A Different Kind of Blues

by Gwynne Forster

  It was one more thing she’d have to ask forgiveness for, but so be it. Petra laid her head back and howled. How sweet it was!

  Chapter Three

  Petra made some progress in ridding herself of the guilt with which she’d saddled herself, but more than once her absolution came at the expense of those to whom she went for forgiveness. Until he received Petra’s call and met with her as she requested, Goodman Prout had thought himself a happy man. However, as he drove his silver-gray Lexus into his two-car garage, he had a feeling that a lot of time would pass before he regained his sense of well-being.

  After supper—a meal that he didn’t usually enjoy, because in seventeen years, his wife, Carla, hadn’t learned how to cook—he told Carla and his sons that he wanted to talk with them.

  “Can’t it wait, Daddy? I want to watch Grey’s Anatomy.”

  “Tape it,” he said.

  With his family looking at him, expecting the kind of information he usually provided at family conferences—that he had X number of new students, had hired another teacher, planned to buy a new car, or something else indicative of progress—a yoke fell on his neck.

  He rested his forearms on his thighs, knew that he wouldn’t win unless he looked them in the eye, and made himself straighten up and lean back with an air of authority. “First, I want to tell you that I learned about this yesterday. It began almost twenty years ago, but I was not made aware of it. A woman I dated for about a year phoned me and told me she had an eighteen-year-old daughter of whom I am the father.” He ignored their gasps.

  “Her name is Krista, and this afternoon, she came to see me. I—”

  “Get a DNA test,” Paul, his younger son, advised.

  “There’s no point in that. I knew she was mine the minute I looked at her. The Prout genes don’t lie. As I was saying, I knew nothing of her existence until yesterday, and she didn’t know anything about me. I don’t know why her mother chose to tell her now, but she did, and I have to deal with it.”

  “If she’s eighteen, you have no responsibility for her,” Carla said, “so there’s no problem.”

  He looked at his wife, and a cloud of sadness enveloped him. He didn’t want to hurt her, but he realized now that he would. “I’m her father, and the fact that her mother elected not to tell me at a time when I would have assumed responsibility for both of them is not Krista’s fault. She’s innocent in this. She’s my child, and I plan to step up to the plate. If she needs me, I’m here for her. I’m going to give her piano lessons. Incidentally, she has a lovely mezzo soprano voice.”

  “Where does that leave us?” Peter, his older son, asked.

  “I don’t love you less than I ever did.”

  “Am I supposed to embrace her?” Carla asked.

  “That’s up to you. I’m not going to force her on you; indeed, I doubt she would allow me to do that. She wears her pride the way a peacock advertises his plumes. I admired her.” Although he knew it would seem to them as if he lowered the boom, he had to say what came next; if he didn’t, none of them would get the real message.

  “Peter and Paul, I want you to get to know your sister, and I want her to get to know you. I want you to learn to care about each other.” Neither said a word, but both looked at their mother.

  “What are you expecting from me?” she asked him. “You drop this on me and expect me to start dancing?”

  He told himself not to let them rattle him. “If she were the product of a former marriage, how would you react? You would accept her without question. I didn’t ask for this, but I have three children, and I intend to behave as if I have three.” He got up to leave, turned and looked at his wife. “I’m not guilty of anything that’s wrong. If it isn’t pleasant here, it’ll be pleasant somewhere else. By the way, Carla, if Petra had told me she was pregnant, I would have married her, and I’m sure that I would still be married to her. She’s a beautiful and gracious woman. Of course, my life wouldn’t be one-third what it is today.”

  He needed her support, and he hoped she understood that he worked his fanny off days and many evenings not for himself alone, but to give his family the best. He’d bet she was uptight because he’d told her many times how much he’d love to have a daughter, but she’d said she finished childbearing when she had Paul. Petra Fields gave him a daughter, and he meant to make her a part of his life.

  Petra had begun to conclude that the preacher’s counsel wasn’t good for all concerned, and, at times, she doubted if it was good for any of those involved, including her. Yet, she didn’t feel sufficiently confident about her growing judgment of the matter to reject his advice, so she continued her efforts to atone for her wrongdoings. However, when she came to the item on her list for which she had to confess to immoral behavior, she balked.

  “All or nothing,” the old evangelist said when she begged to skip that deed, “and this is my last word on the subject.”

  She arose early one Saturday morning, summoned her courage, and went to her backyard, where she knew she would find her neighbor and friend—a woman fifteen years her senior—gardening in the cool of the morning.

  “Ethel, I didn’t want to tell you this, but—”

  “You up early, girl,” Ethel said, interrupting as she often did. “Come on over and get a cup of coffee. I need to rest a minute. I made some good old buttermilk biscuits, and Fred brought some Smithfield ham home yesterday.”

  “I don’t think I’d better, Ethel. I have something awful to tell you.”

  Ethel stared at her. “Spit it out, then. It couldn’t be that bad.”

  “Yes, it is. I slept with Fred once. It was a stupid thing, and I’m sorry. Can you forgive me?”

  The hoe landed on Ethel Archer’s foot and, with her hands on her hips and her eyes nearly twice their size, she screamed, “You did what? Now, you ain’t standing there telling me you been alley catting with my husband.” She picked up the hoe. “Forgive you? I’ll forgive you all right, just as soon as I chop your ass up with this hoe.” She started toward Petra, who dashed into her house, slammed the door, and locked it.

  “Well, I asked her to forgive me,” Petra said to herself, gasping for breath. “I did my part.” Feeling safer away from the back of the house, she walked to the living room and stood near the picture window looking at nothing in particular, still nervous. Suddenly, she rushed closer to the window and pressed her face to the pane.

  What she saw was not a mirage, but Fred Archer running down the brick walk from his house barefoot and wearing only his jockey shorts. Ethel Archer was on the war path. In the twelve years that she’d lived in the house, she had never closed the blinds at her picture window, only the curtains. She closed the blinds, and with the picture of Fred charging down the walk holding up the jockey shorts that he hadn’t had time to fasten vivid in her mind’s eye, she laughed until she cried.

  Later that morning, she got her shopping cart and prepared to do her weekly grocery shopping. Recently, she had developed the habit of marketing early in the day to avoid being waylaid by neighbors. Since learning of her imminent transition, as she thought of it, her capacity for small talk had greatly diminished.

  About three blocks from her home, she saw Old Joe Cephus—as the man was known around the neighborhood—leaning against the fence around someone’s yard. Old Joe Cephus wore his long rain coat every day of the year, regardless of the weather. With his face blackened by his eighty years and his affinity for being outdoors, the white hair visible from the edge of his black suede hat seemed whiter than it was. The man seemed to have only his walking cane for a companion, and he talked to it almost constantly.

  Petra had disliked the man without reason since she was nine or ten years old. Her steps slowed as she neared him, and when she came abreast of him, she stopped. His apparent alarm didn’t surprise her, because she had always ignored him and avoided him whenever she could. He was on her list, and she figured she might not get another opportunity, so she smiled. Both of his eyebrows arche
d, and his eyes seemed ready to jump at her.

  She reached out in an attempt to put him at ease, but he stepped back. “It’s all right, Mr. Cephus,” she said, unaware that the man’s real name was Ceptuss and that, over the years, people in the community had accepted someone’s bastardization of it. His narrowed eyes failed to stop her.

  “I…uh…never liked you, Mr. Cephus, and over the years I’ve said some nasty things about you. I’m sorry, sir, and I’m asking you to forgive me.”

  He looked in the opposite direction and spit out the juice from his tobacco, sending it a considerable distance. “Ain’t that dandy! I don’t mind a bit, ’cause I guess I’ve said worse things about you than you could even think up. No, siree, I don’t mind a tall. I’m way ahead o’ ya.” He moved away from the fence and walked down the street whistling, his steps sprier than she’d ever witnessed.

  Petra forced herself to move on. Not even when she fell flat on her face while trying to shoot a basket from center court and win the game for her high school basketball team had she felt so foolish. She looked neither right nor left from then until she finished her marketing and was back in her house. The good preacher could say whatever he liked. She was going to tear up that list, and from now on, if she sinned against anybody, she’d ask the Lord for forgiveness. She wasn’t giving anybody else an opportunity to act superior to her. Old Joe Cephus was the last straw.

  While Petra dealt with her list, Goodman and Krista faced the changes in their lives. Goodman sat in his office waiting for Krista to keep her first appointment with him. She’d been given Mondays off, and although Monday was one of his busiest days, nonetheless he agreed to give her lessons on that day. He looked at his watch, saw that it was precisely five-fifteen, and experienced mild annoyance. To his relief the door buzzer sounded, and she walked in.

  “Hi. I ran all the way from the bus stop, because I didn’t want to be late.”

  “You’re right on time.” He handed her three books. “These two are your piano books, and this is for your music theory. They’re equally important. Come with me.”

  She sat at the piano, looked at him, and smiled. “This is wonderful.”

  He pulled up a chair beside her, his head full of pictures of the first time he sat at a piano with a teacher beside him. He put her right thumb on middle C, and the lesson began. He’d planned to spend one hour with her each session, but when he looked at his watch, two hours had passed, and nobody had to tell him that, at that moment, fury raged in Carla Prout.

  “I should be home by now, Krista. You’re such an interesting student that I didn’t notice the time. You have an aptitude for this. I’ll see you same time next Monday.”

  “I hope you won’t get into trouble when you get home,” she said.

  His left eyebrow arched sharply. “I’m not going to school, Krista. I’m going home…after I drop you off.” He noticed that this time she didn’t protest. “Let’s go.”

  His office phone rang and, for a few seconds, he debated whether to answer it. “Hello.”

  “Goodman Prout? I’m Marsha Long. We’re looking for a piano player and director to lead a community choir of thirty-six voices. You may have heard of us, The Oella Choral Ensemble and Orchestra. We’ve recently had six new applicants,” the woman said, “but we don’t want to accept them until we get our new director.”

  He sat down. The woman was asking him to direct one of the best group of singers in the city. “When do you practice?”

  “Wednesday evenings from seven to nine.”

  “Thank you for the invitation, Ms. Long. Tell me where you meet, and I’ll sit in Wednesday, and then we’ll see what’s what.”

  “May I say you’re interested?”

  He didn’t like being pressured, but the woman was dangling a plum in front of him. “You may say that. Yes.” He allowed her to give him the address, though he knew it well. “Thank you. I’ll see you Wednesday.”

  “What was that about?” Krista asked him, and it pleased him that she felt she had the right to ask.

  During the drive to her house, he explained the call. “It’s a great opportunity for me. Before this time next year, I’ll be a fixture in the community, as well known as the conductor of an orchestra.”

  “Will you still have time for me?” Krista’s voice carried a note of fear.

  “I will always have time for my children, all three of them.”

  “What did they say when you told them about me?”

  “What could they say? I explained it to them as precisely as Petra explained it to me. It’s natural for them to wonder if anything that would have been theirs now goes to you. They’re good kids, and if nobody turns their heads, they’ll come through this fine.”

  “Nobody meaning their mother?”

  His head snapped around. Krista had a sharp mind, and he’d have to remember that. “You must understand, Krista, that my family has always been very tightly knit. There’s a slight crack now but, in due course, it will repair itself. Does your mother know you’re with me?”

  “Only if you told her.”

  “So you’re still feuding with her?” She indicated that she was. “I don’t appreciate that. It’s childish. She doesn’t deserve it.”

  “Surely you’re not still in love with her.”

  “No, I definitely am not. I love my wife.” He parked in front of Petra’s house. “Give your mother my regards. I’ll see you next Monday.”

  “Yes, sir,” she held the music books close to her breasts. “’Nite.”

  “What a tragedy,” he said to himself as he drove off. “If I had started her lessons when she was four years old, she could have been a fine classical pianist. What she learned in one hour, some students can’t learn in a week.”

  Goodman enjoyed a developing relationship with his daughter, but, with each passing day, Krista moved farther from her mother. Petra sat at the kitchen table waiting for Krista to come home and eat supper with her. At a quarter of eight, she got up and began heating the food. Where was it written that in order to be a good mother, you had to be a martyr? She only had a few days left, and enjoying them seemed to her the least she could do for herself.

  “Nobody can walk on you unless you make yourself a door mat,” her grandfather liked to say, and she didn’t plan to forget that again. She served herself stewed chicken, dumplings, and string beans, poured ice tea from the pitcher on the table, bowed her head, and said grace. Seconds after she said “amen,” she heard Krista’s key in the lock. She has a cell phone, and she could have used it to call me.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Hi. How did it go at work?”

  “Fine. Piece of cake. It’s so simple that it’s almost boring. But compared to what I could be doing, it’s great. Any mail?”

  “You got a letter from Howard.”

  “Great.” She started to her room, paused, and headed for the kitchen instead. “No. I’m gonna eat first, in case there’s bad news.” She ate her supper, took the dishes to the kitchen, and cleaned up, then went to her room and closed the door.

  An hour later, Petra acknowledged that Krista didn’t intend to tell her where she’d been since she left work or to share with her the content of the letter from Howard University. “I’m tired,” she said to herself. “Except for that and these occasional headaches, I feel the same as I ever did.”

  She went into her room, sat on the edge of her bed, and let out a long breath. Maybe that’s what’s happening; I don’t remember being tired like this. Oh, heck. Anybody who went through what I did today would be tired. Not one thing I attempted in the office worked out; I walked five blocks out of my way in order to avoid running into Reverend Collins; I came home, cooked a nice supper, and had to wait almost two hours before I could eat it. On top of all that, Krista is acting out, and making my life as miserable as she can. She won’t even tell me whether she’s in contact with her father.

  “Oh, gosh. I promised Mama I’d call her.” She dialed her mother
’s number, something she didn’t do often, because her mother was holier than the Reverend Collins. She could take just so much of her mother’s philosophy about life, best described as a flirtation with hellfire and brimstone. Lena Fields had never forgiven her only daughter for getting pregnant without the blessing of marriage, and she ascribed every problem and every adverse circumstance, however slight or ephemeral, to Petra’s having had sex outside the bonds of holy matrimony.

  “Hello. This is Lena.”

  Petra took a deep breath. “Hi, Mama. I think I need a vacation. I know Krista is eighteen, but I don’t want to leave her alone in this house. Could she stay with you, or would you prefer to stay with her over here? Ever since I told her about Goodman, she goes and comes as she pleases, doesn’t tell me anything she’s doing. She did say she got a job selling linens at the department store, but she got a letter from Howard University today and hasn’t bothered to tell me what’s in it, though I’m expected to pay her tuition. This is getting to me.”

  “If she was mine, and she acted like that, I’d whack her behind. ’Course you know my views on that. If she’d had a daddy to raise her, she’d be more respectful. I’ll stay with her. Just let me know when.”

  “I had a father to raise me,” Petra said to herself, “and he almost turned me against men.” To her mother, she said, “Yes, ma’am. I’ll let you know when I’m leaving.”

  It was well that her mother tamed Krista—and she would certainly do that—before they were both too grieved to accomplish that. It didn’t seem that Krista planned to develop a relationship with her father, and what a pity that was, for she would need him.

  The next day, Tuesday, was one that Petra would never forget. “I need a few weeks leave, Jack. Everything is pressing on me.”

  He pitched his calendar across the room and glared at her.