Diann Ducharme

by The Outer Banks House (v5)

  I heard Charlie ask, “Why are we celebrating, Daddy? Winnie has gone off and left us.”

  Daddy paused for a few moments, then said jovially, “Oh, well. People come and they go, son. You’ll survive.”

  “Mama’s been ill today. I don’t think she wants to go to the hotel,” said Martha petulantly. Martha had been grumpy with Daddy ever since Ben had stopped coming for his tutoring sessions.

  “Oh, she’ll go all right. I’m making an important announcement tonight.” I heard him stomping around the rooms. “Abigail? Where are you?”

  I walked slowly out of the kitchen, my hands wrapped in a dishrag, eyes everywhere except on him. When I did finally raise my eyes to his, my whole face tightened in protest. I would never be able to look at him again without seeing him in a red robe and a devil mask.

  “Wear your best dress tonight,” he said. And from the flatness in his eyes, I didn’t think he would ever be able to look at me again without seeing me as a teacher in a schoolhouse for freedmen.

  Then he galloped up the stairs two at a time, to see about Mama. Mama had been hollering for Asha for two straight days, even though I had told her the same thing that I had told Charlie and Martha. But she kept forgetting, I suppose.

  Apparently Hannah couldn’t make toast nearly as well as Asha could. That morning I had found two burned pieces of bread half buried in the sand, directly under Mama’s bedroom window.

  That evening we all arrived at the hotel with long faces, except for Daddy. He wasted no time in grabbing a waiter and ordering a bottle of champagne. When the bottle arrived at the table, Daddy insisted on popping the cork himself, and the final crack made me flinch.

  He stabbed the flute into the air victoriously, yet his voice sounded as hollow as the now empty bottle. “I want to make a toast, for I am the happiest of men tonight. My daughter Abigail has accepted a proposal of marriage from none other than Hector Newman, whose name speaks for itself here. Our family will soon merge with the Newman house, and we couldn’t be more pleased.”

  Mr. Adams hollered, “To the lovebirds!”

  Daddy finished, “To North Carolina. As we all remember her.”

  I hadn’t even corresponded with Hector since he’d proposed to me. My face flushed with five different emotions, and I put my hands on the edge of the table, ready to push my chair back.

  But the way that Daddy wasn’t even looking at me caused me to stay seated. The air around him vibrated with malice and manipulation. This was my punishment.

  I forced my hand to take a glass of champagne and tap it against Maddie’s and her mama’s. The air resounded with the clinking of glassware and a boisterous “Hear, hear! To Abby and Hector!”

  Maddie sipped her champagne, gazing at me. Then she cupped her little hand to my face and whispered, “For a while there, I was wondering if it wasn’t going to be Mrs. Abigail Fisherwoman.” She raised her voice and asked, “Do you love him?”

  Everyone turned to me, even Daddy.

  I murmured, “Oh, Maddie, hush now. Don’t embarrass me.”

  I began to butter my roll, but Maddie wasn’t done with me yet. Thankfully, she lowered her voice this time. “I liked him. He had some honest quality that you just don’t find in a lot of beaux. Dirty as all get-out, and I declare I’ve never smelled such a stink!” She giggled and drank the remainder of her champagne. Then she said, “But I knew you best of all, Abby. I knew you could fall for a man like that.”

  I shook my head. “You’re wrong. He was my daddy’s guide, an ignorant Banker. That’s all.”

  She scolded, “You can’t hide it now. You’ve got that look about you, even while you’re denying it. You love him still.”

  I suppressed the urge to cover my face with my gloved hands. She was so wrong. I hadn’t even been able to think of Ben without getting angry all over again. My idea of him was now entwined with brutality and secrecy, and I couldn’t separate them to save my life.

  Daddy’s voice distracted me then, when I heard him say quietly to Mr. Adams, “Got my Old North Statesman today. Did you see Zeb’s editorial yet?”

  Mr. Adams grinned from ear to ear. He said under his breath, “Oh, yes. Read it first thing this morning. Made Patience’s burned-up biscuit taste just like heaven.”

  “Best one Viceroy’s ever written,” Daddy said, his eyes glowing malevolently.

  Mrs. Adams picked up on their mutterings, too. “I declare, I can’t believe that man was living just over on Roanoke Island! Imagine, a cold-blooded killer in our midst! My precious Madeleine visited the island quite often this summer. I shudder to think of her crossing paths with that murderer.”

  Maddie squealed, “And how positively awful, pretending to be a preacher. Those darkies will follow just anyone, I guess. I’ll bet they knew all about his murderous past but didn’t see fit to turn him in. They’re all so sinful.”

  Mrs. Adams nodded. “I hope they all crawl back to wherever they came from. They should just leave that island alone and let things settle down. Those island folks haven’t seen a moment’s peace since the war started.”

  I put my knife down carefully and took a deep breath. Then I said evenly, “Mr. Africa wasn’t pretending to be a preacher. He was one. A good one. And that island is a perfect place for those people. I hope they stay.”

  Everyone stared at me openmouthed, silverware and glasses poised in midair. Daddy said calmly, a torn-up roll in his hand, “Don’t speak of things you don’t understand, Abigail.”

  My anger made me reckless, and the ignorance of the present company spurred me on. But my voice trembled when I said, “Our country does still have a legal system, I believe. He didn’t deserve to be killed like that.”

  “Sure he did. He got what was coming to him,” Daddy said. Then he smiled at the table apologetically and crooned, “Come now, Abigail. Let’s talk of weddings, things you know more about than this ugly business.”

  Mrs. Adams’s eyes were still round with surprise when she whispered, “Yes, Abigail. I’m just dying to discuss your plans.”

  I got up calmly and made for the exit. My sea legs were stronger than they’d ever been. I could feel them flexing under my hoops with determination. Maddie smiled hugely at me, enjoying the spectator role for once, and even Mama, who’d remained silent the entire time, looked curiously at me.

  “My, my, Hector sure does have some work to do! Proper doctor’s wife, indeed!” I heard Mr. Adams muse as I walked away. “Takes after her daddy. I always did say that.”

  That night I couldn’t sleep, even though I was bone-tired. I felt cool and hardened, as if I had started the summer as a squishy mound of clay and had come through the furnace, strong and ready for work.

  My heart hadn’t cooperated during the process, though. It was still soft and warm with life. I could feel it beating childishly in my chest. But I would be a doctor’s wife soon. I tried to harden my heart, too, and forget how it felt to swim in a pond of freshwater.

  I had closed my eyes tightly, hoping that the cries of the gulls would lull me to sleep, when I heard Mama’s footsteps padding lightly down the stairs. I heard the screen door nearest my bedroom squeak slowly open and close quietly. My breath caught in my throat—perhaps she was ill and needed a doctor. Maybe, in a fit of madness, she was going out to look for Asha! Asha, the one person who could help me with Mama. It was up to me now to care for her.

  I got up hastily and, still in my nightdress, followed her into the darkness. I saw her quite clearly, standing at the ocean’s edge, her white nightdress already soaked up to her knees. Her long yellow hair blew wildly in the ocean breeze.

  I hurried over to her through the sand. Over the sloshing of the waves, I said loudly, “Mama, what on Earth are you doing?”

  She turned her head slightly to me. “I had to get out of the cottage,” she called. She sounded surprisingly rational, for someone in her current situation. “It’s evil, Abigail.”

  The darkness seemed to close in on me, disorienti
ng me for a moment. Fighting panic, I asked, “But why are you standing in the surf?”

  She replied calmly, “I haven’t so much as touched the ocean since we arrived here in June.” She paused, then said slowly and succinctly, “It doesn’t smell nearly as bad when you’re standing in the midst of it.”

  I could see the outline of her slightly rounded belly through her gown. The wash swirled and frothed around her feet, causing her to lose her balance every now and then. I called, “You’re making me nervous, Mama. It’s too dark out here to save you if you get sucked out to sea. Come on back to dry sand now.”

  She turned to face me. “Your daddy … he’s still not home. He’s at the hotel, drinking with some men.” She paused and gave me a peculiar smile. “They’re celebrating.”

  She looked at me for a long time, her back to the waves that marched toward her. Her face was ghostly white, surrounded by so much darkness. She finally asked, “What happened over on Roanoke Island?”

  I had thought that with all of her health problems this summer, she hadn’t a notion of what was happening under her very nose. But I knew now that I had underestimated her.

  “Oh, Mama,” I cried.

  She spoke carefully now, each word heavy with meaning. “Your daddy was involved in something over there, something terrible. You know what he did.”

  I nodded slowly, my long hair blowing into my eyes.

  “How do you know?”

  I couldn’t lie to her anymore. I was beyond that now. I waded into the warm, slapping surf to look her in the eye. “I was teaching at a school for freedmen at night. I was there when it all happened.”

  She put a hand over her mouth, then looked back out to sea.

  Then, with tears running down the back of my throat, I told her about the school, about the students, about the nights of teaching. I told her about bringing Asha with me, and about her decision to stay on Roanoke Island. I told her about Elijah Africa and his many gifts. I told her that Elijah had been murdered “by some bad men bent on revenge,” and she covered her face with her hands.

  And then I couldn’t stop myself. I told her about the pile of burning books in the middle of the street. She moaned out loud and doubled over, physically affected by the crimes.

  And confessing those things to her lightened me of the burden. I filled my lungs with the salty breath of the sea, and the ocean washed over my calves. I could just make out a handful of stars, peeking through the silver night clouds.

  “I’m sorry that I lied to you, Mama. I haven’t quite been myself this summer. And so much has happened to me, I don’t think I’ll ever be myself again.”

  She nodded slowly. “Yes” was all she said. She didn’t seem angry at me in the least.

  We both stood knee-deep in the ocean, staring at its vastness, lost in our troubled thoughts. After a while, she said, “I’d like to see this school. Will you take me there tomorrow?”

  “What?” I gasped. “I don’t think the students would like to see me. They know that I’m … associated with Daddy.”

  “Abigail, you have an obligation to explain yourself to these people. You were their teacher.”

  Cold fear swept powerfully over me, putting this warm, sloshing water to shame. “You’ll come with me?”

  “Yes, although they may not take kindly to me, either.”

  But I couldn’t feature her going anywhere in her condition. She hadn’t been anywhere except the hotel all summer long. “Are you feeling … up to it?”

  She looked down at her body, gently rounded now. She nodded. “I am. I feel better, somehow.”

  We struggled back up to the cottage in our wet nightdresses. Then, while standing on the porch steps, we squeezed the remnants of ocean out of the cloth. The water dripped and puddled into the thirsty sand below, returning home.

  Early the next morning, I arranged for Hannah to stay with the children and to keep an eye on Daddy, whom I had heard clamber up the stairs late in the night. Over a quick breakfast Mama told me that he was still passed out cold and wouldn’t likely awake until the afternoon.

  Justus hitched Mungo to the cart, and Mama and I rode over to the hotel docks. The desk man there helped us to procure a boat to the island. And together we sailed across Roanoke Sound with our guide, a red-faced old man who still seemed half asleep.

  The sun was rising over the east, and the morning was still a bit cool. I never in my wildest dreams thought that I would be sailing in a boat with Mama like this, but she seemed as natural as you please, with her bonnet tied in a perfect bow under her chin and her white parasol fluttering in the wind.

  We docked at the old Union port on the western side of the island and strolled side by side to the school through the dusty roads of the colony. Mama walked slowly, as if she had recently recovered from a long illness. She gazed about her curiously at the simple cabins, at the old barracks, but I was sweating with nerves. All I could see were the burning books, the cross bearing Elijah’s abused body. And I felt eyes watching us from the windows of the buildings.

  As we neared the schoolhouse, my feet trudged as if through the stickiest of mud. Tears collected in my eyes, and I grabbed Mama’s gloved hand. “I can’t,” I whispered. “I can’t go in.”

  But she pulled me forward with a surprising amount of strength. “Yes, you can. You must.”

  Mama pulled back the screen door and we stepped into the school. It looked the way that we had left it that night, with the books and slates I had given the students strewn all over the boxes and barrels. Bits of chalk and broken lanterns lay crushed on the dusty floor.

  My heart started to pound too quickly, and I feared I might faint. I stumbled out the door and forced myself to breathe the fresh air. I walked slowly around the grassy yard behind the schoolhouse, remembering the day that Ben and I first met Elijah. It had been oppressively hot, but Elijah’s teaching had quickly made me forget it.

  As I turned to go back to the schoolhouse, I noticed several bunches of purple wildflowers and blue hydrangeas over a fresh mound of dirt, somewhat hidden beneath a grove of dogwood trees.

  I closed my eyes for a few moments, listening to the flow of the Croatan Sound a few hundred yards away, and then walked closer to peer at the dirt. There, beneath some of the flowers, was a small, rough-hewn cross. On the horizontal branch were the words REVEREND ELIJAH AFRICA, FREEDOM IN HEAVEN.

  I covered my face with my hands. The students had buried him near the school, instead of in the freedmen’s cemetery near the church. I nodded; it was a good decision. I tried to imagine the students singing a mournful hymn and reading a Bible passage, or a bit of a book, before placing him in the ground.

  I untied my bonnet and removed it, to feel the breeze in my ears. Suddenly Mama was in front of me. I stared at her numbly. I couldn’t remember why we had come here in the first place.

  She put her hands on my cheeks and said, with a twinge of awkwardness, “It’s all right, Abigail. I’m here now.”

  I began to sob, my tears running directly onto her gloves. “He’s dead, Mama. Elijah is dead.”

  “But the school is still here. Think of that.” She looked at me with something like pride in her eyes.

  We walked back into the schoolhouse, and I sat down on a barrel. Mama walked around the room, picking up chalk and flipping through the books, likely recognizing the supplies that came from home.

  After a while I heard the screen door open and saw Luella and her mother, Ruth, step through the door. Luella ran over to me and buried her head in my lap.

  Surprised, I put my hands on her curly hair and said tenderly, “I’m so happy to see you, Luella. Have you been well?”

  She nodded solemnly. “I’m okay, Miz Abigail. Just sad is all. Where you been? You didn’t come to the funeral for Mr. Africa.”

  I looked to Ruth, my tears still wet on my face. “I wasn’t sure I was welcome here.”

  Ruth smiled kindly and said, “Oh, please, Miz Abigail. Don’t be so hard on yourself.
”

  Luella said sternly, “You is still our teacher. We wanted you to read from Uncle Tom’s Cabin at the funeral. You was the only person who could make it sound right.”

  “How was the funeral, then?” I whispered, my belly in a knot.

  Ruth twisted her hands in her skirt and replied, “It went well as could be expected, I s’pose. It’s been quiet since then. Nary a lawman has ventured out to see about all this. Like it never done happened.”

  I nodded, my face burning with humiliation, and glanced over at Mama, who had sat down unobtrusively on a barrel. But I felt her eyes watching me.

  Ruth went on. “It’s a real shame. I never heard so many good things spoke of a man at a funeral service before.” To Mama, she said, “He tried hard to help us, you see.”

  Mama just nodded.

  Luella exclaimed, “Oh, I saw Mr. Benjamin at the funeral. He was hiding in the trees, but I saw him with my eagle eyes. I waved over to him, but he just put his finger to his mouth like ‘Shhh!’ He was gone when it was all over with.”

  Just then, a few more students stepped into the classroom, and then a few more, and a few more. My mind swam in apprehension as I greeted them, but still the squeaky door kept opening, closing, opening, closing, as more and more freedmen, women, and children came into the room. Soon I saw Asha and Pearl Jefferson in the crowd.

  Everyone smiled at me as if it were my birthday party. “I can’t believe this,” I choked. “You’re all here.”

  Asha came over and hugged me fiercely to her taut body. “Don’t no one forget what you did for us this summer, Miz Abby.”

  I smiled, speaking over the lump lodged firmly in my throat. “I’ll be returning to Edenton soon, but I want you all to know that I’m going to find a good teacher for this school. I promise you.”

  Asha said, “We’ll be here waitin’.” Everyone voiced their agreement.

  Tears were pouring from my eyes, but I hardly noticed. They forgave me. They were strong enough to look beyond my history, strong enough to stay on such an uncertain island, even after the threats. Perhaps this colony would survive after all.