Dark Series, The Color of Seven and The Color of Dusk (Books We Love Special Edition)

by Gail Roughton

  “Paul. This is Macon. Georgia. Doc’s right, he’s not goin’ to be invited to dinner no matter who his papa and brother are!”

  “No, but damn it, Chloe! They could have done better than that. Papa didn’t even educate him!”

  “Now that’s not true, Paul, be fair!” protested Chloe.

  “Not the way he needs to be educated and not the way he can be educated. He’s a smart boy, he can do anything if somebody’ll give him the chance! He could be a doctor, Chloe! Horse vet, hell! And if Papa won’t do it, I will!”

  “But your father and Sadie—”

  “They passed it to me.”

  “All right,” she said quietly.

  “I can teach him so much, and if you’re willing to help me—he needs French. France is the best country for a black man and if you’ll help with that—”

  “I said all right!”

  “You did?”

  “I did.”

  “Oh. Sorry.” He gazed at her quietly a moment and reached up to touch her cheek. “Thank you.”

  “As long as you don’t make the same mistake your father did.”

  “Which is?”

  “Joshua might have a few ideas about what he wants to do himself. Can you handle that? Paul Everett Devlin III?”

  “I’m a lot like Papa, huh?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Well, most of the time that’s all right.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The first class of Paul Devlin’s private school went into session as soon as Paul and Chloe settled into the house on Orange after their wedding trip to Savannah. Joshua almost hyperventilated.

  “Never goan do it! Never! An’ you say you want Miss Chloe teach me to speak French? Mist’ Paul, I can’t even speak English like a white man do!”

  “You can,” declared Chloe emphatically. “You can. You just have to practice.”

  “I can’t!”

  “Josh Devlin,” she declared, hands on her hip, ‘doan you be tellin’ me you can’t do somethin’!” Both Joshua and Paul stood and stared at her as she slipped effortlessly into black speech. “On account o’ you dang well can and I don’t never wanta hear no different outta you! You hear me?”

  Paul grinned and Joshua looked from one of the Devlins to the other as though they had both lost their minds.

  “See?” Chloe dropped the inflection. “I can do it. Because I hear it. Every day. And if I can do something I hear every day—”

  “So can you,” finished Paul.

  “Uhhhh,” Josh moaned softly. Within weeks, even his everyday speech began to change.

  Paul and Chloe were thrilled. Sadie wasn’t. Neither was Doc. He made an unannounced visit one morning and he and Sadie cornered Dr. Devlin the younger in his office.

  “Son, now I know you mean well, but what you’re doing—”

  Sadie broke in. “Mist’ Paul, you goan give dat boy ideas.”

  “I hope so, that’s certainly my intention.”

  “Paul, now damn it, son! Sadie and I talked about this. All the time, all his life. And we know what’s best for him!”

  “Papa, with all due respect—”

  “Now you listen here! I didn’t ask you to take him with you so you could change every plan we ever made for him!” Everett Devlin’s voice rose as his face took on the red tones generally exhibited in persons with high tempers and higher blood pressures. Paul didn’t have high blood pressure and as things would turn out, never would, but on certain occasions, his temper flared in flames equal to his father’s.

  “No, you listen here! He’s watched me while I’ve had everything and he’s had nothing!”

  “Nothing! That’s a goddamn lie, Paul, that boy’s always had—”

  “Nothing! Not in comparison with me! Now you call that a goddamn lie!”

  Everett stared at his son in defeat. Paul was right. He turned on his heel and walked out of the office. He never again raised a protest nor allowed Sadie to.

  Throughout the next four years, the private school continued. During the days, Joshua trailed Paul as he moved around town, learning medicine by watching his brother practice it. Joshua didn’t expect his adult life to be comparable to a white man’s. Nor did he expect to ever again be truly part of the black man’s world. He belonged fully in neither. That was all right, though, he was making his own world. But sometimes, oh, sometimes as he trailed after his brother, as he bent over his books in the evening, he heard the high-pitched lazy voices of his childhood friends. He followed their conversations and felt isolation.

  “Hey! You, Silas! You see dat new maid over to de Crosby’s house?”

  “Yeah, I seen her. ‘An seein’ her be all you goan do, boy, no high-toned colored like dat goan be walkin’ out with no coal-black nigger like you!”

  He wasn’t one of them anymore. Most times that was all right. Most times.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Paul and Chloe were a golden couple, not just in looks. Their marriage was the envy of the town. There was only one fly in Chloe’s ointment. She wanted a child. Not because she felt incomplete or unfulfilled or as though she were only half a woman. Because it would be Paul’s baby, part of him mixed with part of her. Their private monument of partial immortality. Her disappointment grew with every month’s evidence that no baby was coming.

  “If you didn’t worry about it so damn much, we might have better luck.”

  “But Paul! I want a baby!”

  “Darlin’, I am doin’ absolutely the best I can. I have to sleep sometimes.”

  Finally, a few months past their fourth wedding anniversary, two months in a row had Chloe holding her breath. The third month, she started breathing again, knowing her child was finally on the way. Paul settled back stared at her every chance he got. Chloe always glowed, but he didn’t think he’d ever seen anything more beautiful than her carrying this child.

  Doc Everett tried to be more professional.

  “Are you goin’ to deliver that baby yourself, son?”

  “Of course I am. Why? Oh, I know. You don’t trust me to deliver your grandchild. Is that it?” Paul grinned. His father’s professional detachment didn’t fool him one bit.

  “Did you measure her pelvis? She’s so small.”

  “Of course I did. What sort of fool you take me for? She’s just fine, Papa, won’t have a bit of trouble.”

  “But narrow women—”

  “You know as well as I do outward appearances have nothing to do with interior pelvic span. She’s fine.”

  “Well, if you’re sure. But I want you to call me when labor starts. If you do run into trouble—doctors got no business tending their own when trouble starts unless they’ve got no choice about it. Too involved.”

  “And you’re not? But all right, all right. I’ll send for you.”

  When labor began in the small hours of the morning of February 3, Paul saw no reason to call his father from his warm bed merely to pass time while things progressed. Sadie’d remained at the Orange Street house for the last several weeks as the time approached and that was all the help he’d possibly require in the early stages of labor. Sadie’d seen a lot of things happen in childbirth, though. She made sure early in the morning Joshua had Cyclone saddled and ready. Just in case.

  In the end, when the sudden surge of blood burst from Chloe’s body, it made no difference who was in attendance.

  “Oh, my God! Sadie!” Sadie was already out the door calling for Joshua.

  “Quick, son! Get to Doc, tell him de afterbirth’s probably separated, move quick as he can!”

  She slapped Cyclone’s rump as Joshua settled into the waiting saddle. Boy and stallion flew down Orange and onto College Street in the gray February dawn and rushed around to the kitchen.

  Everett was drinking coffee in the kitchen and feeling lonely while his cook sliced ham and cracked eggs into the well-seasoned cast-iron skillet. A man’s children came first and he’d been the first to insist Sadie stay over with Paul and Chlo
e the last few weeks. But it’d been a sacrifice, that was no lie. He didn’t sleep well without Sadie. And he missed Sadie’s eggs, too. Louise’s just weren’t the same.

  “Josh! Son! Is it Chloe?”

  “Sadie says the afterbirth’s probably separated, come quick as you can!” Unconsciously, Joshua’s voice mimicked the underlying panic of Sadie’s voice.

  Everett’s face turned ashen. He stood up, moving so rapidly his chair overturned.

  “Time’s real short, then. Let me take your horse, son. Grab one from the stable and follow me down. And dear God, please tell me you ain’t ridin’ Cyclone.”

  “Sorry,” Joshua threw at his departing back. “I’m ridin’ Cyclone.”

  He caught up with Doc in time to hear Everett’s mumble a simultaneous curse and supplication. “Well, I couldn’t get there any quicker, I don’t guess. Long as the good Lord keeps the damn horse from killing me ‘fore I do.”

  * * *

  Sadie handled the chloroform cone as Paul steeled himself for the first incision. No time to wait on Everett. Why the hell hadn’t he listened to his father, why hadn’t he sent for him when the first pains hit? He lifted the tiny infant, blue-gray, from Chloe’s womb as Everett walked in. A boy.

  “Son?”

  Paul didn’t answer. Everett looked down at Chloe’s still form. The grayness of death settled over the beautiful face as he watched. The face that had always glowed with life. Well. He could do nothing for Chloe. He could do nothing for his grandson. He took Paul’s arm.

  “C’mon, son. Let Sadie take you downstairs. I’ll finish up here.”

  Paul shook off his father’s hand, touching Chloe’s cheek. His low moan, animalistic in intensity, vibrated in the air. Sadie had wrapped the baby’s tiny body in a soft waiting blanket and placed him in the crook of his mother’s arm. Paul stroked the soft skin of his son’s face.

  Then he turned on his heel and left the room. His footsteps, slow, steady, measured, measured his progress down the stairs and out into the first floor hall. Joshua, racing in through the front door, saw his brother’s back, caught the close of his office door and then the turn of the key.

  Everett closed the emergency caesarean incisions with as much care as he would have used on a living patient. Each stitch reminded him he’d never take this grandson fishing. He’d never see Chloe gracing the end of the dining room table again. Lord, Lord, death was a natural part of life and nobody knew it better than Everett Devlin. But its bitterness still tore savagely at his heart.

  Joshua raced up the stairs and stopped abruptly at the open bedroom door.

  “Paul’s done locked himself in his office! Chloe’s not—the baby’s not—”

  Everett sighed. “Just leave Paul alone, Josh. For right now, we’ll just leave him alone.”

  And so the household did. All that day, all that night, and part of the next day. Everett finally knocked on the door.

  “Son?”

  “Go away.”

  “Son, you can’t stay here forever, there’s things has to be handled, decided.”

  “You do it.”

  Everett turned away and did so. He returned several hours later.

  “Paul?”

  “I said go away.”

  “Paul, we have to bury her, son.”

  “I told you to do it.”

  “It’s set for tomorrow. You’re not goin’ to let her go to her grave without you, are you?” Everett cringed silently at the harshness of his words but didn’t know how else to break through Paul’s withdrawal.

  “What time?”

  “Eleven o’clock.”

  “I’ll be ready. Now leave me alone.”

  At ten o’clock the next morning, Paul emerged from his office. He went silently up the steps, to another room, and readied himself for his wife’s funeral. He’d never remember a word of the service. But he’d always remember the sound of the dirt as it hit the coffin.

  “Ashes to ashes and dust to dust…”

  He returned to his house, ignoring all hands, all hugs, all words offered in comfort. He locked himself in his office again, where he remained for the next three days.

  Everett and Sadie debated endlessly.

  “How long you gone let him do dis, Everett?”

  “Oh, God, Sadie, he’s hurting so bad. I just don’t have the heart to keep pounding on the door.”

  “Goan starve hisself sick and drive hisself crazy. Everett, enough’s enough. You doan do something, I will. An’ doan you look at me like dat. He’s my boy, too. I raised him just like I did Joshua.”

  Everett sighed. “Tomorrow, Sadie. Let’s give him till sometime tomorrow.”

  “And if he doan come out, what then?”

  “Then I guess I’ll take the damn door down.”

  Sadie subsided. Joshua, who’d overheard from the hall, planned his stealth mission. He wasn’t about to let his brother get hauled out of his office like a naughty child.

  That night, Joshua took up sentry duty outside the door. Paul shouted and roared. Joshua threatened. And finally, Paul opened the door. Joshua led him upstairs.

  “Won’t go back in that room.”

  “Don’t have to. We got plenty of others.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Paul slept deeply that night, emotionally and physically exhausted. Joshua sat by his bed and guarded his slumbers. The next morning, Joshua brought him piping hot coffee and newly baked biscuits slathered with butter and Paul began the long and painful process of living without Chloe.

  He immersed himself in his work. He’d already taken over a great deal of Everett’s huge practice, much of which was non-paying. That had always been irrelevant to Everett, and it certainly was to Paul. He was grateful for the volume of practice available to him. He moved in and took over more and more of his father’s patients. Everett, content that his people were in good hands, better hands, he felt, than his own, given Paul’s superior education and the vigor of his youth, sat back and abdicated more and more of his professional life to his son.

  Sadie didn’t like it. She didn’t leave any doubt about her feelings, either, to Everett or Paul.

  “Boy goan kill hisself.”

  “He enjoys it, Sadie.”

  “No, he doan. He don’t enjoy nothin’ no more. Just uses it to fill his time.”

  “Same difference right now. Leave him be.”

  Finding no success with Everett, she turned her tongue on Paul.

  “De Bible say ‘physician, heal thyself’, Mist’ Paul. How you goan do dat when you tire yourself out so bad you catch de typhoid or something?”

  “I’m fine, Sadie.”

  “You ain’t. You ain’t fine a’tall. You think deliverin’ every baby in town goan bring yours back? Make Chloe live again?”

  “Sadie, sometimes you’re too smart for words.”

  “Paul. You listen to me.” That got his attention all right. Sadie almost never omitted the ‘Mist’. “I been yo’ mama since you was eight years old. Didn’ you say dat yo’self?”

  “You know you have.”

  “Mamas knows. An’ dis mama knows her boy’s riding for a fall. You ain’t made out of iron, son, you just think you is.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said agreeably. “Now I got some calls over on Woolfolk Street if anybody needs me.”

  He strode away.

  “Ridin’ for a fall, boy! You hear me?”

  He didn’t pause in his stride and Sadie turned away, muttering under her breath. “Kill hisself. Pure-de-kill hisself!”

  Formal lessons suspended in the Devlin household. Paul couldn’t concentrate and had trouble staying still for longer than a few seconds at a time. Joshua mourned Chloe deeply. He didn’t have the necessary concentration either. For the first time in four years, even though Joshua’s days were still spent with Paul in a whirlwind of activity, his evenings were now free. Paul wouldn’t let Joshua come with him on the evening emergencies. And there were a lot of evening emergencies now, si
nce Paul made it clear to every doctor in Macon he’d take any night call anyone got.

  “Why can’t I go?” asked Joshua.

  “Because you’re a growing boy and you need your sleep.”

  “You don’t?”

  “I ain’t grown any in a long time, Josh.”

  “Ain’t what I meant and you know it.”

  “Break’ll do you good, Josh, we’ll start again this fall. Anyway, I probably been pushing too hard. Why don’t you just read when I’m out in the evening? Reading’s the best education you can get, anyway. And besides, you need some time off.”

  “Time off?”

  “I worked you too hard, Josh. I didn’t realize, but you never get out with any of your friends, you never court a girl. I been keeping you in here with your nose stuck in a book.”

  “Learned a lot, didn’t I?” Josh asked proudly.

  “Yes, and I’m real, real proud of you. But Josh, life’s too short. God, it’s too short. Summer’s coming up, won’t get dark ‘til late. Go off with the other boys. Go fishin’, go swimmin’, go courtin’. For God’s sake, just go! Go have some fun!”

  Joshua didn’t have the heart to tell his brother the truth. Which was, he didn’t actually have any friends anymore. So as the lazy spring twilights lengthened into lazier summer twilights, he walked out the back door, onto the porch, and down the steps. He whistled as he walked as though he had a definite destination in mind. He maintained his purposeful stride until he was down the corner and out of sight.

  The first few evenings he did this, he stuck a book under his shirt, out of Paul’s view. He debated walking down to Doc’s and claiming a corner to read in, but rejected the idea for several reasons.

  In his own mind, he was still nothing but an inconvenient problem for Doc and Sadie. He wasn’t comfortable in their presence. He still called them Doc and Sadie, just as he had before he’d known they were his parents, and he didn’t ever plan to call them anything else. Lingering feelings of rejection were hard to overcome. Then, too, they’d ask why he was reading at the Devlin residence on College Street and not in his own room at the Devlin residence on Orange Street. Which meant he’d have to explain Paul had pretty much thrown him out of the house with orders to have fun with his friends. Which meant explaining he didn’t really have any friends to have fun with. He knew Doc and Sadie had always been scared to death his education would cut him off from both the white and black worlds, leaving him in limbo. And since it sort of had, wouldn’t they just jump on that like a duck on a June bug?