Home In The Morning

by Mary Glickman

  The Godwins arrived on Wednesday, the same day as the tent scaffolding. They flew to Jackson, which in those days represented a two-stop, seven-hour trip. Guilford boasted a single bed-and-breakfast inn that, while perfectly charming, happened to be far below the Godwin standards. Stella didn’t want to spend the few days before the wedding listening to them whine about sharing a phone line, about their lack of a television or, should they require it, air conditioning, not to mention the annoyance of hearing the conversations of other guests in the hallways or through the paper-thin walls. So she booked them a suite at the best hotel in Jackson, to which they taxied directly from the airport to rest and freshen up before the young couple collected them for a drive to the Sassaport residence, where a getting-to-know-you-all supper with Rabbi Nussbaum was planned.

  The evening started out better than any of them had a right to expect. The Godwins were pleased with the hotel. They greeted Jackson with affection and hugged Stella long and hard as every bride might expect her mama and daddy to do at such a time. They apologized that Seth and Aaron were not able to arrive until just before shabbos, as someone had to mind the factory during the busy season, family wedding or not. The high holidays had caused enough disruption to the management of the assembly line and the shipping office. On the drive to Guilford, they kept their eyes peeled for trouble, staring into the dark night of country roads and twice asked Jackson if he was sure he knew where he was going.

  Mo-ther! Stella said, exasperated. What makes you think Jackson doesn’t know his way home?

  Well, it looks like the very ends of the earth around here, doesn’t it?

  I assure you, it is not. She was about to instruct her mother on her ignorance and provincial judgments when Jackson, fearing the storm about to break out inside the confines of his vehicle, interrupted.

  We’re almost there, Mrs. Godwin. In just a few minutes, we’ll be in the center of town.

  You know, I think you should start calling my husband and me by more familiar names. I’ve never liked it when people call their in-laws Mother and Father as if they didn’t have any of their own. So how about Mildred and Leonard?

  Alright, Mildred, will do. Thank you very much.

  From the back seat, Leonard Godwin put his hand on top of the front seat cushion and pulled himself forward to speak more intimately to his daughter.

  And what do you call Jackson’s parents, Stella? he asked.

  Mama and Daddy.

  He fell back against his own seat, sighed. Of course.

  When they arrived at the house, Perry Nussbaum’s car was parked in the driveway. Stella breathed a sigh of relief, which no one but Jackson noticed. He put his hand on her knee and squeezed.

  Well, here we are, he said.

  Jackson’s parents peered out the doorway, then stood on the front porch, beaming welcome. Rabbi Nussbaum joined them. Between a lot of so-happy-to-meet-you-at-last and can-I-get-you-a-drink, everyone introduced himself, the rabbi included, and the whole lot of them were ushered into the living room, where Eula had laid out crackers and cheese and a bowl of fruit along with a pitcher of sweet tea, as the night was particularly warm. Do you have anything a bit stronger? Mrs. Godwin asked straightaway. It was an awfully long trip.... Well, we do have wine, but that’s for dinner, Mama said in a flustered tone, so Daddy went into his office and clattered about noisily until he popped back out with a bottle of peach schnapps under his bad arm. Locking the bottle under his armpit, he screwed off the top then poured for Mrs. Godwin, who grimaced at the first sip but drank it down anyway. Daddy narrowed his eyes at her, chuckled, then without being asked, exchanged her cordial glass for a larger one and poured again. Mama was busy showing Mr. Godwin her array of family photographs set in their silver frames all over the mantel of the fireplace and noticed nothing.

  We’re picking up the liquor for the wedding tomorrow, Daddy said. Guess you came a day early, darlin’. Mama, there used to be some bourbon in my desk, I know that it’s true. It’s gone now. Who drank it, do you think? My money’s on that rascal Bubba Ray. Where is that boy, anyway? Wasn’t he told to be front and center tonight?

  Oh, I’m sure he’s upstairs, dear. He’ll be down a bit later. She popped a cracker into her mouth to signal to the assembled that they should begin enjoying what was sitting there before them when, at that exact moment, just as if she sat in her own living room instead of being a guest in another’s, Mrs. Godwin said:

  Rabbi, before we partake, would you care to make a blessing over the...

  Her gaze took in the cheese platter, the purple grapes, and sliced Granny Smiths. Her bemused disdain was not so much in her eyes but in her pause, in the angle of the hand she waved over the food before she continued.

  ...the fruits of the earth prepared for this wonderful occasion?

  Mama spit her mouthful out into a cocktail napkin as surreptitiously as circumstances allowed and shook her head in Nussbaum’s direction with a close lipped smile, encouraging the suggestion. Jackson and Stella looked at each other and both saw all hope for a strife-free few days sprout legs and run under the floorboards. Rabbi Nussbaum stood, spread his arms. Baruch a-tah Adonai, he sang, and then everything went directly to hell.

  First, there was the sound of sirens blaring, then columns of red and yellow light flashed across the living room wall from the street. A police car and paddy wagon had pulled up front. Chief Duncan got out of the car with three of his officers to approach the house, walking rapidly with his head down. He held paperwork in one hand and banged on the door with the other.

  What on earth? Mama muttered, signaling to Eula to answer the door.

  The Godwins stood and clung to each other, shrinking back into a corner of the room. Their eyes were wide, panicked. Stella went over to them to say that surely this was not the kind of problem they feared, and for them to please just calm down, no one was going to hurt them, but there were tears in her eyes when she said it. Jackson, the almost-lawyer, opened his mouth to say he’d go see what it was about when the rabbi interrupted him.

  They’ve come for me, he said. I’m very sorry, but I’m sure they’ve come for me. I met Chief Duncan on the street in the capital last week and he told me he thinks my last speech at the Rotary Club was seditious. I have no idea what he meant. It was about a joint faith conference I attended in Mobile. Perhaps he’s found a way to charge me with something....

  Eula came into the living room with the chief and his men behind her. She stepped aside. Chief Duncan handed Daddy his paperwork.

  I’m sorry to have to do this, Doc. Especially as I see you’ve got company. But I have a search warrant here, instructing me to go through your house top to bottom and look for certain stolen goods. Bubba Ray here?

  Mama fell back into the quiet comfort of a well-cushioned chair, buried her head in her hands, and breathed from between white-knuckled fingers: Upstairs, she croaked out, upstairs.

  Chaos erupted. The three policemen charged up to the second floor to locate Bubba Ray, dragged him downstairs, handcuffed and shirtless. Mama shrieked. Daddy got in the chief’s face and wagged a finger at him, shouting about his history with the Citizens Council and his many political connections who would subsequently ruin the man’s career. Rabbi Nussbaum got angry and flustered and charged the chief with taking out their personal disagreements on the Sassaports while Stella began to weep in earnest when the chief’s men rifled through the wedding presents piled up in the foyer. Jackson obtained the search warrant papers and sat down to try to read them carefully amidst all the wailing and shouts.

  He didn’t need to get very far before he could assume with confidence that Bubba Ray had assembled a new crew in the months since Mickey Moe and the others hired off his old one. When he studied the list of objects the police sought, his blood heated up in a hurry. He cursed and left the house, marched over to the police car where Bubba Ray sat cuffed to the inside door handle, brooding. You bastard, he said, waving the list through the open window. A silver
nut bowl engraved “H.L.”? For our wedding?

  Bubba Ray smirked. You accepted it, didn’t you? What did you think? I’m an unemployed high school dropout, you stupid fuck. Where was I going to get the wherewithal for a silver nut bowl?

  If it hadn’t been for a police officer holding him back, Jackson might have punched him out through the window.

  Rabbi Nussbaum drove the shell-shocked Godwins back to their hotel. Stella wept most of the night away, sitting on the couch with Jackson’s arms around her while Mama and Daddy cussed and moaned and helped Eula work until three a.m. trying to put the mess the police made back in order. Lordy, Lordy, Eula muttered more than once, this is just plain mean. They didn’t have to throw everything around like that. Not at all.

  By morning, the Sassaports had got hold of themselves. Mama announced at breakfast that they all needed to drive over to the jail-house and get Bubba Ray sprung. I will not have that child incarcerated. I am afraid I have to assume he has sinned, yes, but he would not survive in an institution, juvenile or otherwise, she said. I need him home with me to help take care of you, Daddy. We would not survive without him.

  I can take care of myself, the doctor said, caressing the sling on his arm, adjusting his eye patch. You grossly exaggerate my disability.

  You cannot drive. I called the jail just now before you all were up. He’s being transferred this morning to the courthouse in the city for arraignment. Bail will be set and we need to be there to post it. Jackson? Why don’t we drop off Miss Stella at her parents’ hotel and then we all can go over to wherever we need to go and pick up Bubba Ray.

  Jackson didn’t respond. He was contemplating the fact that neither Mama nor Daddy seemed to think he’d take care of them in Bubba Ray’s absence. She asked again if he’d drop Stella off and help them collect his brother.

  Now, Mama, you have to prepare yourself, he said slowly. I don’t know if it’s going to be all that easy.

  It shouldn’t have been, but in the end it was.

  On entering the courtroom, Mama nearly fainted catching sight of Bubba Ray parked on the defendants’ bench and dressed in a jailhouse jumpsuit. When the list of charges against him was read out loud by the bailiff, the list was so long Daddy couldn’t take it all in. He retreated within his mind to a hospital ward and began asking court officers if they knew where the requisitions were, growing increasingly agitated when such did not materialize so that his wife was forced to come to herself and seize control. She ordered Jackson to take his father out for some fresh air, which usually helped clear his head. But Mama, Jackson protested, you need my help here. I can explain the procedure.

  No. I know what to do. You just get him out of here. Can’t you see how he’s irritating everybody? I don’t need two men locked away.

  For the next two hours, Jackson walked his daddy up and down in front of the courthouse with the occasional breather of sitting on the steps until Mama appeared at their head with Bubba Ray, now attired in the fresh shirt and pants she’d brought along in a brown paper bag. Her eyes glinted like one mad.

  It’s all over, she said. The charges are dropped.

  Mama, you must not have understood. Didn’t you post bail? Isn’t that what’s going on?

  No. The charges were dropped. Here, read the paperwork you don’t believe me.

  To his great astonishment, Jackson discovered his mother was right. How did you do that, Mama? How?

  It was simple. I requested an audience with the judge and the sheriff in the judge’s chambers. You all think I don’t know what goes on in the world, but I do, I do. You know there’s been trouble around here with the draft board drafting too many coloreds and not enough whites. Even the toughest of these old men are deep-down terrified of the federal government nowadays, so I made them an offer to put them in the clear. I told them that in exchange for my boy’s freedom, Daddy would sign deferments for anyone they wanted. That they could draft white boys all day long but Daddy would make sure they had asthma or flat feet. He still has his license. He’ll sign whatever dotted line they want. Well, Lord, didn’t they get on the phone fast after that. The judge called this one, the sheriff called that one, and all of a sudden Bubba Ray was free. I even got him a job out of it. He’ll be the courier. They’ll pay him to go over to the draft board and pick up the forms and the names and then Daddy will fill them out and sign them and Bubba Ray will bring them back. Keep it all in the family.

  Jackson was appalled, his sensibilities deeply offended. He tried to point out to Mama that rather than let Bubba Ray pay for his mistakes, she was spoiling him worse than ever she did before, and his behavior would get more and more wicked down the line. Plus, she put herself and Daddy in great danger under this arrangement, she was committing federal offenses up, down, and sideways. Mama was having none of it. Why are you so afraid? she asked him. That judge and sheriff and the draft board aren’t going to tell anyone. Neither are the boys who weasel out of the Army. That leaves you. You’re not telling anybody are you, son? Of course not. Now, you just focus on getting married this weekend. We’re going to put all this behind us, tell the Godwins it was a colossal mistake, and have us a party. Isn’t that right?

  No, thought Jackson. It wasn’t right at all.

  But it was what happened. Aaron and Seth arrived the following day. The canvass was hung over the tent scaffolding. The fans were hooked up. The liquor was bought. The catering trucks came at precisely the scheduled hour. The flowers were perfect, Stella was a vision in her dress, Rabbi Nussbaum officiated with panache, and the only snafu—when Aunt Sofie tried to lay her platter of baked oysters with bacon stuffing on the hors d’oeuvres table, claiming it just wasn’t a Sassaport wedding without them—was hushed up in a flash before any of the pitifully few Yankee guests were the wiser.

  TWELVE

  Spring, 1995

  FROM THE DAY THEY WERE married, kitchen maintenance was Jackson’s job. In thirty years, he’d never come to trust Stella with the glassware or crockery. Her idea of a spotless countertop was one that looked tidy when squinted at with the overhead light off. Sometimes, he felt she’d tricked him during the honeymoon, that she’d feigned ignorance of what a properly hygienic kitchen was in order to weasel out of a chore she had no use for. So when Hinds County’s Unsung Civic Hero of 1995 told the others after Katherine Marie’s brunch to go set themselves in the front parlor where she’d join them after washing up, Jackson protested.

  I’ll do that, he said, you must be tired from your big night.

  No, no, no, Stella insisted. It was a big night for everybody. The two of you did all the work so far. Let me do my share.

  Jackson and Katherine Marie settled down on the parlor couch together, photo albums balanced on their knees. They went through old pictures that made them laugh: Jackson with hair to his shoulder blades and muttonchop sideburns the years he worked in Washington for the Civil Rights Commission; Stella standing on a ghetto street corner dressed in a pantsuit, holding her black-bound social worker’s case book aloft the way a preacher does his Bible; Katherine Marie in an Afro that blocked out half the face of whomever she stood beside. There was one of Mombasa that made them both tear up. Although neither could remember the year or the occasion, he stood impressive and impassioned behind an outdoor lectern studded with microphones. A sea of young black students surrounded him. He wore a jellaba, a giant wooden cross was slung around his neck, and his fist was raised, clenched.

  The sound of glass smashing followed by the clatter of tin hitting the floor interrupted them. Stella! What broke? Jackson yelled out. Not much, came her weak response. He made an apology to their guest and rose to see what disaster Stella had wrought. When he got to the kitchen, he found his wife on her knees picking up shards of glass while dishes were so precariously balanced in the dish drainer it was only by the grace of God that a few more plates and pots had not hit the floor. He kicked Stella out to finish the cleanup himself. Because he was thorough, this took a while.

 
By the time he returned to the front parlor, Stella and Katherine Marie nestled together on the couch like sisters. Joined at the shoulder, their feet side-by-side on the coffee table, they held hands and spoke in hushed tones on intimate matters the nature of which he could only guess at from his position just outside the room. Something about Katherine Marie’s children, he gathered from a syllable caught here and there, or Stella’s miscarriages. He heard Mombasa’s name, he thought, and Dr. Carnegie, Stella’s doctor in the old days when they’d lived in Washington those terrible years. Then in the midst of reminiscing, one of them, he wasn’t sure which, sighed in a most sorrowful way. He poked his head around the corner to watch the two women face each other and embrace, at which point Jackson felt it most politic to back off and leave them to their feminine comforts unobserved. When he heard the shift of couch springs, a murmured joke, and small, wry laughter, he guessed they’d moved on from their special moment and coughed to let them know he was about to enter. They pushed apart to make room for him on the couch, both patting the central cushion in welcome.