Till You Hear From Me: A Novel

by Pearl Cleage

  My grandmother told me a story once about how she and her father were crossing the tracks in their old Model-T Ford and her father, who had lost an eye in a hunting accident years before, didn’t see the train backing up in their direction. My grandmother, who was about six or seven years old at the time, saw it bearing down on them, but didn’t want to embarrass her father by implying he hadn’t seen it first and removed them from the danger, so she said nothing.

  My grandmother would laugh when she told this story because the train was going so slowly it just pushed them gently a few hundred yards down the track. The car was slightly damaged, but they walked home just fine. My mother, of course, saw this as a story about how little girls are trained from birth to protect the male ego, even at the cost of their own lives.

  The hard thing about this conversation wasn’t going to be telling the Rev there was a nefarious plot heading his way from the twisted minds huddled in the heart of darkness. He already understood that kind of evil. He’d spent his life fighting it. The hard thing was that this time he didn’t see the train coming. This time he wasn’t the one providing the protection. He was the one who needed protecting. And maybe that was because he was getting older and wasn’t quite as sharp as he used to be, or maybe it was because they sent his godson to bring the bait and as the Rev likes to say, when the brother holds the door for the murderer, the deed is unstoppable.

  But maybe it was just that as much as we want to make the Rev and Martin and Malcolm and Mandela all perfect, godlike creatures, deigning to walk the earth in human form in order to lead us mere mortals to the mountaintop, they are only men, fully and completely as human and as flawed as any of the rest of us. The quality that makes them different is that they can look at us and where other folks only see a bunch of wild, scary, defeated, disheartened, disorganized people, they see what we might look like if we would stand up once and for all and take responsibility for being the free men and women all people are born to be. They see the best of us even when we can’t and their words paint such a vivid picture that for just a moment, we get it, we feel it, we see it, and somewhere deep, deep down, we know that we can be it.

  The saddest thing to me about the whole Jeremiah Wright episode was that he is one of those who has always been able to see how beautiful we are. He’s spent his life holding up that mirror and one day, to even his surprise, one of his parishioners saw a president looking back, but now all we remember is the incendiary ten-second sound bites and the ignominy of his appearance at the Press Club. I wasn’t going to let that happen to the Rev. My father needed for me to speak to him as a grown woman and make him listen. Otherwise, I might as well pull up a chair at the children’s table and sit on down.

  I signed the card “all my love,” and then heard the front door open and the Rev’s voice booming out a greeting.

  “Where are you, daughter? I’m home from the wars!”

  In the kitchen, nervous despite my self-pep talk, I tucked the card in my mother’s apron pocket and reached in the refrigerator for a bottle of cold white wine, poured two glasses, and met him in the hallway as he shuffled through the mail I had left lying on the key table.

  “Welcome back,” I said. “Were we victorious?”

  He kissed my cheek and accepted a glass of Chablis. “Close enough. Something smells awfully good in here.”

  “Dinner in fifteen minutes,” I said.

  “Well, isn’t this an unexpected pleasure.” He took a swallow of wine and grimaced slightly. “Why can’t they make a wine that tastes like a bourbon? Somebody could make a fortune!”

  “I’ll work on it.”

  “It’s a deal,” he said, laying his phone down beside the mail and heading upstairs. “In the meantime, let me go wash up and we’ll see what damage you’ve been doing in my kitchen.”

  “I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised,” I said, taking a sip of the wine that was just fine being exactly what it was. Then his phone rang.

  “Get that for me, will you?” The Rev turned halfway up. “Wes has been trying to catch up with me all day. I don’t want to miss him again.”

  I froze. Of course Wes had tried to call him. He wanted to ask about the cards. About the process. About the deal. About the crazy old lady who said she’s going to type them all by herself. As per your instructions, Rev.

  “I’ll take a message,” I said. I wasn’t ready yet. I hadn’t had a chance to fortify myself and follow Miss Iona’s advice about the way to the Rev’s heart yet.

  He looked at me. “You haven’t even looked at the caller ID. What if it’s not him?”

  The phone was still chirping in that annoyingly insistent, electronic way. “I’ll take a message.”

  “Hand me the phone, daughter. It’s easier to just answer it myself.” He started back down.

  I looked at the phone then and Wes’s number was definitely the one showing: Harper, W. E., and a 212 area code.

  “It’s him,” I said. What could I do? I answered it. “Hey,” I said.

  The Rev waited for me to greet Wes and hand him the phone. “It’s Ida.”

  “Oh, hey,” he said. “I’ve been trying to get hold of your dad all day. Is he …”

  “Just walked in the door,” I said. “Can he call you right back?”

  “Sure,” Wes said, as the Rev reached for the phone. “No problem. I’ll see him at service on Sunday.”

  “I’ll tell him you called.” And I snapped the phone shut and dropped it into my mom’s apron pocket right next to the pink envelope with the Valentine card in it.

  The Rev looked at me like I had lost my mind and I swallowed hard. His frown was a thundercloud. “Didn’t you hear what I said?”

  “I’m sorry, Rev,” I said. I hadn’t intended to tell him standing in the hall like this, but it was too late now. “Before you talk to Wes, I have to tell you something.”

  “I’m listening, daughter.”

  “Can we sit down for a minute?”

  “I’m fine right here.”

  “There’s no easy way to tell you this,” I said, putting down my glass. “Wes Harper is part of a scheme to target black leaders who have been critical of the president and encourage them to work against him.”

  His frown deepened. “Has Iona been filling your head with this mess?”

  “It’s true, Daddy,” I said, surprised I hadn’t called him Rev. “You’re one of the first ones they’re reaching out to because …”

  “Because of what?”

  There was no turning back. If he was going to help, he had to know where he stood right now. Not as an icon, but as a man making decisions every day that he had to be judged on. “Because of the Jeremiah Wright stuff. Because of those things you said on YouTube about the enemy of your enemy. Because they think you’re open to being used against him because your feelings are hurt. Because …”

  “Enough!” The Rev’s voice cut through my babbling. He walked into the living room and set his glass down on the coffee table. I followed him. He just stood there with his back to me for a minute, then he turned around and every word stood alone and accusatory. “Because they hurt my feelings?”

  I wished I could take it back or figure out a way to say it better, but I couldn’t. “Yes.”

  “Just exactly when, daughter, did you wake up and decide that you know more than I know?”

  I didn’t answer. How could I?

  “Or should I say, when did you and Iona wake up and decide I needed the two of you to help me avoid the traps white folks set for bad niggas like me who never take low?”

  “Daddy, I …”

  He didn’t even slow down. “When did you two start figuring you could spot a turncoat or a traitor faster than I can? When did you decide you could protect me from danger better than Ed Harper could after he’s risked his life for me more times than I can count?”

  “When we realized it was his son!” I blurted before I could stop the words coming out of my mouth.

  The Rev loo
ked at me like I had thrown my wine in his face, although I had left my glass in the hallway. “Have you told Wes any of this nonsense?”

  “No,” I said. “I wanted to talk to you first.”

  “Well, now you’ve talked to me,” he said. “And I hope this will be the end of it.”

  And he headed for the stairs.

  “It won’t be,” I said, desperate now to make him listen to me. “That’s why they want your list!”

  He stopped with his hand on the banister and looked at me. “This is unacceptable, daughter. My cards, and my people, are my responsibility, not yours. When I need your advice and counsel concerning any decision I make, you may rest assured I will not hesitate to ask for it. But until I do, and as long as you are in this house, you will abide by my wishes.”

  His voice was low and terrible. I couldn’t remember my father ever speaking to me that way. “Do you understand me?”

  I had done the best I could. It was time for me to go. Back to D.C. Back to my own life. You can’t save a person who doesn’t want to be saved. It was like Mr. Eddie always told the new gardeners: Everybody’s got to kill their own snakes.

  “I understand,” I said, hating the tremble I heard in my own voice.

  As I watched him go on upstairs, I realized there was no way I could sit across from him at dinner and pretend everything was okay. The pictures, the plaques, the proclamations. The Rev’s lives, past, present, and future were smothering me. For the first time, I knew how my mother must have felt, but this wasn’t just some tired old man being conned out of his personal nest egg. This was the Rev. His weakness left us all vulnerable.

  I slipped the apron over my head and reached for my jacket, but I felt the Rev’s phone in my pocket right beside my little pink Valentine. I laid them both beside his plate, turned the oven down to warm, and left.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  There Are Always Consequences

  I DON’T THINK I CONSCIOUSLY HEADED FOR FLORA’S HOUSE, BUT WHEN I found myself standing in front of it, I wasn’t surprised. My hands were still shaking and it didn’t have anything to do with the cold. My attempt to protect my father from a clear and present danger had not only failed miserably, it had driven us even further apart than we were before I came down here. Even worse, without the Rev’s help, the dirty tricksters were free to pursue all manner of voter suppression in those little Georgia towns where people were just beginning to exercise their full citizenship without fear of reprisals. Why couldn’t the Rev see what I was talking about? There he was, a race man, a fearless warrior, reduced by his ego to being a part of the problem when he had been such an important part of the solution. There had to be a way to make him see that this was real.

  I rang the bell, half hoping she wasn’t home. I didn’t know how much I could explain without bursting into tears. Flora was laughing when she opened the door and over her shoulder, I could see Lu, sitting on the couch in the crook of a man’s arm who could only be her father and he was laughing, too. In her lap, Lu was holding the biggest, brightest, heart-shaped box of Valentine candy I’d ever seen.

  “Ida! Come in and meet Hank!” Flora sounded delighted until she caught a glimpse of my face. “What’s wrong?” she said, drawing me inside.

  They all looked so happy, I felt like the bad fairy showing up at Sleeping Beauty’s birthday party.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I said, still sounding shaky even to my own ears. “I was just out walking and …” There was no lie to cover it, so I didn’t try. “I should have called. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Flora said. “Come in and take off your coat.”

  The man stood up and held out his hand. “I’m Hank.” I recognized him from the photograph Aretha had taken of him in the garden. His Afro was shorter, but he had the same small mustache and kind eyes.

  “Ida Dunbar,” I said.

  “The Rev’s daughter?” He squeezed my hand. “I am a lifelong admirer of your father’s.”

  “That’s a long time,” I said, managing a smile as Flora took my coat to the front closet.

  “Daddy just got in from D.C.,” Lu said, beaming up at her father. “Better late than never!”

  Hank winked at me and went back to sit beside his daughter, draping one long arm affectionately around her shoulders. “I got held up looking for some Valentine candy for my two best girls.”

  “You’re not fooling anybody,” Lu said. “This is just a bribe so you and Mom can abandon me and go off to Tybee alone.”

  Flora, perched on the arm of the sofa next to her husband, rubbed his back gently. “I’m still trying to figure out how you got it past security. No way that this could fit in the overhead bin.”

  She had a point there. The candy box was easily two feet across the top of the heart. “I told the flight attendant I hadn’t been home in three weeks and if I didn’t come correct, my wife was going to slam the door in my face while my daughter threw my clothes out the window and set fire to my BMW.”

  He was remembering the famous Angela Bassett revenge scene in Waiting to Exhale. Home girl got a lot of people in trouble who didn’t seem to understand that in real life, there are always consequences.

  Lu laughed. “You don’t have a BMW.”

  “Lucky for me,” he said, kissing the top of her head.

  A kettle in full boil sounded in the kitchen. Flora stood up and looked at me. “I’m making tea. Would you like some?”

  “I’d love some,” I said. “Can I help you?”

  Of course, she said yes. We left Lu and Hank carefully unwrapping the granddaddy of all Valentine candy and headed for the kitchen. Flora turned off the tea kettle, the whistle dying off slowly like the end of a sigh.

  “What’s going on?” she said, pouring the hot water into a big red pot and dropping in a tea ball. Flora was the kind of woman who made her tea from scratch. She probably grew it in the backyard.

  “Grab another cup out of the cabinet over there,” she said. “And tell me what’s up.”

  I handed her the cup, which she added to the three she’d already taken out, and tried to sum up what had just happened. “It’s the Rev,” I said, hating how helpless I felt.

  “Is he okay?”

  “No,” I said, feeling tears forming, trying to blink them back. I had been through so many hard days in the campaign, but I never cried. Even when you love the candidate more than you ever loved a candidate in your life, he’s still not your daddy. “He’s not okay.”

  FORTY-NINE

  The Confidence of a Sleepwalker

  IF I HAD COME TO FLORA’S LOOKING FOR SOME ASSISTANCE, I HIT THE jackpot. Standing there while the tea was steeping, I told her everything, then she pulled me into the living room and made me tell it all again. This, as Flora reminded me, was Hank’s specialty, but he didn’t say much. He asked me a couple of questions, but mostly he just listened. Lu sat beside him, listening intently, too. Occasionally, she’d reach into the giant candy box lying open on the table before us, take a piece without looking, and pop it in her mouth.

  Even as I told them about Wes and Toni and Miss Iona’s reporter, I knew I had never done that in my life. I make my assorted chocolate selections carefully, if possible consulting the key that sometimes appears on the lid. Then I nibble around the edges a little bit to confirm the wisdom of my decision before actually putting the whole thing in my mouth. I was in awe of Lu’s fearless faith in her own decisions. I envied her that. And the obvious closeness of her family.

  “When are they supposed to pick up the cards?” Hank said.

  “They’re going to talk to the Rev on Monday,” I said. “So I guess that’s when they’ll schedule a time.”

  He nodded. “I think your reporter is clearly onto something …”

  “He works for The Sentinel,” I said, not comfortable claiming the guy since I’d never even met him.

  “Great paper,” Hank said. “I haven’t heard about this one specifically, but we know they’ve got stuff going all
over the country and this would be right up their alley. Why don’t I make some calls tomorrow and see what I can find out?” He looked at Flora, who nodded her approval, even though I was horning in on her Valentine’s getaway trip.

  “We’ll be back Sunday night in time for the Rev to change his mind before Wes makes his move. Would that help?”

  I was so relieved, I almost hugged him. “Would you?”

  “Consider it done,” he said, smiling, reaching for a piece of candy without so much as a sideways glance, just like his daughter, and popping it in his mouth with the confidence of a sleepwalker.

  FIFTY

  No Regrets

  THE NEXT DAY, I WENT BY MISS IONA’S TO TELL HER ABOUT OUR NEW best friend, Hank Lumumba. She was as relieved as I was, and as worried about the Rev.

  “This is all your mother’s fault,” she said, as we sat in her kitchen talking about everything that had happened and trying to anticipate what would happen next. “If she hadn’t broken his heart and driven him half crazy none of this would have happened.”

  I laughed. “Listen, after last night, I have new respect for the woman. She’s a saint for even trying to stand up to the Rev.”

  “Don’t get carried away.” Miss Iona rolled her eyes. “Is she still headed this way?”

  “She’s got an interview next week,” I said. “That’s why I’m going back to D.C. on Monday.”

  “Aren’t you going to wait and see what happens with the Rev?”

  “I’ll catch him on YouTube.”

  Miss Iona frowned. “That’s not funny, Ida B.”

  She was right, but what’s that saying about laughing to keep from crying? All I could do now was hope that by adding Hank to our team, we could make a stronger case to the Rev. Of course, it wasn’t over once we convinced him of what was going on. Somebody would have to tell Mr. Eddie. I couldn’t even imagine how that conversation would go.