The Future Has a Past

by J. California Cooper

  Of course they went on living in that house. That was their home! It was rather decrepit now, cause never no man come to see them, but the preacher sometime. But he never ate there so that will tell you about their money and their times.

  Sedalia still worked hard, even harder because she took over her mother’s jobs. And when Luella was about nine or ten, Sedalia began to work her too. Luella missed a lot of school. No one ever bothered Sedalia about it because Sedalia would look at you with those hard, red-brown eyes and that deep frown on her thin face and tell you right where you could go in a hurry . . . and stay!

  It was natural for me to watch Luella as she grew up. She was a real sad little girl who tried to smile. And when she did smile, her whole body smiled, she was so happy for the kind attention. She was not thin like her mother because Sedalia did feed her own and she kept a good kitchen. Sedalia even got that house painted, one side at a time, every six months or so, until it was all white at last and if one side was brighter for a while, then another, well . . . so what?

  I had younger children and Luella seldom got to have playtime, but I gave her books so she could sort of keep up with something. I had cousins about her age and when I gave her dresses they had outgrown, I would get that smile as she pressed them to her little, plump body. Luella would run home with the dresses and things, then she would come back with them in her arms, quietly crying and say, “My motha’dear say she don’t need no char’ty. We doin alright with God’s help.”

  So, I began to get her to do little chores for me, sweep the porch and stairs Saturday mornings, things like that, and I would pay her. Sedalia never sent that money back.

  I knew Luella liked other children, even little boys, child-like, you know, but Sedalia hated everybody but the preacher and no one could visit that house. Sedalia ran them off if they happen to forget and come visit anyway. Luella would watch them leave, looking through the windows as long as she could see them, then just looking out the window at nothing until her mother called her for chores or something. I had seen her with her hands on her narrow hips, and heard her when I couldn’t see her, say, “You betta remember what I’m tellin you, girl! Leave peoples alone! Ain nobody ever gonna love you but me and yourself! You is ugly! Just ugly, that’s all! They just gonna take vantage of you, leave you with somethin you don’t need! Nor want! It’s just you and me! Blive that! Cause you ugly and your mama is all that’s ever gonna care bout if you eat or live! Me! So you keep your eyes on me and offa them boys! And them dumb girls, they don’t mean you no good neither! They’ll do mean things to you if you don’t watch um!”

  Over and over and over, through the years, Luella heard these words, almost daily.

  Luella cried last night. Again.

  Needless to say, Sedalia dressed Luella dowdily . . . clothes from the secondhand store, even when she started high school. The young woman still tried to smile. She was not ugly and the boys seemed to like her, as a friend, because she was always so . . . so worn looking, so sad. Hair just brushed back over old braids, always braided. While other girls wore bangs and curls in their smoothed hair. Her shoes, run over when she got them, ran over even more and soles soon slapped the ground as she walked, so she just stood still as much as possible or took them off. To hide the holes in her socks, she took them off too and went barefoot, saying, “I like my feet out . . . free!” But some of them stupid kids laughed, pointing fun at her feet. She still tried to smile, sometimes through tears she angrily brushed away, like the joke was with her, not on her.

  Graduation time came and Luella had fair grades and was going to graduate. A boy in about the same shape Luella was in invited her to the prom. Sedalia seemed to go crazy when she heard the word “prom” and screamed at the top of her ragged voice, “Prom! Prom? You ain’t going to no ‘prom’! Are you crazy, with your plumb ugly self? That boy ain’t gonna take you nowhere!” Then Sedalia broke into her own tears and ran to her small bedroom and slammed the door behind her.

  Luella swallowed the huge lump in her throat, and fighting tears, told the boy she guess she better not go. He, the boy was named August something, turned to leave, saddened also, because who else could he ask? Luella leaned way out the door to watch him leave. “Everybody’s always leaving. But not never me.”

  She missed the prom and started right to work on the jobs her mother had found and had ready for her. Said, “Get you some money! That’s what we love! That’s better than a man cause it won’t leave you like a man will! It’s all you ever gonna have, chile, cause ain’t nobody else gonna love you like me, and do you right! That and the fact you just ugly. You ain’t got nothin womanish and soft about you. That’s what a man wants. He don’t want nobody lookin like he do. Like a man do. Like you do!”

  Luella would look through her tears at the cracked, shadowy, mirror in her little room and she didn’t see she was ugly, but she began to question herself. “I ain’t ugly, am I God? Why you had to make me ugly and everybody else pretty? Even Mama, she prettier than me. Oh, God, I don’t want to say it, but I wish everybody pretty would die, just die, so somebody would just HAVE to love me and take me way from here.”

  So Luella turned to wanting a pet, a kitten. Even a bird. Sedalia, hands on narrow hips, said, “Not here in my house! We don’t need another mouth to feed round here that don’t do no work for nothin! They full of germs anyway! I don’t want none in my house!”

  So Luella asked for a puppy, hope in her voice, “He can stay outside in the yard, Mama.”

  “No, she sho can’t! Make noise and dogs eat plenty! Ain’t I enough comp’ny for you? I’m mostly here when you are.”

  “Yes’m.”

  Luella finally stopped asking for things that were alive and would love her. She stopped crying too. She just worked. She set her heart aside and went straight ahead to the next job, to work, to work, to work. Sedalia took most all her money, saying, “You know this house needs things. I can’t do it all. This house gonna be yours someday and it gonna be all you ev’a have, so we better keep it up and save for what it needs. What you need a dress for? You already got a church dress. And I don’t see nobody running round here to ask you out, so where you goin? You don’t need no new dress. You ain’t goin nowhere.” The prom boy, August, was already thrown out of Sedalia’s mind. Dismissed.

  Times went on like that and I heard and saw and felt so sorry, so low over Luella.

  Then I got busy marrying my daughters off and my son coming home from college and moving away to the big city. One of my daughters’ husbands took her away to the city too. But, you know, I didn’t mind because I was tired of the busy life. Getting people up and off to school or work, then going myself. Washing and ironing all those clothes, cooking all those breakfasts and dinners and such. Finding money for all the special little things people getting grown need. Finding time for each one to have the piece of you they need. No . . . I didn’t mind the change of pace in my life. Me and my husband could rest a bit.

  Wasn’t too long though before he liked to died from a sickness and I nursed him well and I told him, “Darlin, you just might as well get well and get up from there, cause we ain’t had much of a life and I don’t intend to spend the rest of my days as a nurse. You get well. We need to do some more living in this world and this house we worked for . . . now that the kids are gone. And we better hurry cause they may decide to come back!”

  Well, he got well . . . and we had about five good years more, together, then he died on me. I was shamed for a while for telling him I wasn’t going to be no nurse for him. If he was here . . . I’d be a nurse for him, gladly.

  But . . . he’s gone . . . and I’m still here . . . so I’m making a life for my own self now.

  And Luella still cries, sometimes, at night.

  It’s a true shame bout all this death, but what are you going to do? Death happens whether you want it to or not.

  Luella was about twenty-five years old when Sedalia got sick. Sedalia was an old woman before her ti
me, not even forty years old. Luella nursed her mama all day every day and did her washing when her mother fitfully slept. I don’t know when that chile slept herself. I didn’t hear no crying though. I guess she was too tired to cry and just went to sleep when her head hit that pillow on the pad in her mama’s room.

  Even Sedalia had to see what a treasure she had because I was there helping her when I heard Sedalia tell her, “I don’t know what I would do without you, Luella. I just don’t know.”

  And I heard Luella answer, “You ain’t supposed to know, Ma’dear. You ain’t never gonna have to know.”

  That’s when Sedalia told Luella in that, now, soft, raspy voice, “See the preacher bout the money, daughter. And I got death insurance for us . . . don’t want to be no burden to ya, cause you gonna be alone . . . soon.”

  That’s when I broke in, saying, “You gonna be alright, Sedalia. You gonna get well,” cause Luella was bout to cry.

  Sedalia died. And Luella spent every dime of that money on her mama’s funeral. It was a very nice one and since all Sedalia ever did was go to church, all the church members came to the funeral. I helped Luella with the reception afterward. The little house was clean and everybody brought food. It was sad, but it was nice.

  Luella took her mother’s death hard because her mother was all she really knew in this world and Sedalia had made that girl think nobody else would ever love her. So? But Luella began to smile at the reception. Grateful that people had come. Most came to eat, but . . . they came.

  The next few days, Luella was sad, but she brought a kitten home, and a puppy, and a bird, too. Happy things were running around her house and she laughed out loud.

  Every Sunday, after church, Luella walked the three miles to the cemetery where her mother was buried and just sat there. Sometimes, most times, she would cry; other times, she would just sit there and think. She was always dressed to look nice at church. “I dress specially nice to go visit my mama cause she always said I was ugly.”

  Luella still cried some of those nights.

  Anyway, that next Sunday we went to church, during the sermon I noticed the preacher kept looking at Luella and he seemed kinda nervous, stumbling on some of his words and thoughts. I thought it was because he was kindly aware of her bereavement. Later I wondered if it was because he was wondering how much she knew of her mother’s business; and I remembered Sedalia had said among her last words, “See the preacher.”

  Later that same evening, the preacher, Preacher Watchem is his name, he came to what was now Luella’s little house to see her. I was already there because we are friends; we have talked a lot over the fence, over the years, and she is like a daughter to me. I did not leave when she invited him in.

  Preacher Watchem a’hemed and a’hawed round with words and it came out that he has some papers from Sedalia to do with business at the bank she had given him for safe-keeping. And . . . he said . . . “A’hem and a’haw, round five hundred dollars, a’hem to give to you, Luella, at this time of her, a’hem, passing on to heaven. Now . . . I don’t a’hem have it now, but I will have it in a day . . . or two, church business, you know, we always helpin people. We gonna be hard put to it to get that much money cause the church need it so bad . . . a’hem, that be why Sister Sedalia wanted us to have it, a’hem and a’haw.”

  Luella mighta thought he was clearing his throat, but I knew he was having trouble getting his throat to bring them lyin words up to his lyin lips.

  He handed Luella the papers as he cleared his throat again, “A’hemmm, these papers here have to do with Sister Sedalia’s savings which she has put your name on. I know, a’hem, she would want the church to, a’hem, have some of this money cause she was a faithful daughter of God. A’haw, and since you gonna have most of this bank money, maybe you will see your way, praise God, to let the five hundred dollars, a’hem, stay in the hands of the Lord, thank You, Jesus.”

  Well, I knew Luella was still weak and soft from all she had been through, so I spoke up and I lied. “No, Reverend (I hated to call him that because I don’t revere no one but Jesus and God and the twelve disciples).” But, I said, “No, Preacher Watchem, Sedalia told me . . . she wanted her daughter to have all that money and the money in the bank. Luella is a young woman without a husband, at this time, and no one else in the world to depend on.”

  The preacher spoke right up, “Well, she can depend on the church, Sister.”

  I spoke up, too. “Well, you just saying how the church don’t have too much cause you got so many to help.”

  He spoke again, leaning toward me, “She got you, Sister.”

  I leaned back at him, “Preacher Watchem, you are right. I am her friend and she can depend on me for whatever I can do, and with that and God and the money her mother left her, too, well, she might can make it. But, she needs all the money possible, owed to her. Like her mother, Sister Sedalia, planned for her.”

  He leaned back in his chair and smiled at Luella, then a little drier smile at me, and said, “Sister, you know, money, a’hem, is the devil’s weapon and he seems to be using you mighty strong to try to keep God from . . . (he tried to think of a better word, but couldn’t) from . . . getting it.”

  I didn’t lean back, I just said, “I’m trying to see that Sister Sedalia’s money goes to who she wants it to go to. You are fighting for the money to stay in or go to your church; God, you say. Who is ‘god’ at your church? Cause I feel in my heart that if God had the money, He would give it to the neediest of all . . . Luella . . . and, by rights, it’s already hers by her mother’s words.”

  Well, the Preacher Watchem got tired of fooling with me and words, so he just said right out, “I knew Sister Sedalia as well, no, I knew her better than you! The church was highest in her mind, above all things! And I ain’t ‘fighting’ over no money, I’m trying to do what’s right!”

  I didn’t say anything. Just looked at him.

  He asked, as he looked at me, slyly, “A’hem, she . . . only told you . . . what she wanted to do with this money?”

  I lied again. “No . . . I blive there were two or three of us there. A little private prayer meeting while she was sick.”

  Luella had been looking back and forth at us as we talked, now she stared at me . . . and smiled.

  Preacher Watchem wanted to stand on that money. “Did she, also, tell you . . . how much she had given me . . . the church?”

  I asked God to forgive me as I lied again, “She kept account of it. I blive it’s in one of her drawers. Luella ain’t had time to look yet, everything so sudden and all, you know. When she finds it, we’ll take these papers, and her list, to the bank . . . I don’t know. I’m just tryin to do the sisterly thing like you would want me to do, Reverend. And, I’ll probably go with her to the lawyers so the bank won’t give her any trouble . . . either.”

  Preacher Watchem stood up, said, “A’hem, well, praise the Lord, Sister. You are an angel in our church. To speed you all along I will look through my papers and have the money here for her day after tomorrow . . . or so. Take her that long to get ready to tend to money business anyway, after such a loss as a mother.”

  Luella spoke, “Yes, sir.”

  Preacher Watchem gave her a look I can’t explain and said, “Well, I’m gonna get on along now. Got more errands of the Lord’s to tend to.” He started toward the door, just a few steps away, then turned back to Luella, “You remember how good the Lord been to you, young lady, and give back to the church.”

  Luella smiled, gently, “I preciate you, Reverend Watchem. I can never forget the church.” Then Preacher Watchem a’hemed and a’hawed his way out the door and on down the walk. Away.

  As I went home, through a few broken slats in the fence we hadn’t bothered to fix since it was a shortcut between our houses, I noticed them tin washtubs were empty of all clothes and dried out because Luella hadn’t gone to pick up any washing jobs. Luella was not working. These were her first days off in more than eleven years. Except Sunday for c
hurch and now her cemetery visit.

  The next day Luella asked me to go with her and we went to the bank. Wellll . . . at the bank, Luella was beneficiary to $4,308.10. Not a lot by some standards, but . . . Her mother had saved it, nickel by nickel, dime by dime, to leave to her child. Obviously. Because she never spent it on herself. I wondered, at last, did the woman, Sedalia, really believe all the terrible things she had told her daughter? About being ugly and unlovable. Was this another way to prepare her, Luella, for a bleak life? An empty future? I would have hated everyone who had set someone’s life on this foolish path to a solitary, lonely life. But I didn’t hate Sedalia because I knew whoever would do that, they must be in pain.

  The money changed things a bit for Luella. The future did not seem so dark or bleak, even if she was alone, because she had a little nest-egg and it proved to her her mother was thinking of her. “I’m not gonna rush and spend it. I’m gonna wait for the money the preacher give me and then I’ll do something round this house.”

  The house was full of secondhand furniture and castaway furniture given to Sedalia by people her mother or she worked for, except for her grandmother’s trunk. They all had been proud of that trunk, no one could touch it, so it must have come to her new. Now it sat in Sedalia’s old room with the imitation cream lace scarf across the top and a blue, slightly chipped vase filled with imitation flowers sitting in the middle of it. Luella kept the lace scarf washed and pressed and the chest dusted and oiled. Her heirloom. All the furniture was bits and pieces of different times and styles but all wood.

  She still bathed in a tin tub and, being slightly plump made that very uncomfortable and she couldn’t sit and soak in the hot water heated on the stove or lean back and drowse on a tired evening. She had to kneel in it, get on with the bath and get out. So she decided she would spend some of the bank money and build a real bathroom. She had started calling her neighbor-friend, “Aunty Corrine,” and she asked her to help her work it all out.