.”
“How far are we from home?”
“Maybe another twenty minutes at this pace.”
“Then we’d better get moving as fast as we can.”
They started up again, each walking on either side of the horse with a hand on Jacob to keep him from falling. It felt like an eternity, but eventually Mary spotted an orange glow ahead.
“Why, they must have every candle and lamp in the entire house burning to guide us home.”
But as they drew closer they smelled smoke.
George dropped the lead and began running. “Barn’s on fire!”
Mary hurried the agitated horse to the house and pulled Jacob onto the ground with a thud. She tied the horse to the porch railing, far enough away that he wouldn’t trample Jacob, and rushed inside. “Mrs. Farnsworth! Mrs. Farnsworth!”
The cellar door burst open and Mrs. Farnsworth appeared, a crying Benjamin in her arms.
Mary reached for her son. “What are you doing down there? The barn is on fire! And Jacob is injured. Come!”
She peeled Benjamin off of her and set him on the steps in the hall. He screamed, his face crimson and streaked with tears.
“Stay right there! Mama will be back in a moment, I promise.”
She rushed out the front door with her cook to drag Jacob into the house. When the feat was accomplished and Jacob lay on the settee, Mrs. Farnsworth ran into the kitchen for rags and water while Mary made a vain attempt to kiss away her son’s tears as he screeched directly into her ear. She rocked him back and forth. Slowly, his high-pitched wails were replaced by a low and insistent whine.