I stood there a few minutes, determined to give it a little while longer. Each minute that passed shook my hope a little more. I was about ready to pick up my suitcase and start walking when he finally climbed the steps and called out to me. I’d nearly forgotten how much he looked like Daddy, and in that instant all I wanted was to run into his arms so he could make everything all better.
Running was out of the question, but I did manage to make it to him rather quickly. He smiled and wrapped his arms around me. When I groaned, he let go and stepped back, looking me over more closely. “Ruby, what’s happened to you?”
“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you on the way.”
When we walked around to the front of the building, he lifted my suitcase and threw it in the back of a wagon. I hoped somehow there was a mistake. “I thought you had a car.”
“Had to sell it,” he said.
He took my hand to help me up into the seat behind the mules. I grabbed on and climbed up, holding my breath till I got there. He came around the other side and climbed up beside me, looking at me curiously. I’d already wrapped both arms around my waist and braced myself for the pain that was coming.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Broken ribs.”
His eyes widened. “How did you manage to get your ribs broke?”
“I promise I’ll tell you the whole thing. Just not right now. I need to concentrate on holding myself together.”
“Well, hang on and I’ll do my best to go slow.”
And I suppose he did, but he might as well have been flinging rocks at my head and torso. I tried not to scream out in pain every time we hit a hole or a bump, cause I knew he felt awful. By the time we went the four miles to Grandma Graves’ farm, I was so light-headed and nauseous, I thought I might pass out trying to get out of the wagon. Asa steadied me and helped me inside to a bed near the front of the house. It didn’t take but a few minutes before I was out.
I woke later that afternoon, still a little sore but feeling better. Dry leaves rustled in the cool fall breeze outside my open window. I couldn’t remember ever being at Grandma’s farm, but the room seemed familiar. The dresser near the door was covered with various picture frames, many full of faces I couldn’t quite place. Some I recognized from Daddy’s funeral, and some were of Daddy, Asa, and their older sisters. Grandpa Graves died before I was born, so I never had a chance to meet him. Daddy and Asa looked just like him. Henry favored Daddy a little, and I had his eyes, but James always seemed more like he’d been dropped into our family out of the clear blue sky.
I looked through the pictures a while, trying to place names with faces. Then I made my way to the kitchen to find Asa cooking biscuits and checking on a large pot on the stove. He stopped when he saw me and offered a cool glass of water fresh from the well. I sat at the table and drank it down like I’d been in the desert for days.
“So Henry came through here a while back,” he said. “Told me a little about what’s been going on.”
I wasn’t quite ready to talk about Henry. “Where’s Grandma?”
He put the biscuits in the oven and came over to the table to sit across from me. “She can’t get out of bed anymore. Can barely sit up for that matter.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“Her poor old body’s just quitting on her.”
“She seemed fine a few months ago.”
“She was always good at making you think she was fine. Seems to run in the family.” He raised an eyebrow at me.
“What about…you? Is there nothing you can do? You know, with your gift?”
He shook his head. “It don’t work that way. You know that.”
I did know. Still, I had to ask. “What can we do for her?”
“Best thing is just to love her and keep her company. Talk to her, listen to her, bring her what she needs. All I can do really. Not much you can do to help.”
“I can do all those things so you can do any work around the place that needs it. I can talk and listen as good as anyone.”
He fiddled with his hands on the table before looking up at me with a little apprehension in his eyes. “I have to warn you. She won’t know who you are most of the time. And she talks like she’s in the past. Might be when she was a kid or sometime when me and Abner was kids. Half the time she calls me by my daddy’s name or Abner’s. No telling who she’ll call you, or what she’ll talk about.”
“All right.”
“Just ask me,” he said, “if she says something that upsets you.”
“Are you finally going to tell me what happened all those years ago between you and my parents?”
He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his hands over his face. “I reckon it’s time you knew some things. But why don’t you fill me in on what’s been going on with you first?”
“That could take a while.”
He grinned and leaned back in his chair like he was settling in. “I think time’s on our side here.”
So I took a deep breath and opened the flood gates, pouring out all my missteps and failures. I told him of my certainty of my calling to help Hannah and Samuel, of how much I’d come to care for them, and all the forces that had come against me that had shaken my faith. His face hardened when I told him all the schemes Cass had used. He shook his head and blamed himself.
“If I’d have known he was using my past against you like that, maybe I could’ve done something.”
“I doubt it. Probably would’ve just made things worse.”
“Seems like I can’t ever quite leave it behind,” he said.
“I think it’s Cass that can’t leave the past behind.”
Then I told him about getting attacked in the woods, and how Samuel had led Matthew to me. He nearly lost it at that point, slamming his fist onto the table. “Does Calhoun know about this?”
“He knows about me getting hurt. I didn’t tell anybody who it was.”
“Why not?” He looked at me like I was crazy. “That man needs to be in jail!”
“I can’t seem to think of a way to keep from making things worse. If I tell who did it, then Matthew might actually kill him. Or Chester might kill Hannah. And who’s going to believe me? It’s my word against his, and the only people who know what he’s capable of are a colored woman and a little colored boy! I couldn’t stand it if I brought more suffering on them!”
“Okay, okay,” he said. “I get it. But that man shouldn’t be free to do this to anyone else.”
“Asa, he isn’t the only one who thinks I need to be taught a lesson.”
“What do you mean?”
I didn’t want to say it out loud, but I had to face the truth about what Chester said to me in those woods. “He said it was better that he taught me a lesson now, rather than a bunch a men in white robes after my family.”
Asa’s face went white. He didn’t say anything for a time, and all I could hear in my head was Chester’s voice calling me all sorts of vulgar names as he kicked me in the side and punched me in the head. If his was a merciful lesson, I was sure I didn’t want to bring any more lessons on the rest of my family. I’d never seen those men in white robes, but you didn’t have to see them to know about them. I remembered hearing Daddy talk about them once or twice, and how they were just as likely to teach a white man a lesson about taking care of his family as they were a colored man about where he did or did not belong.
Asa seemed to come to his senses. He went to the stove and took out the biscuits. “The Lord was looking out for you, Ruby. That’s for sure.”
He fixed some broth and a biscuit for Grandma. It seemed like a mutual understanding passed between us that we weren’t going to talk about what happened in the woods anymore, which I was grateful for. I went with him to Grandma’s room, taking a seat near the bed while he propped her up on some pillows. She looked so frail, almost translucent, like she was already part ghost. She smiled up at Asa once he got her settled.
“Thank you, honey,”
she said. I could barely hear her.
He fed her like a child, putting the broth into her mouth then scooping the excess off her chin. I wondered how difficult it must be to see his mother this way. Maybe his memories of her played over and over in his mind. Maybe he missed her scolding him or caring for him. Maybe this was his way of thanking her for all those years.
She didn’t eat much before she turned her head to the side and pushed his hand away. Then he put the spoon back in the bowl and stood from the bed. “Mother, this is Ruby,” he said in a loud voice. “Your granddaughter. Remember?”
She waved a frail hand at him and spoke with a shaky voice. “Of course I remember. I’m not so senile I can’t remember my own granddaughter.”
He grinned at me and left to take the bowl back to the kitchen. I scooted my chair closer to her bed. “How are you feeling?”
“Oh, I’m getting along all right. I reckon the good Lord will come and take me home any day now. But I’m ready.”
I reached for her hand. “I’m going to stay a while and help take care of you if that’s all right.”
“Of course! I’m so glad you’re here, Lizzy.” She patted me on the arm as Asa came back into the room. “You know, Asa loves you so much, dear.”
I had to stop for a minute and think about what she’d just said. Had she called me Lizzy? And why would she say that Asa loved my mother? She must have been confused.
Asa sat down beside me and gave me a pained look. “Mother, this isn’t Lizzy.”
“Of course it is! Look at her. Oh honey, I’m so happy to see you two together. I told you not to worry.”
“Mother,” Asa said, trying to interrupt her.
“Now, listen to your mother,” she said. “I may be old, but I know things. You quit fussing over Abner and Grace. They’re perfectly happy. Got the baby on the way, and everything. You focus on keeping Lizzy happy.” She patted me on the arm again and smiled at me. “You two will be married soon and giving me grandbabies before you know it!”
I pulled my hand back and stood up, walking to the other side of the room. I needed her to stop talking so I could think this through. Asa came over to me with that look again, the one that confirmed everything I was thinking.
“So you. And my mom. You were—?” I couldn’t even say it out loud.
“We were engaged.”
“And my dad?”
“Married to Grace.”
“Who’s Grace?”
He let out a long, heavy sigh. “James’s mother.” But before that could sink in, he said. “And Irwin Cass’s niece.”
That first night at Grandma Graves’s farm was a long one. After she fell asleep, Asa built a fire in a pit out back, and we sat out there all night talking through years of heartache and secrets. I found out everything I’d wanted to know, and many things I wished I’d have never known. I found it almost ironic that I’d determined in my heart that James was no longer my brother, and it turned out that was at least partially true.
Asa explained all the details over the next few nights. That alone could fill up a whole book. As I pieced together my parents’ history I realized how much hurt they’d born, how much they’d both lost, and how God had healed them by bringing them together. Knowing that my mother had raised James as her son, had loved him so well that none of us would have ever suspected he wasn’t hers, was a testament to her humility and capacity for love.
At first I was confused, and I asked so many questions it was hard to get a sense of how it all began and how it all went so wrong. That first night, Asa told me all about my mother as a young girl, how they’d known each other as kids and later fallen in love. Daddy and Asa had been going to Brother Cass’ brush arbor revivals since they were boys, and knew his niece Grace James, as well as her best friend Elizabeth Kellum. Daddy was completely head over heels for Grace, and they were planning on getting married as soon as she finished school. Asa and Mother were talking of marriage too someday, and the four of them were inseparable by the time they were in their late teens.
I had a hard time picturing this as Asa explained. Thinking of my mother as a young girl falling in love with Asa was so foreign. Not to mention the idea of Daddy being married to someone else. But Asa said they were happy, all of them back then. “Not a care in the world,” he said.
“So what happened?” I asked.
“Several things really. All kind of came together at the wrong time. Right about the time I turned twenty, I started traveling more and trying to establish myself as a preacher. A few people had learned of my gift, and I started getting a following.”
“Wait, I thought it was supposed to be a secret.”
He shook his head as he stared into the fire. “I wasn’t as careful as I should’ve been. Lost sight of whose gift it really was. And when a few people got it in their minds that I could heal, things just went the wrong way entirely. All I could see was that my name was spreading, and I justified my actions by thinking that as long as I was spreading the gospel, didn’t much matter if I had to compromise some things along the way. Before I knew it, I was more of an actor in a traveling play than a preacher who was really offering the true healing those people needed.”
He stood and walked around the fire, poking it in places, adding another log to one side. “Anyway, Lizzy saw me changing. She tried to talk to me, but I wouldn’t listen. I thought I was making a better life to offer her, but she didn’t want it. She never really understood my gift anyway, and once it became a show, she all but quit on me. I was devastated. Couldn’t figure out how to convince her of how much I loved her. Abner and Grace had been married a couple of years by then, and she spent more and more time with them. I guess I figured they were conspiring against me.
“That was about the time Cass started after me, accusing me of being a fraud. Said I wasn’t really healing anybody, and I was leading believers astray. I figured Grace thought the same thing since she was his niece, and that she was telling Lizzy and Abner I was a fraud. I just couldn’t take it.”
“What did you do?” I asked. Part of me was dying to know, but this other part of me, the part that loved and trusted him, didn’t want to hear any more of it.
“I accused Abner and Lizzy of having an affair.”
We were both quiet for a long time. I knew this was not going to end well, and I almost stopped him right there. But I also sensed that he needed me to know everything.
“At first they just dismissed me. Grace didn’t believe it; Lizzy was furious and wouldn’t speak to me. But Abner, he was the only one who stuck by me. He tried to talk to me, to explain things and even pray with me. He supported me, even though he never really believed my gift was real. Well, until he needed me.
“I’d gotten so caught up in my own pain that I actually believed Abner and Lizzy were seeing each other. I went to Grace and told her over and over what I thought I’d seen. I hounded that poor girl till she was turned inside out. And one night it just all blew up. She got so upset she went into labor as she was yelling at Abner and Lizzy. They tried to keep her calm, and tried to help her.”
Asa had turned his back on me at that point. I figured it was so I couldn’t see him getting upset. But I could hear his voice straining. “I wasn’t there that night. I’d shut them all out by then, and I was here at Mother’s licking my wounds. I still remember the frantic look on Lizzy’s face at the door. She begged me to come. Said Grace was bleeding so bad that she was afraid both her and the baby were going to die. Said she didn’t know how it worked, but she knew I could help.”
He stopped again, and I could see his shoulders shaking. “I heard him. I heard God tell me to go help her, that I could stop it. But I was so caught up in my own pain, I turned Lizzy away and refused to go.”
He turned around and faced me then, pointing at his own chest. “I let her die. I let Grace die.”
I had no idea what to say, and I was struggling to keep my own tears back. So I sat in that chair and watched Uncle Asa weep, a
s I was sure he’d wept over Grace many times over the years. After a little while, he wiped his face and tried to continue.
“I was so ashamed. Grace was dead, and Abner said he’d never forgive me. Said I might as well be dead too. I lost everything after that night—my brother, Lizzy, my gift. I never heard God speak to me again, till I met you. He showed me that day that I could start to make amends for what I done. That I could help you.”
“When did Mother and Daddy get married?” I asked.
“Lizzy took care of James while Abner was grieving. They became close. I guess it was a couple of years later when they finally married. Henry was born the year after that. You, two years after Henry. Once James was old enough to understand, they were afraid of what the truth would do to him. And I guess they never really could leave the memories behind as long they lived here in Good Hope. So right after you were born, they moved to Hanceville.”
“Wait, so James doesn’t know?”
He shook his head. “He thinks your father hated me so much because I tried to steal your mother from him. And Henry doesn’t even know that much.”
I stood and went to Uncle Asa, putting my arms around his waist. “Thank you for telling me.”
He hugged my shoulders. “Thank you for listening.”
“Maybe now you can truly put all of it behind you and leave it in the past.”
“Trouble is, sounds like Cass ain’t never gonna let it go. He blamed me for Grace’s death, and he’s gonna wrap all that blame and hatred around your shoulders now.”
The next couple of months were the closest I’d ever come to feeling completely free. Even though I spent most of my days taking care of Grandma, cleaning her house, doing her laundry, and canning the last of the vegetables coming in, it seemed as though I’d come up for air after a long battle in a turbulent sea.
I got to know Grandma Graves in the most wonderful way. Though she was gradually slipping away, she’d often talk on and on about her life as a child. I didn’t even mind when she told me the same stories over and over, cause that just cemented them in my mind. I didn’t mind it when she called me Lizzy, or one of Daddy’s sisters. I especially loved hearing about her sister Sarah, the one who’d taught Asa how to use his gift. Sometimes Asa would fill in details for me that Grandma had never known, about miracles and mischief going on behind her back.
Healing Ruby: A Novel Page 27