When she was steady again she opened her eyes on the mantel and the picture there of her father and not having thought, took paper and pencil and wrote,
Dear Wesley,
No it is not clear—the coast you are talking about—and if you are a human being you will come here now and do your duty.
But she couldn’t say more than that. She couldn’t even say that and be sure, not yet. So she waited, managing in desperation to sleep through most of the day—through Mama peeping in to check and Dr. Sledge’s visit to Sissie and what little cooking was done, waking three or four times and lifting the shade to stare across the road at naked trees but forcing herself unconscious again till finally at night a car turned in and woke her and she watched Milo come through the dark with candy in his hand and heard him climb to Sissie and say good evening to Sissie and Mama and sit with them, not speaking, and then in a little heard Mama step out and shut their door and Sissie say something Rosacoke couldn’t hear and Milo answer her low and them talk on like that till they faded out and Rosacoke thought, “I have failed Milo and drove him back on Sissie, and they have gone to sleep”—which was somewhere she didn’t go that night again.
Or many other nights that came after, though she took any chance to tire herself—working through weekdays hard as she could (working Thanksgiving at her own request) and in evenings at home, washing clothes, for instance, that were clean already and ironing till everybody but Mama was asleep and she would appear in her nightgown to say “Rosacoke, that’s enough,” and Rosacoke would climb to lie-out one more night between cold sheets with nothing but black ceiling to look towards or if there was moon, its glare on the floor boards and the unlit tin stove and the mantel and with nothing to hear but, inside her chest like her own fierce pulse, the thoughts she could speak to nobody—not to Mama or Baby Sister or her own dark walls (for fear Sissie Abbott next door might know) or even by mail to Wesley until she was sure.
* * *
It was a month’s time and a Sunday afternoon before she was sure. Milo had carried Mama and Baby Sister to Delight to make plans for the Christmas pageant, leaving only Sissie and Rosacoke at home. Rosacoke had kept up a fire in her room most of the day and stayed there, but about five o’clock she thought of Sissie downstairs alone and felt guilty and went down to her. Sissie was shut in the front room with the stove broiling high, and when Rosacoke came in she barely spoke, just went on flipping some magazine to the end. Rosacoke commenced reading too but in a little Sissie stood and went to the window and looked at the half-dark and said, “Isn’t it time they was home?”
Rosacoke looked out. “I guess it is.”
“Wonder what is holding them up?”
Rosacoke said “I can’t imagine.” (She knew very well but she wouldn’t say.)
“Well, I bet they are trying to find a Mary since I backed out. Your Mama said she didn’t see no way to keep from offering it to Willie Duke Aycock when she gets home from Norfolk—unless they call on Marise Gupton and she is pregnant again.”
Just to speak, Rosacoke said, “Willie will be a sight.” But Sissie took it wrong and turned on her. “You didn’t expect me to go through with it, did you?”
Rosacoke said “No’m, I didn’t” and Sissie cried a little, quiet and turned to the window. She had cried a good deal that month, but Rosacoke still couldn’t watch her so she stepped to the hall and took a coat and not saying where she was going, went out and walked down the yard. By the time she reached the road, she had forgot Sissie. She turned right and looking down and saying to herself, “Pretty soon I have got to think,” she walked on in dust till the dark was broken by the silly hoot of guineas in trees which meant she was at Mr. Isaac’s.
She faced the house and the pecan grove, hoping it would give her several minutes’ thinking, and yes, there was one light coming dim through curtains from the downstairs parlor. She thought, “They are all in there with the light,” and she pictured them—Mr. Isaac nodding already since Sammy had fed him, and Miss Marina queer for the winter, tuned to whatever station came strongest on the radio, and Sammy maybe waiting for word to take Mr. Isaac in his arms and put him to bed—and when she had finished with them, she walked on another little way before the glow of car lights showed beyond the bend in the road. That would be Milo and Mama so she ran off the road down a slope, and when the car had passed and dust had sifted back over her, the guineas broke in again. She looked towards their noise—she was almost at the pond—and behind the pond in trees, she could just make them out on the sky, huddled in black knots from the cold. She wondered what was after them before real night and for something to do, went on in hopes of finding the trouble. She stopped at the pond. She had not really seen it since summer drought—not close—and she walked out on the short pier, her feet on the boards sounding far. By what light was left she could only see that the pond had filled its banks with recent rain and swamped the rotten boat staked by the pier and that it was gray, but the guineas kept up their noise, and Rosacoke said to herself, “It must be a hawk that is troubling them.”
Then the weight of her own trouble spewed hot up through her chest and throat into her mouth. She gripped hard against it but it prized her teeth open and forced her to say out loud at last, “What am I going to do?” No answer came so she shut her eyes and, locked and blind, brought up in a rush, “Wesley Beavers tinkered with me six long years, wanting nothing but his pleasure, and when he finally took it dishonest and collected the sight of me in a broomstraw field, giving all I had, to mix in his mind with the sight of every cheap woman that has said ‘Yes’ to him, what did he hand me in return but this new burden that he knows nothing about? And if he turns up home for Christmas, won’t he count on having me time and again, free as water? And if I was to tell him the trouble he has put me in, wouldn’t he just sneak off to Norfolk by night and rejoin the Navy and sail for—Japan—and leave me not one soul to speak to and nothing to do but bow my head and sit home with Sissie Abbott staring and Mama maybe crying out of sight and Baby Sister playing her flesh-and-blood games and Milo joking to cheer me up while I wait for this child to take its time and come, bearing Wesley’s face and ways but not his name?” Then she looked to the trees across the pond and took breath and said again, “What must I do?”
Like an answer, a piece of yellow light showed slowly in the trees near the ground, moving towards her. Against the black she couldn’t see what made the light or was bringing it, but by its color and swing, she guessed it was a lantern, and nobody toting a lantern was up to mischief so she stood on and soon heard feet in the leaves. When the light had reached the far edge of the pond, whoever held it stopped for a little and then said gently across the water, “Who is that yonder on the pier?” It was Sammy Ransom’s voice.
“Nobody but Rosacoke, Sammy.”
“Good evening, Miss Rosa. I’ll come speak to you.” He walked round the pond to where she waited and set his lantern on the pier. Its warm light struck along the barrel of the gun he held. “What you fishing for here so late?”
“Nothing much. I was just walking on the road and heard the guineas fussing and came down here to investigate.”
“Yes ma’m. That’s what I was just now doing myself. Miss Marina heard them in the house and sent me out here, saying it was a hawk.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“No ma’m. Most hawks is sleep by now. I don’t know what ails them fool guineas. Just old age, I reckon.”
“How is Mr. Isaac, Sammy?”
“Not doing so good, Miss Rosa. Look like it’s his mind now. He just rambles round inside hisself and don’t know who me and Miss Marina is half the time.”
“Do you reckon he can go to Delight next Sunday for the pageant?”
“Yes ma’m. If he live.”
“Well, they are planning to give him a present.”
“Yes ma’m. What sort of present?”
“A rolling chair, I believe.”
“He don’t need no ro
lling chair long as Sammy’s around.”
“I know that but Macey Gupton was the buyer.”
“Yes ma’m. Well, we’ll be there to get it if the Lord be willing.” Then he thought to say, “Are you in the show this time, Miss Rosa?”
“No, not me.”
“I remembers you from last year. Reckon will Mr. Wesley be in it again?”
“I don’t know, Sammy. I don’t even know if he is coming home.”
“Don’t you? Miss Rosa, I thought it was near-about time for you all to get married.”
“No.”
“Well, when is your plans for?”
“There are not any plans.”
“Lord, Miss Rosa, I thought you had a good hold of him.”
She waited in silence for the answer to give him, trusting it would come directly. But no answer came. She could not know yet how his one word hold had struck her mind dumb or what it would show her, in time. She could only say to herself, “I have known Sammy Ransom all my life—he has played baseball on our team—so I know he meant me no harm by that.”
And to save her from speaking at all, a door slammed up at the house. They looked and there stood Miss Marina in the back-porch light, facing them. She could not see the lantern, but she beckoned now and then with her arm, and Sammy said, “Miss Rosa, I would ride you home, but you see they need me yonder.” Rosacoke nodded and he took the lantern and said “Good night” and started for the house. She watched him go five yards, his right side in warm light and the shotgun dark on the left, and she thought for the first time in her life, “I cannot walk home in this dark” so she called out “Sammy—” not knowing what she would ask though for months she had had one thing to ask him.
He turned in his tracks. “Ma’m?”
But she asked what she needed most now. “I was wondering could you spare me that lantern just to get home with?”
“Oh yes’m. You take it.”
She went on to him and took it and said, “I am much obliged to you” and headed for the road and home with the lantern in her clenched right hand, swinging close to her side, casting light upwards to her face sometimes and her eyes that didn’t really see the road but were staring inward at what Sammy Ransom had showed her (not knowing what he did)—a Sunday evening in early November and her having been led on past a hawk by the curious sound to stop in trees at the edge of a clearing and look across a gap through falling night to Wesley Beavers, locked alone with his own wishes in the music he made on a harp with his mouth and moving hands that caused her to say to herself, “There ought to be some way you could hold him there” and then go forward to try a way.
* * *
At home she set the lantern on the porch and went by the kitchen where they all were eating to write this letter in her room—
December 15
Dear Wesley,
I guess you will be wondering when you see this how come I have waited so long and am turning up now so close to Christmas. The reason is, you asked me something I didn’t know a sure answer to but now I do. The coast or whatever you want to call it is not clear and I thought you better know that before your Christmas vacation begins in case you want to change your plans some way. (I haven’t heard anybody speak of your plans for coming. You say other things in your letters but you don’t say you will come.) I mean, maybe you won’t want to come here now. Well what I want you to know is, I have thought this all out and I am not glad but I can’t blame you if you don’t show up, as it is me I hold responsible, and what I have done, I reckon I can live with. That is the news from
Rosacoke
—which she couldn’t mail. She waited.
THREE
THE Sunday morning before Christmas (Christmas being Wednesday that year), Milo left Mama and Rosacoke cooking dinner and Sissie lying down upstairs and drove to Warrenton to meet Rato who had set out by bus from Fort Sill, Oklahoma two days previous and had ridden upright through four states, barely closing his eyes, to get home—not because after nine months away he wanted so much to see his people or to leave camp awhile and certainly not to be in a Baptist pageant but in order to pass out the gifts he had bought with his own money and to show the family in person his Expert Marksman badge and the uniform he meant to wear for the next thirty years if the U.S. Army would let him.
When Milo was gone Mama set Baby Sister as the lookout. She squatted at the dining-room window and stared to the road through the dull cold day till an hour had passed and dinner was ready on the stove. Then a car came in sight with two people in it and turned towards the house. Baby Sister hollered “Here is Rato!” and threw herself out the door to meet him. Mama left the kitchen just as fast, not putting on a coat, and they got to him halfway down the yard. He had never been much on kissing, but he let Mama touch him on the cheek and gave Baby Sister his free hand to pull towards the door where Rosacoke stood (the other hand held his duffle bag). When he was almost at her, he set down the bag and pulled his hand out of Baby Sister’s and stopped—not looking Rosacoke in the eye but grinning from under his overseas cap (the only clothes on him not wrinkled like paper from the ride).
Rosacoke didn’t speak at first or smile. She was studying Rato with something like fear, and thinking back. He had come between her and Milo in age, and Mama had named him Horatio Junior for his father before she could see what was plain soon enough—that the mind he got would never make any sort of man. He had grown up mostly of his own accord, running sometimes with Milo and her and Negroes and taking what candy Mr. Isaac offered but seldom laughing and never being close to a soul or asking a favor. Still, he had been there all her life until last April. He had sat by her on cold school buses till he turned fourteen and stopped school completely and she met Wesley Beavers, and after that he had spent every Saturday night looking on from the porch at her and Wesley in the yard saying goodbye slowly. He had gone with her to the Raleigh hospital that week they sat with Papa before he died. And always, if he was nothing else, he had been one thing she could count on not to change, which was what she looked now to know—covering his face with her eyes (long yellow face rocked forward on his neck). But nine months of Army had taught him nothing new—thirty more years wouldn’t either—and he had her father’s name. So she held out her hand and smiled and said, “Merry Christmas, Rato. You have put on weight.”
He said “Army food” and gave her his cool fingers to hold a little.
They all stepped into the hall and Rato stood again, not knowing where to set his bag. He never had a permanent room in the house but penetrated back and forth, stretching out wherever there was nobody else, and now Mama said, “Son, while me and Rosa’s getting up dinner, you go to Papa’s old room and put on your own clothes.”
He looked at his wrinkles. “Thank you, no’m. These ain’t mine but they are all I got.”
Milo said, “What in the Hell you got that bag stuffed with then?—a woman?”
Baby Sister said, “Looks like Santa Claus to me.”
Rato said, “That’s what it is.”
And Mama said, “Well, eat like you are but some of us will have to press that uniform before tonight,” and she and Rosacoke went to lay out the food. Milo went upstairs to tell Sissie he was home, and Rato dropped his bag again and dangled in the hall with Baby Sister staring at him speechless. Mama called “Ready.” Then Sissie crept down ahead of Milo. She spoke Rato’s name and he spoke hers and said, “I have eat just peanuts since Friday” and stepped to the table before the others.
At the table Mama called on Rato for grace. There was considerable time while he searched for words, and Rosacoke thought, “That is mistake number one. After eight months away he’s forgot,” and Mama had opened her mouth to say it herself when Rato shot out, “Lord, I thank you for dinner.”
They waited awhile for “Amen” but it never came so they looked up gradually and unfolded napkins and commenced passing bowls. They knew there was no point asking Rato about his trip or the Army—he had never made a satisfying
answer in his life—but Mama couldn’t pass up his grace without comment. “You all must not have much religious activities at camp, do you, son?”
Rato was red from his effort. He said “No’m,” taking biscuits to butter.
And at first that seemed to stop other questions, but Milo thought and saw his chance—“What about them talks on women the chaplain gives?” Rato grinned at his plate and chewed and Milo kept on. “I certainly hope you have been attending them.” Rato still didn’t speak though Mama was watching him. Milo said “Have you, Rato?”
Sissie for a change raised eyebrows over the table to Rosacoke meaning “Brother is closer kin than husband. You stop him,” and Rosacoke said “All right, Milo.”
Mama said “Yes, stop” but she was curious now, and when there had been quiet eating for a little, she said, “Are they some kind of marriage talks, son?”
“I don’t know’m. I ain’t heard one.”
Milo said, “Well, you have missed a golden opportunity, I’m sure.”
“I don’t know,” Mama said. “Some folks don’t want to get married, do they, son?”
Rato nodded. “I’m one of them.”
And Mama had to make a new start. “Son, do you all have a chaplain just for the Baptists or does everybody get the same one?”
“I ain’t seen a Baptist since April. Just Catholics.”
“Well, you will see some tonight.”
“How come?”
“Because we are retiring Mr. Isaac from the Deacons tonight.”
“Is he still alive?”
Milo said “Sort of.”
Baby Sister said, “We are also having the pageant and you are in it.”
A Long and Happy Life Page 13