“I want someone to talk about the goodness of God. I want someone to say, Amen,”
Everyone in the church said it, but no one came forward. A whoosh of air went up in front of her. Now she couldn’t see. Her view was partially blocked because Adam stood up. Why was Adam standing up in front of her? Why was he the only one standing? Oh no.
All of the clapping, whispering, praying out loud in the church ceased. Even Lona’s sobs calmed down. Everyone focused on Adam, expectantly, and even Dodge had the good grace to look shocked.
“Yes, Brother Morson?”
Dodge didn’t call him doctor.
“I want to talk about God’s goodness in how he gives life. I’m a doctor. I’ve seen many things during my training where the situation seemed hopeless, and the person finds a way to pull through. It’s a wonder and a blessing,”
“Amen,” Doris Bomead said.
“There was a time when, a few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of taking care of little Solomon here. He was mighty sick. God led me to know how to take care of him. And I just want to say I’m thankful.”
“Amen, amen,” Doris Bomead said, supporting Adam and the emotion in the church shifted. To Adam.
“When he was sick,” Adam warmed to his words, “he needed prayer. Some here, they didn’t want to pray. Didn’t want to visit such a child.”
Not a sound echoed in the church.
Had First Water ever been really quiet with folks in it? Ruby could never recall someone who had the audacity to confront everyone in First Water. Or when the normally noisy church had been so quiet.
“Maybe they knew who his father was. But one thing,” Adam intoned, gripping a pew in front of him, warming further to his task, “even if we don’t know who his biological father is, we know who his Heavenly Father is.”
“Amen,” Mags nodded her head and giving Solomon a squeeze on his little leg.
“And it’s his Heavenly Father who matters. That’s who matters now, and everlastingly. This child.”
“Yes!” Delie said aloud, urging Adam on. Some laughed.
Ruby didn’t.
“This child is a blessing. We must never, ever forget it. He’s here because of God’s goodness to us.”
The church quieted once more as he laid a hand on Solomon’s little nearly hairless head.
“Amen,” Adam sat down. To Ruby, he looked spent.
“Praise him!” Doris Bomead yelled, and the whole church joined her as they clapped. Clapping? Ruby squeezed her eyes shut. Things got loud at First Water all the time, but people very rarely clapped.
Adam, located a whole pew away from her, stared off into nothing and would not meet her eyes. He had sat next to Mags and not to her. He chose to sit so far from her today, which made her sad, but he must have had his reasons.
Yet, the distance gave her the space to contemplate him, to see him sitting there, looking pristine and crisp in his tan linen suit. Even as he sat back down, he took out a kerchief and wiped his forehead. On the edge of the row, people behind him clapped him on the shoulder as he folded the kerchief and put it back into his suit pocket.
“Yes, well, we sure thank our guest, Brother Morson, for his words, yes we do,” Dodge said haltingly. Ruby could tell he was not pleased at just having been upstaged and laid out all at the same time. She wanted to put a hand up to her mouth and giggle, but today of all days, she must have the correct reaction and approach. She couldn’t react like Delie, as her imp of a sister down the row, giggled just for her.
Ruby reached over, lifted Solomon and kissed the little wisp of light-colored hair on his head. As she situated Solomon on her lap, she wished Adam would look at her and see her as someone who was worthy of him. She wasn’t proper nor was she an elegantly dressed doctor’s wife, leading high society.
A doctor’s wife would need to be educated and have pretty clothes. And to be that, it would take years to get her high school diploma, and nursing school. By the time she had her education, he would probably be long gone elsewhere.
Her best and only option was Dodge. He wanted her the way that she was now. She wouldn’t have to change anything.
Ruby shivered. She didn’t want Dodge or to be a minister’s wife. And she wasn’t going to change no matter how people wanted it, including Lona.
Then it came to her. How she could help Adam.
She could help him to see his purpose in life as a Negro, and be proud of who he is. He could provide so much help. He was a Moses, a great leader. I could show him the way to be a proud Negro and he could show me…What?
He could be more than a mentor, teacher or a friend. A life’s partner? She warmed at the possibility.
Winslow was a small town, similar to where Adam had grown up with his Aunt Lizzie. But despite its size, it was big enough to draw big crowds from surrounding counties during celebrations.
“It’s something for folks to do, to get out and see folk they haven’t seen for a while.” Ruby explained to Adam as he pulled his car up. “I thought you said you weren’t very religious.”
“I’m not.”
“In church, you made a powerful testimony. From God.”
“I don’t have to be on some deacon board to know when I am trying to heal someone. I say a prayer to help guide my hands in the right way, to do the right thing.”
“Did you pray over Solomon?”
“I wouldn’t call it prayer. I asked for help. It’s hard for doctors to see a little one suffer.”
“Thank you.”
When he faced her, a jolt traveled up his arm at the sight of tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. She seemed so resolute, and such a pillar of strength and fortitude. How amazing that she was touched by a simple prayer. “Of course, I still pray to let him draw sweet, even breaths.”
“Me too.”
Adam looked puzzled. “No one prayed for him?”
Ruby shook her head and a hurt look crossed her face, one he would have given anything to remove. “I did. So did my sisters and my father. But my mother,” her voice sounded thick with emotion, but true to her way, she took it and kept on with the words that caused her pain. “She tried to act as if it were all for the best if he died. I guess I can understand now. So I came to the Winslows and found you there. It was God’s hand,” Ruby said, in wonder.
“Or Paul Winslow. Which amounts to the same thing in this town.” Adam slowed down the car as Ruby laid a hand on his arm.
“Thank you,” she said.
Trying to ignore the feeling rising in his arms, he pulled the car to a stop then made sure to come around and open the door for her, handing Solomon to her gently. “You are welcome.” Gathering up all of the picnic things in the small trunk, he made his way to the picnic grounds with her and Solomon in his wake.
The center part of town, away from the mill, train station and general store made up the town square, crowned with an ornate, sand-colored county building, just built about five years ago on one side and the gazebo and the bandshell on the other. The largesse of Paul Winslow had set this large building and Winslow became the county seat of Becker County because of him. Other people of a much lighter hue gathered close to the bandshell and the gazebo. The Bledsoes laid their quilts on the grass, far away from the bandshell. There had been some wooden picnic tables set up on the grassy area, and they put the food there, but everyone around them was from First Water. The separation was clear. “Why don’t you all go closer to the bandshell? Don’t you want to hear the music?”
The gathered crowd silenced and gazed up at him as if he suggested they should all take off their clothes and frolic the middle of the town square.
“This here is the Colored Corner,” Delie piped up in a happy little tone—unhappy, ugly alliterative words she made sound jovial in her little five-year-old treble.
“Will we be able to hear the music?�
�� Adam worried.
“Not really, but who wants to anyway?” Ruby tried to laugh. “The band isn’t that good.” She laid a calming hand on his sleeve. “We have a fine time here, among our own. We don’t want to cause trouble.”
Ruby wanted to explain more to him, but she didn’t have time. She handed him the baby, even though Adam was still puzzled. He put Solomon down on a clean blanket for him to play. Ruby busied herself laying out the lunch of chicken, fruit and cold salads so everyone could help themselves after the long church service. She would have to take time to explain to Adam the white church services were shorter so they got the prime spots first. He seemed to take it personally.
Ruby gathered up a plate of food for Adam, who kept Solomon occupied. As she took it to him, two sources of trouble loomed on the horizon. Reverend Dodge had come in off to her left, and went around to various baskets, filling his belly like a grizzly bear, working his way to the Bledsoes’ area. To her right, the Winslows drove past in their open-air car. Bob, their chauffeur, stopped the car in the shade of a tree and Paul Winslow stared hard over at Adam playing on the blanket with Solomon.
Was he looking at Adam? Or Solomon?
Both of them were his flesh and blood.
And when she thought it couldn’t get worse, Dodge stepped over to the car on Paul Winslow’s side and began talking to him in animated tones. His posture was so subservient she bit her lips at the sight, and tried to steady the queasiness in her stomach. He kept pointing over towards Adam and Solomon and ice water ran in her veins. David then maneuvered himself from behind his father and looked at Solomon for himself. For the first time.
Ruby’s heart leaped in her throat as Bob came around to Paul Winslow’s side and opened the car door, letting him out. The most powerful man in town headed straight for Adam’s blanket—where, as she carried a plate full of food, her whole world froze in place, a thick fear clotting her throat at the thought of losing her child.
Chapter Twelve
Adam could see Solomon was a bright, cheerful child. He tried to trick Solomon with his little stuffed bear, but he wouldn’t be fooled. In his residency, he had seen so much poverty and sadness amongst the children in Michigan, even in homes with married parents. The children wouldn’t play games or show as much intelligence as Solomon did. So far, Ruby and her family had done an excellent job in raising this child.
What would it be like to have a child like this? With Ruby? As he played a hand clapping game with Solomon, he shifted. A certain physical act would have to take place for a child to occur. Ruby was certainly a beautiful woman, but he would not do anything to compromise her ability to get an education. As Solomon laughed at his clapping hands, Adam wished her mother would get rid of the idea Ruby had to marry him or anyone else, least of all, Charles Dodge, who was not worthy of her. Not at all.
Suddenly, Ruby came toward him with a worried look on her beautiful face. Dropping the plate of food in her hands next to him, she sank to her knees and picked up Solomon. In a swift motion, she put him over her shoulder and carried him away. His feelings were hurt. Did she hate him again? “Ruby, what’s the matter? Did I do something?”
The curve of Ruby’s retreating backside stirred him and with some pleasure he noted the womanly beauty of her shape, which was much more evident today in her plain top and skirt. He stood up to follow her, but then realized there were two shadows behind him. Dodge and Paul Winslow.
Dodge chewed on a large, smelly stogie, smoking it with fierce pleasure, as if someone would take it away from him. Adam coughed. Smoking was a detestable habit and he discouraged as many of his patients as he could from the practice. Many Negroes, though, enjoyed the diversion of tobacco in some form, whether as cigars, snuff or chew. A public health menace. “There he go.” Dodge made a big show of gesturing after Ruby and chewing on the end of the cigar. “A right fine looking boy.”
Paul Winslow had his own cigar, which looked just like the one Dodge was chewing. Clearly, he’d given Dodge one of his. Which had to be why Dodge made such a show of smoking it. It made him feel equal to Winslow.
Adam had a brief moment of sympathy for the deluded minister. “Adam,” Paul Winslow acknowledged him.
“Good day, Mr. Winslow.” Adam wished he could call him by his first name.
“Adam, is that Ruby’s baby over there?”
“It was.”
“My God.” Paul Winslow didn’t mind taking the Lord’s name in vain on a Sunday or at any other time. “He looks just like David did as a baby. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, less I saw it myself.”
Dodge just stood there, smoking on the stogie looking satisfied.
“Is she taking good care of him?” Paul Winslow asked Adam, all of a sudden.
“I’m not sure what you mean, sir.”
Paul gestured wildly with the stogie. “You know. You’re a doctor. Come on, you have all of your education. Use it. Is the boy healthy and strong? Is he recovered from the time you had to go see about him?”
Adam regarded him. “I’m not in the practice of discussing the health of my patients with people other than their immediate families.”
Paul threw down his stogie and stomped on it. “Listen here. I’m paying a lot for you to be down here to take care of these people. I paid a lot for your education. You tell me right now about her boy. You owe me some information.”
Dodge was doing all he could to keep from smirking at this heated exchange. “Well, sir. While I cannot say what happened with the child, I can say he has fully recovered from his episode.”
“Well, praise God.”
“Yes, indeed,” Dodge agreed grinning broadly.
“Charles, you got a point. The boy needs protection. He shouldn’t be living down there on that farm, Lona and John got borders coming in and out all the time. Heaven knows what’s going on down there at any hour of the day.”
Dodge opened his fat mouth, but Adam stayed him with a hand. Clearly, Dodge was not used to this type of treatment. He would have felt satisfied by his gesture, if he had time, but he had to correct Paul Winslow. “As his doctor, I can tell you he is in excellent care at the Bledsoes. He has plenty to eat, and he’s progressing on pace with his age, even ahead of his age a bit mentally.”
Paul Winslow was the picture of a satisfied cat at this news and Adam could have kicked himself as hard as Ruby had done in the woods. What had happened to his control of his emotions? Had he lost his mind when talking about Ruby and her child? He divulged far more about Solomon than he intended. “Ahead, eh? Blood will tell, won’t it?”
Adam gulped a bit. “Yes, sir.”
“Well, I’m not surprised. Not one bit. He ain’t no typical colored baby. He got good genes. Plain for anyone to see.”
“Yes, sir.” Dodge agreed, smoking like a smokestack, and looking like a fool.
Paul Winslow continued on, “I hear tell it was him being in the house what caused his sickness. Right, Doctor?”
Dodge had the nerve to look very satisfied with himself. He would have asked Paul Winslow where he got his information, but he already knew with his stooge right next to him. “The situation has been resolved. As his doctor, I find his current placement is more than satisfactory and allows for Solomon to grow and thrive. If it were not, I would have sought a different situation for him myself.”
“Solomon, eh?” Paul Winslow reflected.
Once again, Adam could have kicked himself. He didn’t know if Paul Winslow knew the child’s name, but these pieces of information were making Solomon more and more real to Paul Winslow, something he certainly did not want to contribute to. “Yes.”
Paul edged closer to Adam. “Remember who’s paying you. If I need more information about that baby, you need to provide it. Otherwise, you can go on back to Tennessee.”
Adam gave Paul Winslow a steely look. “I don’t have to stay.”
“Good,” Adam kept his voice low. “Because I didn’t want to misunderstand why you sent for me. I graduated at the top of my class at Michigan and may I remind you of my more generous offers, sir. I don’t have to stay.”
Paul stepped back, surprised, either at this information he had divulged or that Adam had the guts to stand up to him.
“There’s lots of towns what needs colored doctors, I guess,” Dodge said smiling.
Paul Winslow was not smiling. “Shut up, Charles,” he sneered. He turned back to Adam. “I heard all that from you before. You stay and take care of the baby, understand? I’ll do what I have to do to make sure he’s protected.”
He stood back and was all smiles again. “Just like I did with you.”
“Yes.” Adam fixed him with another steely look, “I was well protected. But never loved. There’s a difference. Sir.”
Paul Winslow chuckled. “Love don’t buy warm clothes, food, shoes, and a fine Michigan education, now does it? Money does.”
He refrained from saying that a lot of that money had gone into liquor for his caretaker rather than food and clothes for him. The memory chilled him for just a second.
“The answer to everything as you see it,” Adam spread his hands in a gesture.
Paul Winslow lowered his voice again. “The boy needs a daddy.”
Dodge threw his stogie down on the ground and stomped on it in clear imitation of his puppeteer. “He sure do.”
Adam nodded his head. “From what I understand, he has as much of a daddy as I did. I turned out just fine.”
Paul Winslow locked his gaze on him.
A Virtuous Ruby Page 13