Through a Glass, Darkly

by Charlotte Miller

  Elise moved to put her hand on top of the older woman’s, and Deborah Sanders’s eyes came back to rest on her, a smile returning to her face. “Listen t’ me, talkin’ about th’ past; I am gettin’ old. Well, I guess I got a right t’ be old, don’t I, child, since I’m about t’ become a great-gran’ma again in a few months time—” Elise found herself smiling as well at the genuine pleasure on the woman’s face—maybe living here would not be so bad after all. Maybe—

  “I bet my boy’s wantin’ a son, ain’t he?” Deborah said, moving to push herself up from where she had been sitting on the bench beside Elise, her eyes moving toward the wooden dough bowl on the table, and the bread dough waiting inside.

  “He doesn’t know yet. I haven’t told—”

  “Haven’t told!” the woman’s words interrupted her, her steps halting where she was as she turned back to look at Elise. “Why, you’d better be tellin’ him! Child, you should’a done told him. That’s somethin’ a man’s got a right t’ know right off.”

  “I know, it’s just—”

  “There ain’t no excuses t’ be had about it; you best be tellin’ him. My boy’s gonna know, an’ he’s gonna know t’day—you hear me?” The woman leveled a look at her that allowed no argument.

  “Yes, ma’am—” Dear God, she could not let him find out from his grandmother. Elise would have to find him and tell him first.

  “I mean it—you best be tellin’ him t’day,” Deborah Sanders said as she returned to kneading her bread dough. “Now, you finish that food; you’re way too skinny t’ be havin’ babies every year or two. We’ll have t’ get some meat on your bones.” She looked back up at Elise again, giving her a stern look when she did not immediately pick up her fork and obey her words. “You heard me, eat—”

  Elise tried to choke down a mouthful of food, any appetite that she may have had now completely ruined. She wanted to tell this woman that Janson was a man now and her husband, and no longer Deborah’s “boy” as she kept referring to him. She wanted to tell her that she did not need fattening up, and whether she had babies every year or two was her own business, and Janson’s, and none of the old woman’s concern. She wanted to tell her that she did not want to eat, even as she tried to force herself to choke down another mouthful of food. She wanted to leave this hot room with all its cooking smells and go and find Janson, to tell him that she was carrying his child before this woman could—she would not let the old woman rob her of that, of being the one to tell him, of being the one to see the look on his face, a look she hoped would be of happiness. She wanted to do anything but sit here obediently and choke down food she did not want—but she stayed and ate, unable to make herself leave, no matter how badly she wanted to.

  As soon as she had eaten enough to satisfy the old woman—and had washed the dishes for the first time in her life, just to prove to herself that she did belong here—she got her coat and left the house, hearing Deborah Sanders’s admonition once again to stay away from where the men were working. Elise told herself silently, as she stood in the chill air on the small rear porch, the door now closed between them, that she had already had enough of the old woman’s interference, enough of her meddling, and that she would go wherever she pleased to go, and that she pleased to go see her own husband.

  She made her way down the slanting board steps and across the bare-swept yard, along the edge of the now-cleared winter garden, and toward the barn where it stood at a distance from the house with the cotton fields stretching away from it, feeling the wind pick up and begin to whip her skirt about her legs as she walked. She could hear the voices of the men as she neared the side of the structure, and she realized with a flush of embarrassment that Janson was enduring some good-natured jesting from his uncle and his grandfather at his supposed lack of sleep due to their being newly married. She blushed with embarrassment and stopped where she was, glad she had heard them before she had walked into the conversation.

  “That’s my business, an’ Elise’s—ain’t nobody else’s,” she heard Janson say, a stern tone in his voice, and she felt a stab of guilt go through her. There was no reason he should not have gotten plenty of sleep the night before, that is, unless her crying had kept him awake.

  She looked back toward the little sharecropped house, the sky low and gray beyond it, not wanting to return there, but knowing she could not walk into the discussion that had been going on, even as she heard the men fall silent for a moment. She sighed and tugged her coat closer about her shoulders, deciding she would have to return to the house, whether she wanted to or not, but then curiosity got the better of her as she listened for a moment, hearing the sounds of the men’s breathing, and occasional words and phrases.

  “He sure was a big ’un.”

  “Hope that gamblin’ stick’s good ’n stout.”

  “You got them pans ready?” she heard Janson ask.

  Curiosity overcame embarrassment, and she moved around the side of the barn to see what they were doing, what she had been warned away from intruding on. At first she could not see, for Janson’s grandfather and his uncle blocked her view of Janson and of what it was he was doing. She moved closer at the same moment the two men moved aside, and she saw—

  Janson knelt on the ground before a hog strung up for slaughtering. There was a quick swipe of a butcher knife, and then Janson was turning, standing up, the creature’s decapitated head in his hands—

  Elise covered her mouth, vomit rising to her throat. The glassy eyes in the head seemed to look right at her, and she forced her eyes away—to the carcass that hung headless over a waiting pan. She did not want to look, but could not stop herself. She had known that animals had to be slaughtered for food, but she had never seen, she had never known—it was so barbaric, and the men could do it with seemingly no feeling, no emotion at all.

  She finally forced her eyes away, and to Janson, who stood looking at her, a bloody apron tied around his waist. Her Janson—who had cut the creature’s head off.

  She felt the vomit rise into her mouth, and she turned and ran a few steps away, then fell to her knees, the breakfast she had just eaten coming back up. She hated this place, this barbaric, bloody, superstitious place. She hated these people, and everything about them.

  She continued to retch long after there was nothing left to come up. Janson was kneeling beside her, saying gentle words she could not understand—but he did not touch her; he kept his hands away. She looked at his hands again, and thought of what he had done, and she began to retch anew, wishing he would just shut up, wishing he would just go away, wishing he would just leave her alone and never come near her again. The man who had rushed to her, the man kneeling at her side, the man she had married, seemed a stranger now.

  The late afternoon sunlight slanted across the yard beyond the window, throwing it into stages of light and shadow. It seemed a familiar sight to Janson, familiar from all the times of visiting his grandparents’ home over his years of growing up in this county. So little had changed in the months he had been away, so little—except for his own life. When he had left Eason County in those early January days of 1927, he had been responsible for no one but himself.

  He had left, swearing never to return to the county until he could return as a man, until he could return to buy back the land that his parents had fought and died to give him, the land he had lost to the auction block so soon after they had died. Now, less than a year later, he was back, responsible for Elise, as well as himself—and he had not returned as a man should have returned. He had come back to live off his grandparents’ charity, bringing Elise to a life he had known she could never understand, for it was a life so far different from the one she had always known in the white-columned great house the Whitleys had lived in for generations. All her life she’d had anything she could ever have wanted—and there was nothing he could give her now to compare to the things she had given up in order to marry him. T
hey had no home, nothing they could really call their own—only each other. He had tried so hard to make her understand—but he knew now that he had failed miserably at getting her to see the kind of life she was choosing in deciding to marry him. He had failed miserably, and at more than making her understand.

  He could hear the old floorboards creak behind him as he stared out the window, the sound of the rocking chair moving slowly back and forth where Elise sat in it, but he did not turn to look at her. The room had been chill, and he had built a fire for her, pulling the rocking chair closer to its warmth so that she would not be so cold, but she had said nothing. She had said so very little of anything all day. He stared out the window, feeling more helpless than he ever had before. He knew now that he had made a mistake, perhaps the greatest mistake of his life, to have brought her here.

  This was no way of life for Elise Whitley; she was a lady, accustomed to grand and fine things, and he knew he had been a fool to have offered her any less. She could not live in this little house crowded in with so many of his relatives, with his aunts making her feel unwelcome, with Gran’ma’s healings, and the country life and ways she could never understand—but he did not know what to do. There seemed nothing he could do now to set things right again. She was his wife, and because of that her father had disowned her. She could never return to her home in Georgia. Janson loved her, but knew already that he had failed miserably at being her husband. He only wanted for her to be happy, only wanted for her to love him.

  He was surprised to find her eyes on him when he turned to look at her. There was such a look of sadness on her face, such a look of loneliness, that a stab of pain went through him. He wanted to go to her, but he could not. There seemed a distance between them now that he had never felt before, a distance much greater than that of the room between them, a distance of promises he had made to her that he was afraid now he would never be able to keep. He told her they would have a home of their own, that small, white house on those red acres he had been born to, a life that would have been something in exchange for all she had given up. Now he was afraid that would never be, afraid in a way he had never allowed himself to feel before.

  There seemed a sadness in her eyes now as he stared at her, a sadness that broke his heart, and a longing that he was afraid he would never be able to fulfill.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, simply, staring at her. For a long moment, he could think of nothing more to say. He crossed the room slowly and knelt on the floor at her feet, reaching to take both her hands in his and lifting them to hold them against either side of his face as he stared up at her. “Forgive me for what I’ve done t’ you, for bein’ s’ blind as t’ bring you here—”

  “There’s nothing to forgive you for,” she said, very quietly.

  He released her hands and moved to wrap his arms about her legs, laying his head in her lap for a moment. “Don’t hate me, please—”

  “I could never hate you. You know I could never hate you. It’s just that—” For a moment, she fell silent. “Everything’s so different, so—” Again, the words seemed to fail her.

  Janson squeezed his eyes tightly shut, feeling in that moment that she was slipping away from him, even though he held her, even though his cheek rested against her thigh. She had given up so much to marry him, so much. How could he ever expect—

  For a long moment there was silence between them. He could think of nothing to say, even though there were a thousand thoughts and feelings moving through him. Words were so little compared to the things he felt, the things he needed, from her. “I love you,” he said at last. “I just want you t’ be happy. I just want—”

  When he lifted his eyes to her face, he found that she was crying, and that vision tore completely through him.

  “Please—oh, God, Elise, I would do anything t’ make you happy. I’ll work as hard as any man can; you know I will. I’ll give you th’ home I promised you; I’ll give you th’ life I promised you, no matter how long it takes me—oh, please, I would do anything. Anything—” For a long moment he stared at her, suddenly knowing, understanding. “Even if that means I have t’ take you back home, back t’ your folks. Even if it means that I have t’ beg your pa t’ understand this was all my fault, an’ that you need t’ be back with your people. Even if that means—”

  “No,” she said, quietly, shaking her head. “No, I’m not going back home. That’s not my home anymore, and it never will be again. My home is here, with you, wherever we have to be to be together.”

  “But, you’ll never be happy here. I know that now—”

  She shook her head again. “I’ll be happy because I’m with you; that’s all that’s important. That and—” She fell silent again, her blue eyes searching his own. “Janson,” she said quietly, after a time, “we’re going to have a baby.”

  He stared. “A baby?” he said at last, surprised to hear himself say the words, even after he had heard her say them.

  “Yes,” she said, nodding her head, her eyes never leaving his.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  His hands reached out, his fingers to touch her flat stomach through the fabric of her dress—Elise, his Elise, with a baby inside of her. His baby—he could only stare at his hands for a moment. Elise was going to have a baby. They were going to have a—

  He looked up at her, finding her watching him closely. For a moment he was too dumbstruck to speak. “We’re havin’ a baby?” he heard himself say.

  “Yes,” she said, and he felt himself begin to smile a moment before he realized—

  “You’re happy about it, ain’t you?” he asked, searching her eyes, needing to know.

  But suddenly she was smiling, almost with what seemed to be a mixture of relief and worry, as well as with happiness. “You know I am.”

  “That’s not th’ reason you’re willin’ t’ stay here, is it? Just because—”

  “You know it’s not. After everything we’ve been through to be together—” For a moment she fell silent. “There are a lot of things we both will have to get accustomed to. Everything is so different here, it will just take time for me to get used to it. You have things to get used to as well, you know—” She was suddenly smiling again, looking genuinely happy for the first time since they’d arrived in Alabama. “At least I’ve had a little time to get accustomed to the idea of becoming a mother—”

  “A mother,” he said, smiling, the worry leaving him for now in the face of concepts he had not considered coming to them so soon. “You’re going to be a mother.”

  “And, you’re going to be a father—the two things go together, you know.”

  He was grinning helplessly, and he knew it. He just kept touching her stomach, amazed that inside of her was a new little person. “We’re havin’ a baby.”

  “You’re happy about it, aren’t you?”

  He looked up, surprised that she had even asked. “You know I am.”

  “I’ve just been worried, with everything else—”

  He shook his head. “None of that’s important. Don’t even think about it; I’ll take care of everythin’. All you have t’ worry about is takin’ care ’a yourself, an’ our baby.” He grinned, returning to touching her stomach, amazed at what they had done. “How long have you known?”

  “Since just before Daddy found out about us—”

  “Since—Elise, that’s been—” For a moment he could only stare up at her. “Why ain’t you done told me?”

  “With everything that’s been happening, having to worry about getting away, and Daddy hurting you like he did, you almost dying—I couldn’t add even more to the burdens you were already carrying—”

  “Burdens? Elise, this ain’t no burden. A baby is the farthest thing from a burden.”

  “You won’t mind there being an extra mouth to feed? Three of us to support, instead of just two
?”

  “Lord, woman, what kind ’a man do you think you married? A man’s got t’ know children’ll come along if he loves his wife th’ way he’s supposed t’. I knowed there’d be more ’n two of us sooner or later. I guess I never thought about it happenin’ s’ soon, since it took my folks s’ long t’ have me after they got married.”

  She smiled at him. “It must have happened one of the first times we were together.”

  He grinned to himself, then stretched up to draw her lips to his. After a moment, he stood and pulled her up into his arms, to hold her close to him, more content in that moment than he had ever been. “I love you, Elise Whitley,” he said quietly against her hair.

  “Sanders,” she reminded him, bringing her eyes to his.

  “Mrs. Sanders,” he said, looking at her for a long moment, knowing in that instant what it was to be truly happy.

  Janson lay awake before dawn that next morning, having slept very little through the hours of the night. Elise’s body lay warm against him, her head on his shoulder, as he stared at the dark shadows that played across the whitewashed ceiling. Daylight would not be long in coming, but there were decisions he still had to make, choices he had never thought to consider. There were three people he was responsible for now—three—and yet he had no job, no roof of his own to put over their heads, no future he could offer his wife or their child. In bringing Elise here to this life he had offered her, in bringing her to his grandparents’ home to live off what amounted to little more than their charity for a time, he had been doing all that he had known to do in the circumstances in which they had found themselves. There had been no way they could have stayed in Endicott County, Georgia, and lived as man and wife. William Whitley would never have allowed his daughter to live openly as the wife of a dirt-poor, half-Indian farmer—they had both known that, even before her father had tried to kill him, even before her elder brother had thrown him, unconscious, down a well to die, even before that same brother had stolen the money he had worked so hard for and saved, money that would have brought them a much better life than any he could see for them now. Janson had not even known about the baby then—but he could never have left Elise behind in Georgia, could never have left her behind in her beautiful house and gone on to any kind of life of his own.