Emancipating Alice

by Ada Winder

  Expecting a second child added to the other welcome distraction of Elaine getting older and going through her various—almost daily—changes. George had difficulty banishing Candace from his mind, but he was eventually able to shake most of her from him and get his life back to normal. Still, he never stopped thinking about her.

  ***

  Fifteen years had come and gone when Candace contacted him to tell him she was in town for a few days and wanted to meet him. I have something to tell you, she’d said.

  He was excited about seeing her again although a bit worried about what news she had for him.

  They arranged to meet at a coffee shop some distance from his home.

  He spotted her easily and had to restrain himself from running over and grabbing her in a huge hug, spinning her around.

  Candace got up from where she was sitting as he came toward her.

  He admired her as he got closer. She was radiant, and didn’t look a day over thirty, even twenty-five. He wanted to squeeze her tight as they hugged awkwardly but she pulled away quickly. They sat down facing each other and began with small talk that lasted all of one minute, both eager to get the big news over with.

  Nothing prepared him for the surprise she had for him. The thought hadn’t entered his mind that night nor anytime since, so to hear her say he had a son he had no idea about for fifteen years made him feel almost the same way he felt when he scanned the story of the innocent Thomas Gibson from the newspaper in his wife’s hand. He felt the wind get knocked from him, like he would black out, but this was something he did not want to forget upon awakening. He felt simultaneously overjoyed and upset—happy because he had a child with the woman who haunted his life and dreams, a woman he was never able to completely shake, but at the same time, he had missed fifteen years of his son’s life. He was also a bit worried that the information would leak to Alice and devastate her and perhaps, their family.

  “What’s his name?” he asked when he had recovered his voice.

  “Frederick.”

  George nodded in approval, and couldn’t stop his smile. It was a damned good name if he had anything to say about it. He probably would have suggested it himself had he known. He must have mentioned his father’s name in one of their many conversations or else it was quite a coincidence. In any case, he was glad she had not named him after George himself.

  “Does he know who I am?”

  She sighed.

  “Not yet. But I do plan to tell him someday. Soon probably. I would like your input.”

  Now you want my input? he almost said, but he held his tongue. Besides, it was his input that had them in this situation in the first place.

  “So what did you tell him all this time?”

  “To tell you the truth, I had a friend who was willing to marry me and go along with it in order to help protect my name. But he died some years ago in a car accident. My son, he started suspecting my husband was not his real father recently; in fact, he asked me point blank about it. I looked into his eyes and I couldn’t lie to him. You’ll see when you meet him—he’s very hard to lie to. So he’s been asking me about you ever since. But I never gave him any details.”

  She seemed so apologetic, so upset at the situation and so unsure of how to handle it that he now felt sorry for her.

  “What made him think your husband might not have been his real father?”

  She shrugged.

  “Just a matter of looks I suppose. He looks so drastically different from my husband and friend—God rest his soul—Frederick figured he could not have come from both of us. He was convinced he was either adopted or one parent was not telling the truth. No matter what I said I couldn’t convince him. Before he asked me, I told him that things like this happened all the time—that maybe he looked like one of his great-grandparents but he wasn’t buying it. He became convinced his father was white.”

  “Whoa—how did he figure that?”

  “I’ll put it this way—it was all superficial evidence but enough for him anyway: he has light skin and fine, silky, curly brown hair. My husband was even darker than me. We even had strangers ask us if he was really our son. And his friends teased him about being adopted all the time. To tell you the truth, I think even Mama guessed the truth but never said a word about it.”

  George thought for a few moments.

  “Does he look like me? Or you?”

  Candace smiled, and it warmed him from his scalp to his toenails. He had forgotten how lovely her smile was, her eyes turning to liquid, her perfect teeth on display, the one small dimple on her right cheek. How he felt like he was the only one in the world who mattered, how she was the only one in the world who mattered at that point. She was still so very beautiful.

  “He looks like me with a dash of you.”

  George smiled. “Damned good-looking kid then. I can’t wait to see him. So when do I get to meet him?”

  She was still smiling. “Whenever you can. Or want.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  George did not know how to go about arranging a meeting with his son.

  It was not the meeting itself or the venue he had a problem with—his worry had nothing at all to do with the planning. It was what could come after. Would the boy want to make their connection known? Would Alice find out? And if she did, what would she do about it? Would he lose his family? Gain another?

  He had no desire to risk losing his children; Alice would surely try to gain sole custody of them and do everything in her power keep him from seeing them to punish him. He convinced himself that it was rather late in the game, and if anything, Alice would just have to accept the circumstances; they had had too many years together. Besides, it had only been one time he had been unfaithful to her, and that one time just happened to lead to a child being conceived, a child he’d honestly known nothing about for fifteen years. He never meant for what had taken place to happen—not on a conscious level anyway. Still, he wasn’t sure he was sorry it happened, could not bring himself to regret his actions. It was a moment in time and he took it, claimed it. It might have happened under the wrong circumstances but he was glad he’d gotten to know Candace, glad they had built an intimacy. If anything, he regretted letting their relationship slip away, allowing her to extract herself from his life.

  He arranged to meet the two in the coffee shop where he had met Candace before. Making up an excuse for Alice was easy.

  He felt like a groom, waiting for his bride to enter the church as he pulled up to the lot. He tried to imagine what his son would look like to try to distract himself from the excitement he felt at seeing his love once again, doubled by meeting their progeny.

  He walked through the doors and spotted them immediately. Candace’s face lit up. The boy followed her eyes and stared.

  George’s heart nearly split from happiness. He embraced Candace, this hug a bit less awkward than their last, then opened his arms wide for the boy to come into them.

  The boy looked at him strangely for a few moments, then got up and accepted his offer, giving him a more familiar hug than Candace had. Without thinking, George kissed the top of one head, then the other. A few strange, curious looks got thrown their way, as well as a few knowing smiles.

  George sat down with Candace and Frederick sitting opposite him.

  George studied the boy’s face, looking for signs of himself.

  The boy was handsome, no doubt about it, and George felt proud of having produced yet another good-looking child. Elaine wasn’t exactly the most beautiful girl in the world by any means but she sure wasn’t ugly either; in fact, she had most girls beat. Besides that, she was smart too. As for Andrew, he’d been a cute kid and turned out to be a good-looking adult. But this boy here—he was almost pretty.

  “Tell me about yourself,” he blurted out, knowing it was an awkward request, for where would one begin? But Frederick did his best to comply, his mother jumping in every now and then to add her own bits, pride and love on her face. After hea
ring about Frederick’s likes and dislikes, how he was doing in school, his allergies, the beloved teddy bear named Freddy that he never wanted to be without at age four, and his preference for being called ‘Rick,’ George asked him what he planned to study in college.

  Mother and son exchanged glances.

  “Well, he…he isn’t thinking about that right now…”

  “Why not? It’s coming up pretty soon isn’t it?”

  “Well, if I can get a scholarship, accounting,” Rick said.

  George noticed Candace nudge Rick although she was looking away. Then George understood.

  “You can’t afford to go,” he said.

  Rick looked away then.

  “I mean he’s a smart kid, I’m sure we’ll get scholarships,” Candace said, obviously trying to wave away what he knew she saw coming but he went ahead anyway.

  “You know I can—don’t shake your head, he’s my son—I can help him out if you need it. I’ll start an account in your name or his or whatever, put some money in it. I mean even if he gets scholarships, he might still need something extra. Who knows? Hell, college or not, I’m gonna provide for my son. Don’t try to stop me—you can’t do everything yourself.”

  Candace’s eyes dropped but the setting of her face—the gentle, compliant look, expressed gratitude.

  Then she decided to give them a little privacy, leaving their table to sip a drink elsewhere. Rick looked at him shyly, but was still first to speak.

  “I wasn’t sure if you actually wanted to meet me.”

  “Of course I wanted to meet you! Still haven’t quite wrapped my mind around this to tell you the truth.”

  Rick hung his head for a moment. “I guess it was kinda selfish of me to...”

  “Nonsense. It was my own selfishness that brought this about in the first place.”

  “Yes, tell me more about that—how this was all ‘brought about’ like you say. Mom didn’t tell me anything about your relationship. How come you didn’t marry her? Did you have problems back then ‘cause she’s black?”

  George looked away momentarily.

  Candace hadn’t prepped him on how much she wanted Rick to know, but since she hadn’t told him not to and Rick seemed pretty mature, he decided to tell him the truth.

  “Son, it’s because I was already married. Your mother and I...we were friends. We met after your uncle’s funeral.”

  Rick’s eyes widened a little at the information and he nodded his head in understanding.

  He said nothing.

  “Neither of us meant for it to happen, but our relationship—it got deeper. As soon as we saw what was happening—a moment too late—we decided to part ways. I never knew about you until recently.”

  There were a few moments of silence. Then Rick said:

  “Did you love her?”

  George chuckled a bit then looked over in Candace’s direction.

  “I still do.”

  After the three parted ways, George thought and thought about how often he could arrange to see them again. He wanted to be more involved in his son’s life but realized it would be a difficult undertaking, clashing significantly with his established priorities. He tried, but realized the risks quickly.

  He made it clear to Candace that he would break the news to Alice, but wasn’t ready to do so just yet. Meanwhile, he would help fund his boy’s schooling. He worked harder, longer, and had less time to do anything more than be in the background for Rick. He could hardly find the time for Andrew and Elaine. Not to mention Alice. He was at least glad Alice was working part-time to help out, seeing how hard he was working. She was also working because she got bored, and most women worked these days anyhow. Both of their kids were getting ready to go to college—well, three of his and they had to make sure they were prepared for the next few years. Thank goodness Elaine had already gotten a full scholarship. Drew didn’t seem too keen on college, so George wasn’t sure if he’d go but they figured it was best to have the money available anyway. In any case, George had risen quickly through his company, and finally realized one day he did not have to push as hard as he had been. Financially, everything would be fine. He even started to have a little more leisure time.

  He took some of that time to work on an idea that had germinated in his first conversation with his son—a way to help…what were they called these days? African-Americans. A way to help African-American males in honor of his son’s dead uncle.

  ***

  It was another seventeen years before George’s skeletons started rattling to get out of his closet.

  An unfamiliar car pulled up to the yard one day, and a man, well-dressed, in a tailored grey suit, walked purposefully toward the house. He looked suspiciously like his son Frederick, more square to his jaw, well-groomed hair worn a little longer and pulled back in a slick ponytail. George found himself smiling; the boy—well, man now—must have had girls aplenty in the palm of his hand.

  Alice was out back working on her garden but at the commotion, came to the front yard.

  By that time, Rick had reached the door and was about to introduce himself to Alice.

  George was almost at the door when he heard him say:

  “Hello, ma’am. I’m here to talk to your husband for a bit if you don’t mind.”

  He opened the door to see Alice nod, but her nod and her facial expression did not mean anything when put together.

  “Rick! Come in, come in,” he said, gesturing wide. “Alice, this is Rick—I’ll tell you all about it later.”

  He smiled and waved Alice back to what she was doing as he ushered Rick inside.

  Alice was still watching curiously, an uprooted weed in her gloved hand. He closed the door behind them.

  Safely inside, he hugged Rick.

  “Rick, my boy, what’s been going on? Haven’t heard anything for a few years now.”

  Rick let out a breath.

  “I’m sorry about that and I’m sorry about just dropping in like this but I was in the area on business. And I’m afraid I have some bad news as well. Grandma’s in the hospital.”

  “Oh, son…” he started feeling sorry for his son, then he remembered the woman he had spent several precious weeks with, the tender-hearted grieving mother, and felt bad for Candace as well as himself.

  “Is she going to be all right?” George asked.

  Rick looked away, shrugging.

  “Maybe.” He looked back at George. “She’s been asking for you. She wants to see you.”

  “She does? Well, of course I’ll go to see her—just let me know the details and I’m there.”

  Rick told him where she was.

  “Great. I’ll take something with me too. How about flowers? Think she’ll like that?”

  Rick nodded. Then George remembered the first bouquet he took to her home after her son’s funeral. The delight on her face. She would surely like them. Flowers were a common gift, but common for a reason. Maybe he’d add some from Alice’s garden again.

  George nodded his head in finality.

  “I’ll do that then, and I’ll get there as soon as I can. Have to let my wife know about it though…and not only that. As you saw, I’m going to have some explaining to do where you’re concerned.” He looked at Rick then looked down, ashamed. “My wife doesn’t know about you yet. But now, I guess she will.”

  And this time, he wouldn’t have to make up a story about why he’d be gone for several hours.

  PART THREE: ALICE

  Excerpt from Journal #24—09/12/1992:

  Weird factoid: Frogs can actually change the color of parrots! I learned that secretions from a type of toxic frog, when applied over the spot of a plucked feather of a parrot will cause the new feather to grow back in a different color. It’s called tapirage.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Friday, June 9th 2006

  Bloomington, Illinois

  Alice couldn’t concentrate. She’d had an unsettling feeling ever since the silver Mercedes the colored ma
n had exited pulled up to the house, but George seemed to have it under control.

  She continued working on her plants—plucking at unwanted ones, pruning the wanted ones—but her actions bordered on feverish. She was nervous, and she couldn’t understand why.

  Once the stranger left, smiling and waving at her as she came to the front when she heard the car start, she knew she could do no more gardening until she knew what the visit had been about.

  She looked over and saw George standing in the doorway of the front door, watching the car drive away with what looked like tears in his eyes and a slight smile. This was very strange to her to say the least; the visit had been significant.

  She threw down the tools in her hands and started pulling off her gloves as she walked toward George.

  “George, what was that about?”

  He kept staring behind the car although it was no longer in sight, his smile slowly disappearing. Then he turned toward her. He blinked.

  “Alice, you’d better come inside.”

  His tone made Alice feel like she’d been summoned to the principal’s office.

  Once they got into the house he said:

  “Let’s sit down—you want some water? You were out there a while. It’s pretty warm outside; gotta hydrate.”

  She refused to sit.

  “George, just tell me what’s going on; I really don’t have a good feeling about this.”

  His chuckle was almost sardonic.

  “And with good reason,” he said.

  Alice’s heart pounded.

  “George, you’re gonna give me a heart attack here!”

  He reached out and took her hand, sandwiching it in both of his as he liked to do so much.

  “Alice, there’s no easy way to say this. That boy you saw there—he’s my son.”