Comfort

by Joyce Moyer Hostetter

  Junior handed him the envelope with Imogene’s handwriting on it. “My friend is looking for Imogene Wilfong,” he said. The woman stood then and come to stand by her husband. The children on the swing had left it and were crowding around too.

  Junior came to my car door and opened it for me. “This is Ann Fay.”

  The man nodded. “Hello, missy,” he said.

  I started working on getting myself out of the car. “I don’t see Imogene,” I whispered to Junior. But he helped me out of the car anyway. And he got my canes for me while I hung on to the car door. But for some reason I didn’t take it. Instead I hung on to his arm and walked without the canes. It made me feel a little stronger.

  That’s when I heard her momma say, “Jesse, get Imogene.” So one of the boys went running into the house, yelling as he went.

  “Imogene, there’s some white folks out here looking for you!” He let the screen door slam behind him.

  The man said, “Did y’all want to come up and sit a spell?” It wasn’t exactly an invitation. Just a question. Like if we said yes, he would let us.

  But that didn’t mean the same thing as him wanting us to.

  “If you don’t mind,” said Junior. So the man turned and the woman did too and we followed them up the sidewalk.

  I noticed that some people at the house next door had come out on the porch. And I heard voices across the street. I knew without looking that everybody in the neighborhood had come out to see what the white folks was up to.

  Junior helped me up the steps and onto the porch swing. “We can just sit out here,” he said. I wished he hadn’t said that. Imogene’s daddy might get the impression we didn’t want to go in their house. All of a sudden I was feeling really white. And analyzing every little thing Junior said and everything Imogene’s family did and everything I didn’t do.

  “I’ll get some lemonade,” said Mrs. Wilfong, and she went inside.

  Then I heard Imogene’s voice. “Who’s here, Momma?”

  “Go on outside and see for yourself. I’ll bring you some lemonade.”

  It was real quiet then, except for some whispers and giggles and Imogene’s crutches in the hallway. And her braces clicking. And maybe the sound of my heart going extra fast. Then a girl came out and it wasn’t Imogene either. She held the door and then I saw Imogene’s face peering out.

  I wish I could say it lit up like a candle, but it didn’t. It might’ve even got a little darker for a second. Like she was thinking, Uh-oh, I got a problem on my hands. But then she smiled and said, “Ann Fay, I do declare. I never expected to see you today!”

  She come through the door on her crutches and stood there and stared at me. I knew it was my turn to say something. “I just wanted to see if you’re okay,” I said. “You haven’t written in a long time.” It sounded like I was accusing her.

  “I’m okay,” said Imogene. Then she looked at the other girl, who was standing there watching the two of us. “This here is my friend Sue Etta.”

  “I’m happy to meet you,” said Sue Etta.

  “I’m glad to meet you too,” I said. But I had a feeling Imogene was telling me she had her own friends now—colored ones—and she didn’t need me anymore.

  Just then I heard her momma’s voice. “Jesse, can you please open the door for me?”

  Jesse, who was busy staring at Junior, jumped up and did just that. Imogene and Sue Etta sat on chairs that Mr. Wilfong pulled up for them. And Mrs. Wilfong came through the open screen door with a tray of drinking glasses with orange and blue flowers painted on the side of them.

  Mr. Wilfong took the tray from her, and she handed me a glass and then gave one to Junior and then Imogene and her friend.

  Jesse wanted to know could he have some lemonade. “Come inside and I’ll get you a cup,” said Imogene’s mother. “That goes for the rest of you too,” she said to the other children. “How do you expect these girls to get reacquainted with you sitting there staring?”

  So Mr. Wilfong rounded up all of Imogene’s brothers and sisters and took them inside. But I wouldn’t exactly say that me and Imogene got reacquainted. We tried. I asked her about school and what she was doing this summer. And I told her about Warm Springs.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t write,” said Imogene. “But I did save your letters. Every last one of them.”

  I nodded. “I have yours, too.”

  “I still got the rose. Do you want to see it?”

  She was talking about the yellow rose the Lion’s Club gave me at the Charlotte hospital. That’s where they took us when Hickory’s emergency hospital shut down. They had put the roses in the train station to honor President Roosevelt the night his funeral train came through. After the train passed, they brought them to us polios. At least to the white patients.

  I gave my rose to Imogene.

  Junior held the screen door, and Imogene and Sue Etta led us into the house. It was hot in there and darker too. It took a minute for my eyes to adjust to the darkness in the front room. There were two couches in the room and some other furniture, but I didn’t pay them much mind. I was busy watching my step on their pretty flowered rug.

  Imogene took me to the corner cupboard, and sure enough, there was the faded yellow rose laying behind the glass on a lace doily. And beside the rose was the letter I wrote her to go with it.

  Dear Imogene,

  I reckon you heard the sad news. I reckon everyone has heard. They give us each a rose that was bought just to honor the president when his train come through town. I want you to have mine. Yellow roses always dry real nice, so I know it will keep for a long time. Keep it forever and always think of me and the best president this country ever had.

  Your friend,

  Ann Fay Honeycutt

  I stood there and read that letter and I had the hardest time holding back the tears. Did Imogene think about me anymore? Maybe it was for nothing that I gave up my precious rose. Maybe it didn’t even mean a thing to her.

  Then she spoke up. “I ain’t forgot what you did for me,” she said. “And I never will.”

  I looked at her and I knew that everything we’d talked about in the polio hospital was real. That, in an emergency, they could break the rules and put blacks and whites side by side in the same hospital. And we could even become best friends—for a little while.

  But maybe other people weren’t ready for blacks and whites to become good friends. And maybe we weren’t ready either. All of a sudden I knew it was true what Imogene had told me in the hospital. There was a muddy wide river between her people and mine. And it would take more than a polio epidemic to get us across it.

  But who wanted another emergency?

  By now I knew I could overcome just about any obstacle I bumped up against. So maybe the real problem was that we all just liked being comfortable. Maybe making changes was too scary as long as things were running along smooth. Who wanted to go stirring up trouble where there wasn’t any?

  I bit my lip to keep from crying, and Imogene must’ve noticed. “Do you want the rose back?” she asked.

  “No!” I said.

  It wasn’t true. I did want that rose. But I didn’t want Imogene to think I was asking for it. I for sure didn’t want her to give it to me. On account of that would be like taking away everything we had between us. And even if we couldn’t be friends in the future, there was no way I was going to take my chances on losing what we had in the past.

  After all, she was the one who helped me see that even something that hurts can make us stronger. You just have to face it, and after a while it starts to get better.

  40

  Pure Comfort

  July 1946

  By the middle of July, when Daddy came by the house he would even come inside. But he always knocked first.

  I noticed Momma made sure there was always a fresh batch of iced tea on Saturday mornings. The twins told me she’d send them out to the garden with cold drinks a couple of times during the day. And she’d set san
dwiches on the porch and he’d come and eat on the steps with them. One time the girls even talked him into a picnic in Mysteria Mansion.

  Part of me wanted to be home on the days that Daddy was there. But at least I had my ride to work and back again in the truck with him. From all I could tell, my daddy was more at peace with himself.

  One Friday evening he came by the house earlier than usual. Otis was with him. Momma was taking clothes off the line, so Daddy went out back to help her. I invited Otis inside for a glass of tea. I told him I couldn’t believe how my momma and daddy were getting along.

  I knew Otis wasn’t a doctor or a preacher or anyone who might really know—but still I believed him when he said my daddy would be all right.

  “I reckon a man is just born for guilt,” he said. “Guilt for leaving his family in time of war. And guilt for what he does to other people’s families. Then he finds himself in danger of ruining the family he wanted to stay home with in the first place. It’s a terrible thing, living with all that guilt.”

  Otis shook his head. It seemed like he was trying to shake some sadness out. “It’s a good thing I don’t have me a family to ruin,” he said.

  “Tell me the truth, Otis. Is he getting better?”

  Otis looked at me. “I’m not going to sit here and act like I’m a fancy doctor,” he said. “But if you’re asking for my humble opinion, I think he’s making progress. For one thing, he don’t seem to have nightmares so much anymore.”

  I didn’t tell Otis what I read in Life magazine about mental hospitals. It scared me too bad to even mention it. But I said, “You know what, Otis? I think you might be doing him more good than any doctor ever could.”

  Momma and Daddy come up on the porch then. Daddy had the basket with the clothes in it. He held the door for Momma to go in first. He stood outside their bedroom door and waited to see what she wanted him to do with the basket. She gave a little nod and he took the clothes in there and put them on the bed.

  Did he notice how she changed the room around—like she was getting a fresh start without him? I figured he must be seeing lots of differences in Momma. It seemed like the bigger she got with that baby, the more sure of herself she was.

  I could see Daddy in their room folding the clothes just like he belonged in that house. And all of a sudden I wished in the worst way that he didn’t have to go back to Otis and his mother’s.

  Momma invited both of them to stay for supper. Daddy put on an apron and peeled the potatoes while the twins set the table and Otis poured the water. Momma made cornbread and heated up some leftover pintos. I chopped the onions for the beans, and they made the tears run down my cheeks. But I felt like having a good cry anyway. And it wasn’t on account of being sad. It was because my family was all in the kitchen together and no one was yelling or tiptoeing around in fear.

  Otis told us stories while we ate. The girls giggled and Momma smiled.

  “Comfort,” said Daddy. “Pure comfort, that’s what this meal is.” But from the way he looked at us sitting around the table and how his eyes landed on Momma’s big belly, I had a feeling he was talking about a lot more than food.

  41

  Getting to Normal

  July 1946

  The next Friday Daddy moved back in. I looked into his blue eyes and tried to see how much of the old daddy was still there. He was grinning real big, but his eyes seemed like they had questions in them. Like he wasn’t so sure how it was going to go.

  In no time his arms were around me. And it felt so natural and so surprising at the same time, like when he picked me up at the Charlotte hospital the year before. It was the exact same moment I found out he was home from the war. But of course he had brought a lot of that war home with him. How much did he bring this time?

  I didn’t want to go to work the next morning, but Mrs. Whitener was expecting me. So Daddy drove me there. He even parked the truck, which made me think he was coming inside with me. But he wasn’t. Instead he joined the men sitting on the bench outside the door.

  I went inside and started wiping down the countertop and straightening things up the way I knew Mrs. Whitener liked them. But I kept my eye on Daddy through the window. Every now and again I would see his head nod. I was real curious about what they were saying. I could hear them but not enough to make out the words.

  Daddy left before Otis showed up at his usual time. There were two other customers when Otis came in, so while I fished him out a dill pickle I didn’t mention my daddy. Instead I asked, “How’s your momma doing?” Of course I already knew his momma had good days and bad days, she did. But for some reason I wanted to hear him say it. I had got to where I was real fond of Otis and his strange ways.

  While I collected money from the next customer, I saw that Otis was watching me. His left eye twitched a little and I thought how sweet he looked, even if his eyes didn’t work together. Would I have noticed that sweet look of his before all the bad things happened? At least polio taught me to see people for more than just the parts that didn’t work right.

  I had a feeling Otis missed my daddy now that he had come home. The next afternoon Otis showed up at our house. I was reading on the front porch when he got there. Momma and Daddy were taking their Sunday afternoon nap just like they always did, which made things seem almost back to normal.

  “I’ll go get Daddy,” I said. “He’ll be waking up any minute now anyhow.”

  “No,” said Otis. “Don’t disturb them. Whatcha reading?”

  I held up the book.

  “Well,” he said, “why don’t you read out loud? I like a story as much as the next person.”

  So I did. I finished the chapter I was on and had started in to the next one when Daddy came out onto the porch, tucking his shirttail in his pants and pushing his hair back with his hand. “Well, look who’s here,” he said. He pulled up a rocking chair for himself and pushed one toward Otis.

  “Nah,” said Otis. “I don’t mind the floor. Your daughter’s a mighty fine reader.”

  “Yeah,” said Daddy. “But there’s something wrong when the children turn out smarter than their parents.” Then he winked at me. “That’s my opinion and it’s worth two cents.” He pulled his knife and a stick of wood from his pocket and started to whittling. “Go on and read, Ann Fay,” he said.

  Well, I almost couldn’t read for the feeling that come over me then. I knew from Daddy winking that he was actually proud of me this time. And the other thing that made me feel so good was how he said that about his opinion being worth two cents. My whole life I’d heard my daddy use that expression—until he went off to the war. I was pretty sure I hadn’t heard him say it since.

  And hearing it now—well, it made me feel like maybe my daddy really was getting back to his old self.

  Otis had a knife and a whittling project in his pocket too. I wanted to just sit there and soak up the look of those two men chipping away at their pieces of wood. But I read to them instead because they seemed to like it.

  After a while Otis got up to leave, but Daddy wouldn’t hear of it. “Don’t rush off,” he said. “It’s time for biscuits and gravy.” So Otis stayed for supper. While he ate lots of Momma’s mashed potatoes he teased the girls and told stories about when he was a little boy.

  I decided I knew why he talked so much. He was lonely. Even if he did live with his mother, she had probably heard all his stories already—maybe a dozen times.

  Just a few evenings later Peggy Sue and her parents came by the house too. The whole family—except for Momma, who had got so big she could barely get down the front steps—was working in the garden. When Daddy looked up and saw the Rhineharts drive in, he said we could pick the rest of the squash and cucumbers later.

  So we all went to sit on the front porch, and Momma poured iced tea. After we drank it, Ellie wanted me and Peggy Sue to go with her and Ida to Mysteria Mansion.

  I hadn’t told Peggy Sue about giving our mansion to the girls, so I started explaining. “The twin
s have taken over Wisteria Mansion since we never go there anymore. I hope you don’t mind. Wanna go see it?”

  I filled her in on the details while we went. “Forget about that place where nothing bad ever happens,” I said. “Ever since the twins got ahold of our mansion, nothing good goes on down there.”

  Once we were inside, Ida and Ellie made us sit and the two of them disappeared for a minute. Then Ida reappeared all dramatic, like she was Shirley Temple herself. “And now,” she said, “Mysteria Mansion presents ‘The Mystery of the Deep Pine Woods.’”

  Ellie came out and said in a creepy voice, “It was a dark night in the deep pine woods, and a little girl named Lula was lost—real bad lost. And there were bootleggers in the woods too.”

  Then Ida pretended to be a bootlegger and Ellie turned into the lost girl. Somehow the two of them acted out a whole play in which Lula found a moonshine still and the bootleggers caught her and stuffed her in the trunk of their car with bottles of whiskey. Policemen chased them around curvy roads, but the moonshiners had real fast cars. A boy named Junior had an even faster car. So he cornered the bootleggers on a dead-end road and rescued Lula. And of course he drove her straight home.

  “That was good!” I said when they finished. “You should’ve told Daddy and Momma and Peggy Sue’s parents to come watch it.”

  “No,” said Ida. “We need more practice. And we need to get some bottles together for the moonshine and find us an old car seat for the car.”

  “Well,” I said, “if you need an old car seat, talk to Otis. He collects a lot of junk around his house.”

  So Ida and Ellie got to thinking of all the things they could ask Otis for the next time he came over. When we got back to the house they went inside to make a list.

  A few days later Otis showed up at the house and they pulled out the list. “Do you have an old car seat?” asked Ellie. “On account of we need one for our play.”