The Solace of Water

by Elizabeth Byler Younts

But this was different. It wasn’t just sound. It was music.

  It was a perfect Sunday evening. Tomorrow morning would be a week since Johnny had found Sparrow in the woods. All week I knew I should return Delilah’s pan but I hadn’t. I was afraid that once the pan was returned, we would have no reason to see each other. Like the pan was that small connection we had.

  I walked toward the church, crossing through Delilah’s yard and the road and onto the short gravel drive of the church. Other vehicles were parked at the side in the grass. Maybe eight. Of course this was no place for me to be returning her pan. I could’ve just put it on the porch and walked home—but for my strong curiosity.

  The church door was cracked open. The music now was louder and glorious. I could hear a rhythmic clapping I’d never heard before with singing. Their bold voices sang of freedom and of the River Jordan and of heaven. I envied the freedom that trilled in the evening air. I’d never heard that word used in church. Not in the preaching or in our songs.

  The small congregation went into a fit of clapping and hollering all mixed together when the song was over. Then a singular voice broke through. It was an old woman. The quiver in her tone and pitch reminded me of Matilda Yoder who, when she spoke, sounded like a sweet, wrinkled-up song.

  I held my breath to hear every word. The song was slow.

  “Shine on me. In the morning, shine on me.”

  As the woman sang out, a humming of deep voices began. What was the woman pleading for? As I was trying to understand the words of this song, a man’s voice broke in and the song picked up with more clapping. We didn’t speak or sing with these words. Asking for a lighthouse to shine on us. We used the Ausbund, the oldest songbook that was still used and filled with four-hundred-year-old hymns. Some having come from my ancestors, the Swiss Mennonite, while imprisoned in Switzerland and written to encourage endurance.

  “O may thy servant be endowed, with wisdom from on high.”

  These good words I had known as long as I could remember—it was a line from the second song we sang every church Sunday. But in this moment I realized that I didn’t think on them anymore. Least of all did I pray them. But hearing these new words felt like the hastiness of a stream; I felt the force of them. There was a story in their words too—a different story from mine.

  When the door flew open a pack of small children poured out, running. As they saw me, they slowed. As if I were a rock in a stream, the children flowed around me. They walked with their eyes going from excitement to concern. When they were past me, they ran to the other side of the church where a patient ball had been waiting.

  Then there stood Sparrow. She was silhouetted by the yellow glow of the lights inside. She walked with her head down and held her Bible close to her chest. She wore the same dress Johnny had found her in.

  I should’ve followed my instincts and not my curiosities. I should have put the pan on their front porch and gone home. I was intruding on them—but their songs had washed away my good sense and I had lingered.

  Sparrow looked up and saw me. She rushed down the stairs but remained on the bottom one, so she was taller than me now.

  “What you doing here, Ms. Emma?” Her voice was so small, it sounded as light as the chirp of a bird.

  I stumbled over my words. I couldn’t find them.

  “Your mother’s pan,” I stammered and showed her.

  “But why you here?” She pointed at the place where I stood. “You white.”

  My knowledge of white and colored was so incomplete. But for the bare bones about the Civil War, I didn’t know much of my own country’s history. And as for any town issues I’d heard of, our bishop always told us those things were for the world in all its sinfulness to wade through. They were not for us. But why?

  “I don’t know.” I said it plainly enough that I felt like a child. I pushed the pan into her middle and her Bible flopped inside it as she grabbed it. I turned around and started walking away.

  I made it to the other side of the road when I heard my name. I didn’t stop. It wasn’t Sparrow’s voice and I was afraid to turn around and see Delilah’s disappointment. I’d done something wrong. I’d overstepped a boundary. I’d been naive and stupid. John had been right. I should’ve minded my own business. What purpose was there in making friends with anyone who didn’t follow the same patterned life I led? I didn’t know who I was if I was just the white woman standing at the foot of a church I wasn’t supposed to notice or look at or befriend. Was I just a white person and Deedee just a colored person? Was that all we were? Could we ever be just two people—friends—even though we came from different worlds in our one earth?

  “Ms. Emma. Wait.” The voice was more urgent this time and I could hear fast steps behind me.

  I stopped in the grass next to her garden. My breathing was labored and when I turned around Delilah’s breathing matched mine. Both of us tried to talk but for a few moments we couldn’t. My running and fears had made my heart beat too fast to speak. Maybe Delilah felt the same way. We stared at each other as we caught our breaths.

  Were we not more same than different in this moment? Maybe in many moments?

  “I’m sorry,” I said between breaths. “I was just returning your pan when I heard the singing.” I shook my head. “I didn’t mean to intrude and I keep doing it.” I looked beyond Delilah over to the church and several stared our direction from the small crowd that congregated.

  Delilah, who had not taken her eyes off of me, didn’t speak. She didn’t want to speak with me, I knew that much. Did she despise me? I’d always been known by what I wore and how I lived, but not by my skin. I didn’t know what it was like to be known by my own skin.

  “Why you crying?”

  I began wiping my eyes with the palms of my hands like a child would do. I shook my head because my throat was too full with tears. I could not remember the last time I’d shed any real tears. They’d been numbed or frozen or absent for so long. Sometimes I believed I cried invisible tears. I could feel them, but they couldn’t be seen.

  “Why does Sparrow always remind me that I’m white?” I blurted out, ragged and confused.

  Delilah tucked her chin and raised her eyebrows.

  “You know better than that. You know our colors don’t mix. You live your life. I live mine.”

  “My bishop says the same thing. To keep to ourselves—separate from Englishers.”

  “Are Englishers your color or mine?” Delilah spat out.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It always matters. You white, you know that.”

  But I didn’t know that it mattered, until now.

  “Is it what you want—to be separate?” I couldn’t think of anything more honest to ask.

  Delilah’s sharpened eyes softened. Her brow furrowed and with the tilt of her head I knew she was surprised at what I’d asked. I didn’t know what to expect next.

  “We were fixin’ to have cake and tea. How does that sound?” She raised an eyebrow, making me believe she was doing what was right more than what she wanted to do.

  “Why would you invite me over? I—” I couldn’t find the right words to say that I’d been an intruder and didn’t deserve it.

  She bobbed her head toward the house. “Come on. Besides, Malachi would be upset with me if I just let you walk off without being neighborly and . . .”

  I followed her and moved into step. “And?”

  “And I don’t know,” she said plainly, and I knew she was being honest.

  “I don’t know either.”

  “Then I guess we can agree on that. Come on with you.”

  DELILAH

  When I saw that white woman running away like that, I just knew I needed to see what was going on. When I asked Sparrow why she came, she just showed me the pan. But no one run away like that without something the matter. But if someone would’ve told me that I would be inviting her to my home, to have cake, to fellowship—that would’ve brought back the laughter I’d l
ost so many months ago.

  On the porch I told her that I’d get the tea and cake, thinking she’d rather not come right into my house, but then she followed me inside. Though she’d also done that when she brought Sparrow back. I don’t think she knows the way the rest of the world is about stuff like this. For the first time since I’d met her, I liked her a little bit. That brick wall I been building around myself got a few bricks taken down—not a whole row, mind you.

  “Mama, we having cake?” Mallie asked as soon as I walked in. When he saw Emma, he zipped up his lips like they were sewed shut. He just stood there and then put a hand on Harriet’s shoulder and she stopped her hopping around and looked at me and then at Emma. The whites of their eyes kept bouncing back and forth between us.

  So distant and far from our world was it to have a white woman in our home or one of us in their homes. It wasn’t the way things went in Montgomery, unless it was for a job interview. But then you weren’t a guest. I’d worked in various homes since I was a child, all white, all nicer homes than mine. None of them had been mean to me, but they never invited me into their lives in any way but as a housekeeper.

  “Children, this is Mrs. Mullet,” I said to them.

  “Please, I’m just Emma.” Her voice was soft and lilting. “Everyone calls me Emma.”

  I saw her checking out my home and I was glad it was cleaned up.

  “Hello, Ms. Emma,” Sparrow said, bounding down the stairs. She wore a smile she only wear for Ms. Emma. She’d combed her hair back and her skin had a glow to it. I was glad at least that she’d added a Mizz ahead of her name.

  “Y’all can call her Ms. Emma, if that’s all right.”

  She smiled. “That would be fine.”

  Sparrow stood so close to Emma I couldn’t think straight. I introduced the children and I about fell into a fit when Mallie bowed and Harriet curtsied. Like they never met a white woman before. I supposed it was because she was Amish. They knew a little about them but not much, and none of them ever met any of them.

  “Sparrow, get the tea. Harriet, get the glasses out. Mallie, get the plates.”

  I took off my hat and put it on the hook—I excused myself to put my Carver purse on my bedside table. That’s where I always kept it. I pulled off my earrings while I was in there too. My ears felt all pinched up. When I got back into the kitchen she was still just sitting there. Part of my head wanted to be annoyed that the woman was in my home. She had barged into where she didn’t belong, but I had such guilt over my feelings toward her when she ain’t done nothing wrong.

  I turned toward her. “Why don’t you have a seat right there.” I motioned to the seat that usually sat empty.

  George walked up to her. He had that usual George-look in his eyes, innocence and something akin to a comfortable blanket. He’d been the soft one between him and Carver. Carver was like a pogo stick covered in butter. You couldn’t slow him down or hold him in one place.

  I shook my head to get the image out of my mind.

  “Hi, George,” Emma said.

  He waved hi, even though he was close up. “Hi.” His guttural voice didn’t seem to shock Emma. He must have spoken his few words in the woods that day, outside of all that crying. He didn’t say much and his voice didn’t sound like no other child.

  He pulled out his own chair, which was next to her, then he grabbed out a small ball from his pocket. Emma watched him intently. He rolled the ball down the table to her. She wasn’t fast enough and the ball fell to the floor and bounced. She giggled as she picked it up and rolled it back. I watched for a few moments while I was cutting the cake.

  “Birdie, your hands,” Harriet’s loud voice said. “Them blisters?”

  Sparrow shoved her hands under the table so fast I knew I had to deal with her.

  “Blisters?” I said and my eyes threw darts at her while I served the cake. Sparrow made no move to show me and kept staring down. “What blisters?”

  “I just got myself caught in some stinging weeds. Don’t know what they’re called.”

  “Nettles?” Emma gestured for Sparrow to show her. She reached out and took Sparrow’s hands like it was nothing to touch her.

  Sparrow shrugged.

  “How that happen by accident?” I asked.

  “Just walking to church. I thought they was flowers.”

  She had come after the rest of us and I didn’t know what nettles were or looked like.

  Emma’s brow was all knitted up and when she bit her lower lip, I knew she was thinking on something that she wasn’t sharing. But if Sparrow confused a stinging weed for a flower, I wasn’t surprised. That girl just didn’t have her head on straight no more. For a while there I thought she was going to be somebody. I wanted more for her than I had.

  Saying that in my head sounded so bad. It wasn’t that I didn’t want what I got. I wanted to marry Malachi from the first day I met him in that lighthouse. I wanted to be a preacher’s wife. I wanted to be a mother to a whole brood of children. But I never had a chance to go to college and learn more. I wanted that for all my children. It was hard enough for a colored man to go to college, but a colored woman—it just about made my heart jump into my mouth.

  But now that was all gone for her. She couldn’t do nothing without something bad happening. She couldn’t even walk to church without getting blistered hands. What was wrong with that girl?

  My thinking felt big and heavy. Did Emma think on this sort of stuff about her son? And I didn’t know if she had any other children. I never asked.

  “What is this?” She sipped the tea and then drank another longer drink.

  “Sweet tea?”

  “I’ve never tasted anything like this.” She drank more.

  I nudged Harriet to make her cup full again. I just shook my head for these poor northerners who didn’t know about sweet tea. “You got other children? Besides the boy?”

  “No,” she said, still drinking the tea. “Just Johnny.”

  “All right. Just Johnny.”

  Malachi said that Amish folks had big families. She got me surprised saying she just got the one boy. And he’s older than Sparrow. Couldn’t help but think what was wrong with a woman with only one child. I knew a woman back home who was that way, but she had a whole line of little angel figures on her sink windowsill. Each one of them count as another baby in heaven. Did Emma have little angels all lined up someplace?

  My mind got all curious about her. She didn’t seem like other white women I met before. She didn’t look down her nose at us.

  “I’d love the recipe for this cake and the macaroni from last week,” she said.

  “Well, this is my grandma’s recipe and I don’t think it’s written down nowhere. Same with the macaroni. We just make it.”

  She nodded and smiled. “Us too.”

  I thought maybe I could ask something about her husband, maybe what his job was when Malachi came roaring in like he on fire. That man got his eyes all ablaze and he was holding his suit coat in his hand and his tie pulled loose. He got some sweat under his arms and a big smile on his face.

  “Woo-wee,” he hooted. “It’s been a good day, praise the Lord. Our biggest service yet. Did you know that Brother and Sister Morton drove forty-five minutes to fellowship with us tonight? I should’ve invited them over, but we got to talking and I just—”

  He’d noticed.

  “Hello there,” he said.

  “You remember Mrs. Emma Mullet, don’t you, Malachi? Our neighbor.”

  “Sure I do—sure I do—yes, from the woods,” he said and continued smiling as he walked closer. He held a hand out to her. “How nice to have you in our home, Mrs. Mullet.”

  “Thank you.” She shook his hand. “Call me Emma.”

  “All right then, Ms. Emma.” He looked at me then like he was searching for some explanation he knew I couldn’t give him just now. I gave him my big eyes that said later.

  “You want some cake?” I asked.

  “Oh, no.” H
e rubbed his belly. “Sister Marlene forced a cinnamon roll on me. I couldn’t help myself and ate it while I stood there talking to everybody. A few of the ladies were looking for you. I told them you needed to get the children to bed.”

  He and I both knew that wasn’t the whole truth.

  Emma tensed a bit in hearing that. I thought to tell her that she’d saved me from talking to everyone, but I wasn’t sure which I most wanted saving from. The ladies at church or her. Neither fit into my life. I didn’t want a friend right now. But I didn’t like to see Emma running off like that. It didn’t seem right.

  “I’m going to retire early myself,” Malachi said. “I have to be at the grocery store by five.”

  Mallie stuffed the last bite into his mouth and Harriet stole the rest of George’s piece of cake. She smiled at me when I gave her my face. They both knew that if Daddy was ready for bed, then they got to be ready for family prayers.

  “Come on, my family,” Malachi said with his arms stretched wide and still holding his suit coat in his left hand. Our children folded up their hands—even George and Sparrow—and bowed their heads with their eyes all squinted shut.

  I looked over at Emma and I thought about how Malachi could’ve waited until she went home. Or he could’ve said something to make her feel included or welcomed. Or something. I didn’t know. But I got a bad feeling about this.

  “I should go.” Emma looked like she going to shake right out of her skin.

  Malachi had just shut his eyes and was ready to say some real holy prayer that would’ve impressed the angel Gabriel, but his eyes flew open and he looked at her. My eyes were already on her. Everybody else looked at her.

  “I am intruding again.” She pushed back her chair so fast and hard that the scrape hurt my ears. She stood and gave me a nervous smile. “It’s late and—my husband.”

  I stood also and gave Malachi the stink eye for making her feel uncomfortable. And then I thought about how white she was and how we made her feel in our home. Would this bring us trouble? I didn’t know.

  “You didn’t do nothing wrong, Ms. Emma,” I said. “I’m glad we sat down together.”