She would have cursed Val’s name but then the notes came. They listed out slowly, with hesitation, and held a kind of quiet sweetness. The tune was not “Nature Boy,” but still Mae felt a gladness that made her confident as she continued up the steps. When she entered the parlor she took in the scene with satisfaction. Gladys sat on the other side of the room, her eyes focused only on the yellow yarn in her hands as she crocheted. Sam and Cecily sat side by side on the piano bench, their thighs just touching. Mae saw Sam place his right hand on top of Cecily’s and noticed how slowly one of his fingers slid down the skin of one of the girl’s.
“No, Cecily,” he said gently. “Start here. This note.”
Cecily said nothing, her gaze locked on Sam as she began playing again, this time hitting every other note wrong. Mae grimaced at the sounds but inside her heart leapt. It was time for her next move. She observed one moment more before blaring out her own bright “Hello!” and enjoyed the way Sam and Cecily jumped in their seat. The warm rose color spread fast over the girl’s face.
“ARE YOU READY?” Mae had proposed the shopping trip a few days ago. The timing had turned out better than she had expected, especially when, after waving goodbye to Sam, Cecily dissolved into a melodramatic mess in the car. Mae said nothing. She crossed her legs and looked out the window. Cecily performed some crazed combination of giggling and sobbing. Mae sighed as though such displays were a common occurrence in her car, no different from a passing storm. She only had to wait for it to end—and they always did.
Mae leaned forward.
“Stop in the park,” she told Lawrence. “Miss Cecily and I are going for a little walk.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Mae smiled, as this change in course was enough to bring Cecily out of herself. The girl sat up and looked around as though she’d forgotten where she was. Mae squeezed Cecily’s knee.
“Feel better?”
Cecily shrugged and nodded and accepted the handkerchief Mae offered. “Why are we stopping?” The car slowed on a tree-lined drive in the northern end of Central Park.
“Because you look like you could use the air,” Mae said as Lawrence came around to open the door. “And a friend.”
Cecily stepped onto the paved park path and began a fast trot as though she were on some expedition to the other side of the world. Mae stood by the car and watched as the girl, her head down, marched on for several steps before realizing Mae wasn’t beside her. She looked back, embarrassed.
“Cecily, where are you rushing off to?”
She looked around, helpless, not knowing what to say or even how to stand. Her hands flew about in front of her, clasping and unclasping, in search of a place to settle. “I’m sorry.”
Mae strolled to Cecily at a luxurious pace, her heels hitting the pavement with the steadiness of a metronome. Mae wondered if the girl could hear the rhythm. Would she ever be able to, or even desire to, imitate it? When she reached Cecily she took the girl’s arm and Cecily, as though learning how to dance, tried carefully to match Mae’s gait.
“Now,” Mae continued. “What was all that fussing about?” She took Cecily by the elbow and guided her over to a shadier side of the walk.
“Sam loves me!” The words poured out of the girl like a glowing stream and her arms splayed out wide so she could splash in the depths.
Mae wanted to laugh at this but only raised an eyebrow. “Does your mother know?”
“No! I’m scared to tell her. I know she has plans for me.”
They paused for two boys chasing a ball kicked across Mae and Cecily’s path. Mae watched them thump over the grass. Then she nodded to Cecily.
“Including marriage.”
“Marriage!” Cecily wiped her damp forehead with the back of her hand.
“She didn’t tell you? Frank Washington. You must know him . . .”
“Sure, he comes around the house a lot. Mama always wants me to spend time with him. He seems nice but . . .”
“But what?”
Cecily flailed at the air with her hands, searching for words.
“He’s so old!”
Mae shrugged and crossed her arms. “Be that as it may, he has a bank account full of very young money. And poor Sam doesn’t have a cent to his name.”
“What am I gonna do? You have to help me, Cousin Mae. I don’t wanna marry some ugly old man!”
Again, Mae suppressed a smile. Walking with the girl brought on a sting of memory, one full of intimacy and knowing. She muffled the thought and shoved it to the back of her brain. She needed to focus. The emotions of the young were so volatile—Mae knew she had to lay the bricks for these next steps carefully. The trust was already there. The affection for Sam? Clearly present. Mae need only work the wires just enough to get Cecily to act. But she mustn’t make her overact. She mustn’t run to her mother or make some ridiculously desperate declaration to Sam. Cecily had to be given enough support, enough hope, to see that moderate action was all that was necessary to get what she wanted—and what Mae wanted.
She stopped and put both hands on Cecily’s shoulders. The warm breeze blew their hair in their faces. “You really think you love Sam?”
“I do! And I know he loves me. We write to each other all the time.”
Mae frowned. “You do? How do you do that without your mother knowing?”
“I put mine in his coat pocket when I’m hanging it up. He leaves his letters for me in my music book in the piano bench.”
Mae couldn’t help but smile then. There was pride in the way Cecily revealed this bit of information—that was good. Mae decided to feed and boost this little failing.
“Very clever! Did you write to him today?”
“Yes!” Cecily kicked at a rock on the walk. She skipped a little into the air. “I didn’t have time to say much. I told him I loved him and couldn’t wait to see him again.”
Mae wanted to shake her head but held still. This girl’s blend of ingenuity and stupidity seemed to have no end. “Well, perhaps there’s something we can do . . .” Mae trailed off and waited for Cecily to pick up the thought.
“But what?” Her arm shook in Mae’s with her trembling.
“I could work on changing your mother’s mind. It would take some time. She really has her heart set on you and Frank.”
“You can do it, Cousin Mae! Mama always listens to you.”
“Oh, but this is very different, Cecily. There’s nothing obvious to turn her against Frank, and there’s even less reason for her to think Sam would be an appropriate match.”
“You’ll try, though, right? Please tell me you’ll try! I don’t know what me and Sam would do if you don’t!”
Mae paused and carefully placed her eyes elsewhere: on the shiny black paint of a lamppost, on the face of the white police officer who did not tip his hat to them, on the polished body of the Packard coming slowly around a curve as Lawrence drove up to meet them. She released a heavy, purposeful sigh.
“All right, Cecily, I will try. But you and Sam must help me. You can’t give your mother anything to be suspicious about. And you have to promise me to be on your best behavior with each other—no sneaking around or being alone with him.”
“Oh, you can trust us.”
“How can I really know that, Cecily? It’s so hard to control yourselves, young love and all.”
Cecily began to pout.
“All right, let’s do this. From now on you must tell me everything and show me everything he writes to you. Only then can I be certain your mother won’t have anything to hold against you.”
She stopped and placed a hand on Cecily’s shoulder. This time Mae’s smile flared cold and sweet.
“And I mean everything. Do you understand? You must trust me completely so I can trust you.”
“Oh, of course! Thank you, Cousin Mae! Thank you! Thank you!”
They were in league now. The shared secret sealed it and Mae’s triumph seemed reflected in Cecily’s grateful glow.
CHAPTER 22
Cecily
Harlem, June 1947
Now that she knew she was expected to marry Frank Washington, Cecily’s tendency to be nice to the man waned as her impatience thickened. He had the annoying habit of visiting right before her music lessons. This gave her precious little time to write to Sam and place the note where he could find it. On this particular day Frank was asking her about her cooking and how much she had learned during her time in the South.
“We used to have a cook who was from Alabama,” Frank said. “She’d go home to visit her family and come back with a haul of fresh peaches. She’d make us peach cobbler with some of them and can the rest so she could bake with them all winter. Do you know how to do that?”
“What?”
“Can food, in jars. Like preserves and tomatoes and collard greens.”
“Oh.” Cecily thought about the pots of boiling water and how she and her aunt had waited for the jar lids to seal. It seemed far away and had little to do with sitting in her mother’s parlor in Harlem. What she did notice was how Frank Washington just seemed to smile at her.
All this man does is smile, Cecily thought. He smiled at her like she had seen the farmers in North Carolina smile at newly purchased livestock—pride in ownership, smug with themselves for making a good deal, like they’d put something over on someone. Frank Washington’s look made her feel penned up like livestock. How different from the way Sam looked at her. She barely heard Frank talk for thinking about it.
Sam made her feel like a locked-up part of her—a part she’d never known was there—had been let loose. It made her feel like her muscles didn’t know how to work anymore, like she could fall down just at the sight of him. And when playing the piano her fingers never found the right notes when he was so near.
When her mother finally walked Frank to the door, Cecily rushed to the table. She could barely think what to write so she scribbled the words she was already saying to him in her head:
Dear Sam,
Did you see that moon last night? A moon like that in the South would make the grass look blue! I hope we can walk in the night like that sometime. I have to write this fast. I wish we could talk in the open. Write to me soon.
C.
She folded the paper quickly and stuffed it in her pocket and leaned against the wall to still her hurried breathing. He would be here any minute now. She remembered how excited she had been to find his first note in the music book, and how amazed she’d been to see her name in his handwriting.
These sheets began to fill the bench and she would feign practicing but really she would be studying the loops of his handwriting. It had the unusual feature of slanting backwards, from left to right, like the letters were falling back into each other’s arms. Then, how precious to see her name written out in those very loops, her name laid out under his hands, as though her name and, in turn, she herself, were clay about to be remade into something more, perhaps something beautiful.
CHAPTER 23
Val
Mercylands, June 1947
The pile of baseballs had dwindled down to six or seven, all nestled in the grass at Val’s feet. He picked one up, tossed it into the air, and swung through. He watched the ball sail across the green before turning his head toward the house. He hadn’t seen Elizabeth all day. At first he was annoyed when Annie appeared in the dining room at breakfast to deliver Elizabeth’s thin excuse of having a headache. Being disappointed was childish, but he had been looking forward to the pleasure of sparring with her in silence—watching her try to avoid his eyes, listening to her talk quiet nonsense to Aunt Rose so she could pretend she was all right.
Last night he had gone to the trouble of writing a note to her. It took a few tries because he thought he sounded too angry in the earlier attempts. Maybe he was a little ticked off—he had every right to be, she had run from him like he was a dog chasing her—but he didn’t want to expose himself to her like that. He had slipped the folded piece of paper under her door himself. He knew he couldn’t send Sebastian. What if she opened the door to give it back? He wanted to be there for the chance to argue with her if she resisted. The finished note read:
Dear Mrs. Townsend,
I can’t believe I’m doing this—sneaking down the halls of my own aunt’s house! Slipping notes under a bedroom door, which is what I’ll have to do with this because after tonight I know you won’t accept it from my hands. I won’t sleep tonight, that’s for sure. How could I after seeing that look on your face? You looked afraid and I don’t get it. What do you have to fear from me? I only admitted—in a moment of weakness you don’t even seem to pity me for—I love you. That’s all I did and I see you’re gonna make me pay for it. I should have kept my mouth shut and kept doing what I was doing: enjoying the love and letting it work its power on me. Did I even bother you before? No. I was happy to watch you, a perfect woman in body and spirit, and to behave for once like a man who might deserve you. I can’t even do that now.
Look, I’m writing this to say I’m sorry, but who’s really the wounded party here? You tell me, Mrs. Townsend. You tell me.
V.
When he put the note under her door nothing happened. It was after midnight, but he knew she was awake. He heard her pacing the floor. He’d thought he would see her at breakfast. She disappointed him, though, and didn’t come down. She took lunch in her room too.
Then he realized his note might be keeping her away. She might be trying to figure out how to answer him. He laughed to think of what she might say in a letter. He imagined her bending over backwards with every word to make sure she appeared proper, to not give him any ideas. He almost felt bad for her. She would work so hard on something that had no chance of succeeding with him, at least not in the way she wanted.
But, really, he had no hope for a letter, not yet anyway. That’s why, he reasoned, she had to come downstairs sometime soon. She probably wanted to confront him, to make a stand for herself.
He bent down and picked up another ball. When he straightened up he caught the motion of yellow—her yellow shirt—just out of the corner of his eye. She was walking on the paths near one of the garden beds. He dropped the bat and walked toward her. Val removed his batting gloves as he approached and after a few moments he realized her movement had stopped. She saw him—in fact she was staring at him, hard. He noticed how she didn’t look to run away, but held her arms straight down and resolute beside her. Yes—he was going to love this.
“Mrs. Townsend!” He happily drew out every syllable of her married name. “Where have you been hiding all day?”
“What? Is that supposed to be a joke?” She seemed to dance a little, shifting from one foot to the next. “How can you ask me that after what you pulled last night? You’re as bad as people say you are! Worse!”
“Now, wait a minute! You saw my note.” He stuffed his gloves into his back pocket and held out his arms as though to prove he had nothing to hide. “What did I do? What did I do that was so bad? I didn’t even try to kiss you! I told the truth. I stated a fact, that’s all I did.”
Her hands balled into fists she pumped down at her sides. Her chin jutted up toward him. “So you say, but that’s what’s so bad. How can a man like you even understand real love? I’m married and the only reason I can see for you to say something like that would be to mess with my peace of mind.”
“Oh, I understand love.” He crossed his arms and lowered his chin so he was almost looking down on her. “Just not the way you do. I see it as a bigger thing. Bigger than the world. Limitless. It’s a waste when you share that kind of love with only one person.”
“I believe it’s a waste when you don’t. What’s life about if you can’t be devoted to one person? It’s like each of us is filled with this special water.” Elizabeth stopped and looked around her. She seemed to see what she needed just past Val and ducked behind him to grab a steel watering can. She dipped her hand into it and shook her wet fingers over the dirt. The water rolled
into dusty beads on the surface of the ground. “You could sprinkle the water all over the place and see your drops dry up and disappear. Or you could pour it all into one place where it can make something live.”
She grabbed the handle of the can and dumped it out fast. The water splashed over Val’s feet and made him leap away from her.
“Hey!”
Elizabeth threw the can aside and pointed at the ground between them. “At the end of the day, Val, did you make something live? Or is your water dried up and gone? That’s how you measure a life.”
Her face burned like the sun and Val almost lost control. He felt the strength drain from his legs and he wanted to collapse to his knees in front of her. He stared into her eyes, only her eyes, and spoke slowly to steady himself.
“But Mrs. Townsend, what if you’ve poured all the water in the wrong place?”
She frowned and blinked like she was hearing him speak in tongues. “What?”
“Come on! I’ve been running around this garden ever since I learned to walk. I know what a lot of these flowers look like in the spring. At first everything is just a bunch of green leaves. You can’t tell what’s a flower and what’s a weed until they bloom.”
“So?”
“So what if you watered what turns out to be a weed?” He waved his arms over the tall pink-petaled flowers nearest to him. “What if you watered a weed and it starts growing and spreading its seed and before you know it, there’s even more weeds and they’re choking the life out of every pretty thing in here?”
Val saw from her deepening frown he had aimed well. Whatever argument she’d been working on was gummed up in her head. Her mouth opened and closed. Then she dared try to dismiss him with a feeble wave of her hand.
“This is ridiculous,” she said. “It doesn’t matter. I have my place.”
She walked away but Val, sensing ground to be gained, stayed with her step for step.
“Then what are we supposed to do, you and me?” he asked. “I think we have a situation here, don’t you?”
Unforgivable Love Page 18