Together is All We Need

by Michael Phillips

  We all walked outside. Now that the decision had been made, Aleta seemed eager to go. Emma and Josepha were nearby and walked over to Reverend Hall’s buggy. We all said good-bye with many hugs.

  Aleta stooped down and picked up William, although he was just about more than she could lift by herself.

  ‘‘Good-bye, William,’’ she said, giving him a kiss. ‘‘You be a good boy.’’

  ‘‘Goom-bye, Leeter,’’ he said.

  Aleta set him down, climbed up into the carriage beside Reverend Hall, and then they were off.

  She kept waving with a smile on her face until they were out of sight. It felt different as we all walked back toward the house. Our family had changed. As glad as we all were that Aleta had decided to go home, her absence made us all quiet and thoughtful for the rest of the day.

  BROKEN BUT HEALED FAMILY

  12

  TWO WEEKS PASSED BEFORE WE SAW OR HEARD anything from Aleta again. Even with our trouble with Katie’s uncle Burchard, we could not help thinking about her all the time and wondering how it was with her father.

  Then one Sunday afternoon a buggy came into sight. As soon as it neared the house we heard shouts that we instantly recognized. Before it even came to a stop, Aleta was on the ground and running into our arms with happy hugs and exclamations and tears of greeting. Emma came running out of the house, followed by William toddling along behind calling out, ‘‘Leeter . . . Leeter!’’

  Reverend Hall and another man stepped to the ground and walked toward the scene of the reunion.

  ‘‘Hello, Kathleen . . . Mayme,’’ said Reverend Hall. ‘‘I would like to introduce you to Aleta’s father, Hank Butler.’’

  He wasn’t anything like what I had expected. He was clean-shaven and well groomed, and a smaller man than Reverend Hall. He had almost a timid expression on his face, like he was embarrassed for what we might think of him after what we’d heard. I think I had expected a mean-looking ogre or something, but he was just a normal and decent-looking man. Yet you could see the grief in his eyes.

  Katie went forward and shook his hand. ‘‘Hello, Mr. Butler,’’ she said. ‘‘I am Kathleen Clairborne.’’

  ‘‘I am happy to meet you, Miss Clairborne,’’ said Aleta’s father, shuffling back and forth on his feet. ‘‘Aleta has told me all you did for her. I want you to know how appreciative I am.’’

  ‘‘Thank you,’’ said Katie. ‘‘This is my cousin, Mary Ann Daniels,’’ she added, turning toward me.

  ‘‘That’s my friend Mayme, Papa,’’ said Aleta. ‘‘We all call her Mayme.’’

  ‘‘Hello,’’ I said.

  ‘‘It is good to meet you also, Miss Daniels,’’ said Aleta’s father, offering me his hand.

  I don’t know what I expected, but as he shook my hand he tried to smile. After all Aleta had told us in the beginning about his hatred of blacks, he must have changed. As Katie introduced him to Emma and Josepha, I wondered what he thought—that his daughter had been living in a colored village for almost two years! But if he did think that, he didn’t say anything. Seeing how much Aleta loved all the rest of us, and how much we loved her, couldn’t help but have some effect on him I suppose. Maybe he had changed in more ways than just what Reverend Hall had told us about. He seemed to treat Emma, Josepha, and me like we were just regular people.

  ‘‘Would you like to come inside for some iced tea?’’ asked Katie.

  ‘‘That would be very nice, Kathleen,’’ said the minister. ‘‘I do apologize for the impromptu visit. Hank and Aleta were at church this morning, and as we were talking afterward, Aleta kept mentioning all of you here and how she missed you. So Hank suggested we ride out to see you . . . and here we are.’’

  ‘‘We are so glad you did,’’ said Katie.

  ‘‘Miz Katie,’’ said Josepha, who had been walking behind but listening to every word, ‘‘I cud make us a nice pot er tatters an’ fry up a coupla chickens an’ make a right nice dinner, maybe wiff sum biscuits fo’ everbody.’’

  ‘‘Oh no,’’ said Reverend Hall, ‘‘ we didn’t mean to impose on your—’’

  ‘‘Please, Reverend Hall,’’ interrupted Katie, ‘‘it would be no imposition whatever. If I know Josepha, there is nothing she would enjoy more than preparing a meal for you.’’

  ‘‘Dat’s right, Miz Katie!’’ chimed in Josepha. ‘‘An’ maybe Miz Aleta’d jus’ like ter hep me like she used ter do.’’

  ‘‘Yes, yes . . . please, Papa—can we please stay!’’

  Reverend Hall laughed. Mr. Butler looked at him with a questioning expression, then smiled and nodded. ‘‘I suppose if the reverend ain’t in no hurry to get back to town.’’

  ‘‘Not at all,’’ replied Reverend Hall.

  ‘‘Dat’s good,’’ said Josepha. ‘‘Den I’ll jus’ git out ter dat hen house an’ kill us a coupla fat ol’ hens an’ get ter pluckin’ dem.’’

  She waddled off, happy as could be, as the rest of us walked into the house.

  ‘‘Papa, Papa!’’ cried Aleta. ‘‘I want to show you my room!’’

  She grabbed his hand and tugged him toward the stairs.

  ‘‘This is good,’’ said Reverend Hall when they were gone. ‘‘Aleta needed to come here again, and I think Hank did too.’’

  ‘‘How has it been?’’ asked Katie as she offered him a seat at the table while she and I started fixing some tea and put on a pot of water to boil for Josepha.

  ‘‘Very good,’’ he replied. ‘‘Obviously Hank has a great burden of guilt to bear. But Aleta has been wonderfully tender toward him. Somehow the time was right. And I have no doubt that the seeds you and Henry planted in her mind, Mayme,’’ he added, turning toward me, ‘‘have helped too. Great healing is taking place, though they still have a long way to go. They are having to get to know one another all over again. But I am so grateful to God for what He is doing between them.’’

  ‘‘We are so glad to hear it!’’ said Katie. ‘‘That is wonderful news. Does he . . . will he want me to show him where the accident happened,’’ she went on, ‘‘and where I buried his wife?’’

  ‘‘I don’t know,’’ answered the minister. ‘‘It may be a little soon for that. I will mention it to him if I get the opportunity.’’

  Our conversation was interrupted by the sound of Aleta’s feet running back down the stairway, again followed, though more slowly, by her father.

  ‘‘Come on, Papa!’’ cried Aleta, running through the kitchen heedless of the rest of us. ‘‘I want to show you the blacksmith’s shop where I pounded the hammer to make people think there were grown-ups here!’’

  Before Mr. Butler even appeared, Aleta was running out the opposite door and outside. Laughing, he hurried after her.

  A minute or two later we heard the familiar clang, clang, clang from Aleta’s hammer.

  ‘‘So that was what I heard when I came out here!’’ said Reverend Hall.

  Now it was Katie and I who burst out laughing.

  ‘‘We had all kinds of schemes to make it seem like we weren’t alone,’’ said Katie. ‘‘We built fires in the slave cabins and sometimes I even dressed up and pretended to be my mama. It wasn’t honest, but I was so afraid of what would happen if people found out. I was afraid they would make Mayme leave and worried what my uncle would do.’’

  Katie paused and sighed. ‘‘I suppose all that didn’t do any good anyway,’’ she said. ‘‘He found out anyway and now he’s going to own Rosewood before long.’’

  ‘‘Yes, I have heard,’’ said Reverend Hall. ‘‘But what about your other uncle, the one who was here for a while?’’

  ‘‘He’s gone,’’ said Katie. ‘‘We haven’t heard from him in a long time. And he couldn’t help anyway, since he is from my mama’s side of the family.’’

  ‘‘Ah yes . . . I see. Well, if there is anything I can do, please let me know.’’

  While we were drinking our tea a little while later, and Emma and I wer
e cutting up potatoes, and Aleta was chattering away telling her father everything she could think of about her time at Rosewood, Josepha came in with two headless, plucked chickens and put them in the pot to boil. Then she and Aleta set about mixing up the biscuits, and before long the kitchen began to smell like good things were coming.

  ‘‘There is certainly a difference in a woman’s kitchen, isn’t there, Reverend?’’ said Mr. Butler.

  ‘‘It is a wonderful thing to behold indeed!’’ laughed Reverend Hall. ‘‘I can see why you call this a family, Kathleen,’’ he added, glancing about at all the activity, ‘‘and why Aleta was so fond of you all. There is truly life here!’’

  ‘‘There wasn’t at first,’’ said Katie. ‘‘I’ll never forget that day when I first saw Mayme. My family was all dead. There was blood everywhere, not all of it even completely dry. Mayme’s family had just been killed too. There were no more of our people left to die, and it seemed that death was all we knew.’’

  The kitchen fell silent in the midst of Katie’s reflections.

  ‘‘Then Emma came,’’ Katie continued, ‘‘because they were trying to kill her, and Aleta was alone after her mother—’’

  She paused and glanced across the table.

  ‘‘I’m sorry, Mr. Butler.’’

  ‘‘That’s quite all right, Miss Clairborne. Go ahead. I want to hear what you were going to say.’’

  ‘‘I was just going to say that death is what brought Aleta to us too. It was almost like death was the only thing we had in common right at first. With everyone except for Josepha.’’

  ‘‘Dat mistress ob mine, she’d a killed me effen she cud!’’ piped up Josepha from the other side of the room.

  We all laughed. But Katie continued, still in a serious tone.

  ‘‘There were times back then when I didn’t know if I could stand it another day,’’ she said. ‘‘It was so horrible, so sad, and I was afraid of what would become of us. Even though my uncle’s going to take Rosewood away, we were all so happy together. You’re right, Reverend Hall . . . we are a family.’’

  ‘‘God has been good to you—that is obvious,’’ he replied. ‘‘He has brought life out of death, as He always does. That is what our faith in Christ is all about, and you are living examples of it.’’

  He turned to Mr. Butler. ‘‘And He is bringing life back to your home, is He not, Hank?’’

  Mr. Butler nodded, but again I saw the look of pain in his eyes. ‘‘It is nice to have Aleta home,’’ he said. ‘‘And you all must have taught her well. Sometimes she is as busy in our kitchen as you are here—aren’t you, Aleta?’’

  ‘‘Yes, Papa.—I fix all Papa’s meals, Katie!’’

  ‘‘How old are you now, Aleta?’’ asked Reverend Hall.

  ‘‘Eleven, sir.’’

  ‘‘Eleven already! You will be a lady soon.’’

  ‘‘She just had a birthday last week,’’ added her father. ‘‘Although she had to bake her own cake!’’

  ‘‘What kin’ you make, chil’?’’ asked Josepha.

  ‘‘Chocolate.’’

  ‘‘Dat soun’ mighty good, all right!’’

  Aleta went over and stood behind her father.

  ‘‘Dese yere hens an’ biscuits be nearly dun,’’ said Josepha. ‘‘How ’bout dem taters, Emma?’’

  ‘‘Dey’s ready too, Josepha.’’

  ‘‘Den I reckon hit’s time dat y’all git washed up ’cuz we’s nearly ready wiff dis dinner.’’

  As we sat down around the table a few minutes later, steam rising from several platters of hot food in front of us, I realized that this was the first big meal like this we’d had, with guests and everything, since we’d been together. Was this how life used to be all the time on big plantations for white folks? And here we were sitting down together, four whites and four blacks, like there was nothing unusual about it at all. Mrs. Hammond would probably have been scandalized!

  It got quiet and everyone unconsciously looked toward Reverend Hall. He bowed his head and closed his eyes and we all did the same.

  ‘‘Our Father,’’ he began to pray, ‘‘in the midst of the grief that these, your precious children, have endured, and the pain of death that has touched them so closely, we are thankful to you this day for your great love, which touches us even in the midst of life’s anguish. We thank you that you always bring life out of death, good out of failure, healing out of heartache. Though it is sometimes hard to see, you are a good Father, whose goodness to your children will always find a way to get into our lives if only we will look for it. So we thank you for the goodness you have brought to every life represented at this table. Death has touched us, but your goodness is always greater, and will always triumph. We give you thanks for the healing that is taking place between Aleta and Hank in the midst of their loss, and even guilt, for you will reunite them one day again with their beloved Sarah. Make their lives whole again in you. We give you thanks for the new life represented by little William, and pray for a bright future for him and his mama Emma. We thank you for what you have accomplished here at Rosewood between these dear ones to make them a family, and we now pray for your guidance and your will to be done with Rosewood, and in Kathleen’s life and Josepha’s and Mayme’s as this change in circumstance comes to them. May your will be done for us all, heavenly Father, and may we always give you thanks in our hearts for the goodness of that will. Amen.’’

  As we opened our eyes, I could see on Emma’s and Josepha’s face the same thing I felt in my heart—a quiet joy to have had a minister pray for us like that. It felt good knowing that people cared about me, like I knew everyone around this table did.

  And that God cared about us all too.

  DEVASTATING NEWS

  13

  THE LAST PERSON WE’D HAVE EXPECTED, AND CERTAINLY the last person we’d have wanted to change our future was Mrs. Elfrida Hammond. But unfortunately she was the one who brought the terrible news to us.

  One day she rode up to Rosewood in her buggy. I think she was just looking for an excuse to come out to see the place ever since learning that Katie’s family was dead. The whole time she was there, which wasn’t long, she kept looking around like she was trying to see something strange that she might gossip about when she went back to town.

  Katie walked out to meet her.

  ‘‘Hello, Mrs. Hammond,’’ said Katie, trying to sound friendly. Judging from the look on the woman’s face, Katie’s smile was lost on her. I walked over toward the buggy and she glanced my way with her hawk eyes. I had the feeling that she wanted to talk to Katie without me listening, but I didn’t want Katie to be in an awkward position and so I went right over and stood a few feet away. It was obvious that Mrs. Hammond was annoyed.

  ‘‘I brought out a letter that came, Kathleen,’’ she said. ‘‘It arrived a while back, and since it was addressed to your mama, I thought I should wait and give it to her. But, of course, now. . .’’

  Katie waited. For a few seconds Mrs. Hammond just kept sitting there in her buggy.

  ‘‘It’s from that Daniels fellow that was here,’’ she said after a bit.

  ‘‘Uncle Templeton!’’ shrieked Katie. ‘‘Where is it . . . where’s the letter?’’

  ‘‘I told you, I have it right here.’’

  ‘‘Give it to me, then . . . please, Mrs. Hammond.’’

  ‘‘But I told you—it’s addressed to your mother. So I—’’

  ‘‘Mrs. Hammond,’’ interrupted Katie with as insistent a voice as I’d ever heard come out of her mouth. ‘‘You had no right to keep that letter, whoever it’s addressed to! It might be important. Now give it to me . . . please!’’

  Taken aback by Katie’s raised voice and flaming eyes, Mrs. Hammond fumbled a minute with the bag sitting beside her on the seat, then took out a white envelope and handed it down to Katie.

  Katie stepped forward and grabbed it without even saying Thank you.

  ‘‘It is from Unc
le Templeton, Mayme!’’ she said, turning toward me as she hurriedly scanned the envelope. ‘‘But it’s addressed to Rosalind Clairborne, just like she said. Come on, let’s go inside and read it.’’

  ‘‘But, Kathleen . . .’’ came Mrs. Hammond’s flustered voice behind us.

  Katie didn’t even slow down and I followed her inside the kitchen. Katie ripped open the envelope and sat down at the table, just about the same time as we heard the buggy turn around and leave.

  ‘‘Maybe he wrote it before he knew about your ma,’’ I said, sitting down beside her.

  ‘‘I don’t think so, Mayme,’’ said Katie. ‘‘It’s addressed to you and me.’’

  ‘‘Read it out loud,’’ I said.

  ‘‘Dear Kathleen and Mary Ann,’’ Katie began,

  ‘‘I wrote Rosalind’s name on the envelope, because I didn’t want that nosey lady at the general store who distributes the mail to get too curious. I know that’s a little bit of a gamble, but I didn’t want her asking too many questions and I thought a letter from me to you, Kathleen, might do that and I wanted to make sure your secret was safe. I sure hope she doesn’t get too nosey and open this up—she’d know everything then! I just hope you get this letter, because I’m in a little bit of trouble and I didn’t want either of you to think I’d deserted you again. Truth is, I think about you both every day and I’d have been back with you a long time ago if I could have been.

  ‘‘I told you that I had some old things to take care of. I haven’t always been the most upright man in the world, which I’m ashamed to admit to you two more than I would be to anyone. It’s not that I’ve ever stolen money or anything like that, but I’ve done enough to make a few people hate me, and I suppose they had a right to. One of those is a pretty powerful and important man in these parts. I was intending to go see him and try to work something out to pay him back the money he thinks I swindled out of him a few years back. But before I could do anything, some of his men spotted me even before I got to town. They grabbed me and took me to the sheriff, and before I knew it I was sitting in jail.