by Leslie Wells
When the baby came out of me all bloody and silent, I could hardly sit up to look at him, I was so tired. The midwife wiped him off and laid him on my bare chest while she made me force out the rest of what was left inside me, then cleaned me up. The baby gave me a shy glance and began to suckle lazily. I felt a tremendous surge of something that I now know was love. I could hardly take my eyes off him to tell the midwife to come back for her payment next week, as I’d extracted a promise from Aaron to have some money saved up by then. But the farmer’s wife interrupted me and told her she would pay the bill herself. I gasped out my thanks, tears starting in my eyes. I was ashamed to have turned into such a beggar.
Aaron stumbled in the following afternoon, stinking drunk. The farmer’s wife, who’d stayed with me the entire time, took one look at him and left in disgust. The baby was crying softly. I tried to hush him, as Aaron always had a splitting headache when he’d been out all night long. I suckled him and pressed him close under the rag blanket and got him quieted down. Aaron took a look at me and said,
—You look like something got sent for and didn’t come.
He stumbled over to a pallet he’d made up of old rags and fell down in a stupor.
I needed food, and help getting up to bathe off some of the blood that was still seeping out of me. Every time I shifted, more blood would spurt out, and I felt I would die from the cramping in my womb. But Aaron was in such a stupor that I couldn’t get him to wake up. In the early evening I finally managed to rouse him by calling out as loudly as I could, but as soon as he’d taken a few steps he tripped and fell, senseless, onto the floor. God knows what would have happened had not the farmer’s wife come to the door at that moment.
She took a look at Aaron and told me to hold still and wait. She went back to her house and hitched their mule to a wagon, then helped me and the baby get into it and took me to her own house. She let me lie in one of her beds and nursed me for a week until I was able to walk and take care of the baby.
I felt as if I’d dropped into heaven. It was so good to be inside a house again with clean sheets and no filthy smells. The farmer’s wife was an angel. I can never think of her without tears coming to my eyes. If it hadn’t been for her, I think I and the baby would have died. Not once in that time did Aaron come to see how I was doing or to see his son.
At the end of the week, I was much recovered and able to care for the baby, whom I had named Joshua. I had always loved the story of the battle of Jericho in the Bible, and the little song we used to sing about it at church.
The farmer’s wife sat me down and had a long talk with me about what I should do in the future. She finally got me to admit that Aaron and I weren’t married. Upon hearing that, she said I should take Joshua and go to a big city and get a job doing typing or some skill where I didn’t have to be on my feet. She said I was young and smart, and had a lot of energy despite my clubfoot. Someone would give me work, she said. She even gave me the name and address of a cousin of hers in Cheatham, and said I could call to see if there was any office work among his acquaintances.
But I thought I should remain with Aaron. I was afraid of striking out alone with a baby; afraid I’d wind up in some county home for indigent mothers. I’d heard that unmarried women who weren’t living with their manfriends often didn’t even get to keep their babies; they were taken away from them and sent to orphanages. All of us girls had listened to stories about those places, growing up; in fact, many mothers used it as a threat to keep their daughters in line: If you get into trouble, I’ll send you right to the county home. You’ll wish you never met that boy! And then the litany: You’ll embarrass us in front of everyone. We won’t be able to lift our heads when we pass our neighbors. You’d better watch yourself around him if you don’t want to ruin your life, and our lives too.
Going home seemed too risky. Father was entirely capable of sending me to one of those places, or at very least of setting me right back out on the road again, even with a newborn.
At the time, staying with Aaron seemed better than winding up a walking testament to shame. And I already loved my baby son so fiercely that the thought of losing him was unthinkable. I’d rather lose my life than have him taken away from me.
So I thanked the lady and said I had to stay where I was for the time being. She gave me a long look and told me to call upon her if ever I got into a bad fix again. She gave me some food for the next few days and said goodbye. I think she knew somehow that Aaron was planning to leave, and that that was the last time she’d see me. Maybe Aaron had told one of the hands, who had told her husband.
I trudged home slowly, carrying Joshua in a small quilt the lady had given me, the food wrapped up in a bundle. When I walked into the barn door Aaron was stuffing his belongings into a towsack.
—Where are you going? I asked.
He put down the gritchel. —I thought you were gone, he said. —Thought you’d taken up with the farmer lady.
—She helped me, I replied, a lump rising in my throat. —You were nowhere to be seen. Your own son, a week old. He’s beautiful, and you’ve barely even taken a look at him.
Aaron seemed to soften. He came over and looked down at the baby sleeping in my arms. —He’s a tiny little bugger, aint he? he said. —Got my coloring.
—He does, I said proudly. —I’ve named him Joshua. Want to hold him?
—No, I might drop him, Aaron replied, seeming embarrassed. —I’ve never held a baby. When he’s older, maybe I’ll give it a try.
He put down his bag. —Reckon we’ll head out first thing after sunup, he said. —I’ll go out and get us something to eat.
After he left, I eased myself into bed, nursed Joshua for a while, and then fell into an excited reverie. This indication of interest in the baby had given me hope. I thought that maybe once Joshua had grown some and was more of a little person, maybe when he could talk, Aaron would become even more interested in him, teach him to hunt, let him help him in the fields. If only we could make it to that point, I told myself, things would be so much better.
Chapter Ten
The first time Aaron hit me, it had been three weeks since he’d had even the lightest of jobs. He’d been on a real bender, out drinking every night until the early hours of the morning, and then sleeping it off until late in the day. One such afternoon Joshua, who was then about six months old, was sleeping on a little pallet that I’d made him. We were staying in another half-caved-in shack on someone’s land, probably a place that colored people had lived in and abandoned years ago. Aaron had just awakened and was in a terrible frame of mind.
—Whyn’t you fix me something to eat, make yourself useful? he asked.
I’d spent all afternoon scavenging vegetables from other people’s gardens, hoping no one would see me, carrying Joshua from spot to spot as I added squash and tomatoes and potatoes and turnips to my gunnysack. My leg was aching, and I was hot and exhausted. I was also exasperated at his laziness.
—Why don’t you fix yourself something to eat? You haven’t worked in weeks, and when you do earn some money, you drink it up. I’m not fixing anything for you.
—Oh you aint, huh? Aaron pulled himself up, came over and pushed me, hard. —There’s more of that for you if you smartmouth me, he said nastily.
—Whatever happened to that clerking job you told me about? I asked. —Like the one you said you had in Unionville? If you have all that book learning you told me about, why are you doing this kind of farm work anyway? I spat out.
Aaron’s face twisted, and he grabbed my hair. While I was trying to pull away, he slapped me with the flat of his other hand, again and again.
—You stupid bitch, he said, flailing at me. —There never was a job in Unionville. I don’t see you earnin your keep! Don’t you speak to me like that, you bitch!
By now we were outside. I tried to get away from his blows.
—Stop it! Stop, Aaron! I yelled, but he hit me until I fell, then kicked me twice in the back.
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br /> —That’ll teach you how to speak to me, he said, and stalked away.
I lay there on the ground for a few minutes until I heard Joshua crying in the cabin. Then I got up and limped inside. Aaron had shoved me against things when we’d had arguments before, but he’d never hit me like this. As I cradled Joshua in my arms, I suddenly decided to try to return home. Perhaps Father wouldn’t try to send me away if Mother and Sibby interceded on my behalf.
I placed Joshua on his blanket and began putting our few things together in an old feedbag. I heard a noise behind me and whirled around; it was Aaron. I cringed, expecting him to swing out at me again. Instead, he knelt in front of me on the floor and buried his head in my stomach, weeping. Then he looked up at me, his bloodshot eyes watering.
—Sorry, he croaked out. —I’m sorry I hit you. I won’t do it again, Cora. Don’t go, I need you.
At his words, my resolve melted. I put my hands in Aaron’s hair and held him to me. At that moment I felt he truly needed me. Aside from Joshua, he was the only one who ever had.
—I won’t go, I said, blinking back tears. —I know you didn’t mean it. But you have to stop drinking, Aaron. I’m afraid you’re going to hurt me, or Joshua.
—I’d never hurt the baby, he said, slurring his words.
I helped him into bed, and soon he was fast asleep. I picked Joshua up and crooned to him, feeling relief. I didn’t want my boy growing up without a father unless he had to. If Aaron would just stop drinking, or even curtail it some, we would be fine.
We moved around from place to place all that summer. Aaron would get work in someone’s fields, and I’d feel optimistic again. Then, despite his protestations to me that he hadn’t been drinking, after a couple of weeks he’d lose his job again when he didn’t show up for work. Or he’d argue with the farmer who’d hired him over how best to till a field, how to pick tobacco or beans, when to get the hay in. He always knew more than anyone else, even though he didn’t have a roof over his head or clothes to wear. According to himself, he was the smartest man he’d ever met.
He once came to blows with a colored field hand who insisted he rest the mules when they were blowing hard and dripping with sweat in the parching heat. It turned out that Aaron had set up a meeting at a still, and he wanted to get the ploughing finished by four o’clock. But the colored man knew the farmer didn’t want his mules done in, and he made Aaron let the mules out of their traces. He took them down to the creek to drink, and then tied them under a shade tree to rest.
Aaron cracked the man over the head with a sharpened hoe when his back was turned tying up the mules. The man staggered and then spun around, still standing. Apparently he was very strong because, despite the deep gash in his head, he thrashed Aaron to within an inch of his life.
Ever since then, Aaron has had it out for colored people. He’d start cursing when one walked by us on the road or showed up to work in the field. I hated his attitude, but the one time I tried to talk to him about it he laughed in my face. I never knew what he would do if a Negro was around, and it was hard to avoid toiling side by side with them if you were picking tobacco in our part of Virginia.
• • •
Toward the end of summer, Aaron began to make an effort to work more steadily, perhaps realizing we’d need a sturdy roof over our heads come winter. After a few months when he’d had regular work, we were able to rent a halfway decent little two-room house, and I managed to scrape together enough money to buy a few cheap dishes and some household items. That whole following year, he seemed to be more able to balance drink and work so that he wouldn’t get fired. I think he knew that he had to do better with a child depending on us.
Occasionally when he was drinking he would hit me with his fists or kick me, but I had learned to gauge when he was going to find liquor—on Wednesdays and Saturdays, for the most part—and I’d stay away from the house with Joshua, going on vegetable-foraging missions, until eight or nine o’clock at night. At times I’d consider going back home to Mother and Sibby, but Aaron seemed to sense when my resolve to leave was strengthening and he’d choose that moment to say something sweet or act tender. He could still sway my emotions enough to make me feel he loved me deep down; to make me feel he needed me.
Now that Joshua could walk, Aaron seemed more interested in him. Once in a while he’d bring home a baby rabbit or squirrel from a nest in a field where he was plowing, and Joshua would delight in stroking the small furry bundle. The next day he’d cry when we had to let it go back to the woods, and Aaron would promise to find another.
At dinnertime, when Aaron would sit down at the table, Joshua would come over to him and pluck at his clothes or grab his hand. Aaron would wrestle with him a bit or jiggle his arm.
—Daadaa, Joshua would say, wearing the big grin that melted my heart.
—Whodaa? Aaron would say, making Joshua laugh.
He never stayed around for very long to play with Joshua, but every time he’d show the slightest bit of interest in him, my hopes would rise.
• • •
I was happy to have been in one place for a whole year and not moving and shifting about constantly from place to place. I had learned to throw a few meals together so Aaron didn’t complain as much about my cooking, and Joshua was a pure pleasure to me. I had never thought I’d have a baby, me with my clubfoot, so I felt doubly blessed. When Joshua opened his sleepy eyes in the morning and smiled at me, I felt my spirit soar. And his soft little voice learning to say mama was the sweetest sound in the world. His efforts at crawling, and later walking, made me so proud. At last I was a mother, something I’d never thought I could be. With this realization my heart would swell in my chest like a dove stretching its wings.
Around this time, I got my first letter from home. I don’t know how Mother tracked me down, but it was addressed to the farmer’s wife at the house where I’d had Joshua, and it had been written over a year ago. Somehow the letter had made its way here to me. Mother’s note said:
Dearest Cora,
I regret that I must tell you by mail that your father has died. He suffered a stroke while walking home in the hot sun on September 28th and fell where he stood. He was not discovered until the next morning by one of Man Murfree’s hired men. We have had his burial and are now mourning his loss. It has been ever so hard since he has gone. We are struggling to keep body and soul together, and we all miss your father terribly.
I hope that you are well, and that you will come home to see us. I trust that you have not gotten yourself into any trouble. Remember that the Good Book says,
For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.
Now that your father is gone, we dearly need help with the farm and Luke. There is more work than your sister and I can manage, even though WillieEd does what he can. I hope you will take this into account and return home soon.
Mother
With trembling fingers I unfolded the second note, wadded into a corner of the envelope.
Dear Cora,
I’m writing this fast as Mother forbid me to write you. The old devil has gone and good riddance. Things would be fine if you came home, no matter what you have done. Mother cannot manage for herself and I don’t know how much longer I can stand it here. I miss you every day
—S.
I reread both letters again and then crumpled them into my apron pocket. Father dead and gone for over a year! I couldn’t believe it. What a wonderful freedom for Mother, even though I couldn’t tell it from her letter. But she would never write something like that; she’d feel it was un-Christian to say anything bad about someone who’d died, particularly her own husband. I wondered what Sibby’s note had meant. Things would be fine, no matter what you have done. . . . The more I thought about it, the more her words rankled. And Mother quoting the prodigal son at me. It seemed as if they all believed I’d come crawling back, begging for their forgiveness.
Yet they had no idea what I was doing; for all t
hey knew, I could be earning good money as a secretary or a teacher somewhere! It hurt me that they imagined me in some pitiful state, although in reality that was closer to the truth. Then it occurred to me that if they’d addressed the letter to the farmer’s wife, they must have heard something about me living in the barn with Aaron. Maybe they even knew I’d had a baby there. Perhaps one of the farmer’s hired men had been in Gower County, and had talked about us to someone Mother or Sibby knew. I cringed at the thought of how that tale must have been told.
I pulled out Sibby’s note and read it once more. Why would Mother have forbidden Sibby to write to me? And what did she mean, she couldn’t stand it anymore? It sounded as if Mother and Sibby were getting on each other’s nerves. I could see the two of them arguing, Sibby chafing at the bit to go out with Charlie, or perhaps other boys if she’d tired of Charlie by now. With Father gone, I imagined Mother would have a time reining Sibby in. But what did Sibby think, that I was going to come home and simply take her place so that she could cut loose and get married? I had my own family now, my own child. For the first time ever, I was indignant about something Sibby had done. Why would she assume I’d want to give up my life and come back home to be a nursemaid to Mother, WillieEd, and Luke—so she could begin her own life?
The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. Finally I tore a corner from a bag of flour and wrote on the back of it:
Dear Mother, WillieEd, Sibby, and Luke,
I was glad to hear from you, and of course sorry to hear about Father. I imagine this has been a very trying time for you.
I am doing well and plan to pay you a visit as soon as I can.
Love to everyone,
Cora