A Kind of Freedom

by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton

  Evelyn didn’t allow herself to speak, not with her father there whose disdain she could sense from where she sat. Her tears started anyway, the heft of all those years of girlhood dreaming, these last months of yearning, culminating now on the verge of release.

  Still she didn’t say a word. She thought if she said the word yes in her father’s presence it would doom her life and everything it yielded to a gloomy, stunted fate, so she clipped her great rush of emotion, and she nodded instead, wrapped her arms around Renard, and exhaled into his neck.

  That was enough for Mama, who yelped, dabbing her eyes, but her father just sat looking at Renard as though he wanted to slap him but didn’t have the energy.

  Evelyn’s father turned to her finally, gave a look of sad surrender, and said, “Okay.” Then he stood, shook Renard’s hand, picked up the sandwich Evelyn’s mama had packed for his next round, and left the table.

  When her father was gone, Evelyn let out a squeal she thought Miss Georgia might be privy to across the street. She let her tears stream out hard and fast, and when Renard stood up and spun Mama around, she cocked her head back and laughed and laughed.

  When they were done celebrating, Renard asked Evelyn if he could take her to his own people’s house to show her off, and she said nothing would make her happier. They rode the bus all the way

  to Amelia Street. She had never been to this part of town, and she was alarmed by the dust on the road, the narrow brown double houses, their old crumbling wood. Dozens of people crowded into them, standing on upper-level stoops looking down. Shoeless little boys danced outside to beats they made from pans and tin cans. Mules pulling garbage trucks passed with their pungent stench.

  “It doesn’t usually smell like this,” Renard said.

  “I know,” she said, as if she hadn’t been wondering the same.

  There seemed to be as many people in Renard’s daddy’s house as there were in her own family’s for a holiday, and everyone was overjoyed to see Renard in one piece. They said they had heard about her. They said she was too pretty for Renard. They kept lifting his uniform pants and tapping his legs to make sure they were real. They offered him liquor, they rubbed her belly, they said the baby was a boy, had to be because of how her round belly pointed out. They said Evelyn and Renard could both come and live with them if they needed. They said they’d watch the baby while the newlyweds were in school, and Evelyn couldn’t remember being so happy.

  That night when Evelyn and Renard walked back home, Renard pulled the picture he’d been keeping above his nightstand out of his pocket. It had one crease in it from where he’d folded it to fit his wallet but otherwise looked the same as it did when she’d given it to him at the train station nearly a year earlier.

  “Seems like it was just yesterday that I gave it to you.”

  “Not to me,” he said.

  Evelyn wasn’t ready to part from him when they reached her house, so they sat on the porch like they always had. They didn’t talk for a while; she just held on to his jacket, and he rubbed her stomach with the fervor of a man who had to make up for lost time.

  “Why didn’t you write me about the baby?” he asked finally. “It might have given me more to look forward to.”

  Evelyn shrugged. “I didn’t want to scare you off. I didn’t know what your reaction would be, and I was scared I guess, scared you wouldn’t have us.”

  Renard shook his head. “You know me better than that.”

  “Of course I do. I should have said something, but don’t you see I was frightened? And war changes people. It sounds like it wasn’t so bad for you, but I’ve heard terrible stories of people coming back fractions of themselves.”

  He nodded. “I understand. It doesn’t matter. At least I know now. At least I can be with you now.” He paused. “I didn’t know what to expect going, and I certainly can’t complain. I got to see another part of the world, and I’m back safe. But, well”—his stammer returned on both words, and Evelyn clutched his hand—“I didn’t tell you about the worst of it.”

  She shook her head.

  “We were stationed in a small town outside of Paris. There was a white unit next door, and they came by from time to time, shot off the word nigger, but otherwise kept to themselves. At first it wasn’t much different than home really. The whites got their food on plates, while we got tin trays. We were served one meal, but whites had seconds. Whites lived in rooms with shiny floors and washing machines, and we had concrete and potbellied stoves.”

  “But like I said, that was nothing. I was used to that and would have been grateful to tolerate it. Only it didn’t take long for it to escalate. One night there was a party and we were preparing to go; see, the French people had invited us, trying to show their appreciation toward us black servicemen. So they made up the passes for us, and I put them on the commanding officer’s desk. When he saw them, he shook his head, tore them up, said there weren’t going to be any Negro girls at that party and he didn’t want his niggers dancing with any white women. I didn’t want to go anyway,” Renard pinched Evelyn’s side. “Wasn’t any dance partner I was seeking overseas, but some of my buddies, they went just to spite him. They were arrested that night.”

  “Then the next night, the white unit got drunk, walked over, tried to start trouble, throwing bottles at us, swinging ropes around our heads. I ignored it, but one of our men fired three shots in the air. I don’t know where he got the pistol, but he told them we were all armed, and I’ve never seen white boys run as fast as they did then.” Renard seemed as if he wanted to laugh but couldn’t allow himself the levity.

  “They didn’t take too kindly to that treatment. They came back again the next night. There were more of them than there were us, and they all had guns. They beat the hell out of us, Evelyn. All of us, even the ones who didn’t say a word. The French were so nice, so welcoming. You’d talk to them and forget you were Negro, but the other American soldiers beat us like they wanted to see us dead.”

  Evelyn was clutching his whole body now. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry,” she repeated. “I didn’t know. I’m so sorry. You didn’t deserve that.”

  “No,” he said with more authority than she’d ever heard come from him. “I reckon I didn’t.”

  His demeanor changed after he told that story. His eyes darkened, he let go of her hand.

  They stayed out there on the swing for a while, but neither said another word.

  The next morning, Mama knocked on her door bright and early to discuss wedding preparations. Ruby sulked—she’d been testy since she got the news—but she followed Mama around with a notepad making lists of all they’d need.

  “Of course we can’t do it as big as we always imagined because of the, um, circumstances, but I still want you to celebrate. I think you deserve a celebration.”

  Mama sent fabric over to Miss Georgia’s for the gowns, an off-white variation for Evelyn and a pink one for Ruby; Ruby went to the market for sugar and flour; Daddy bought ties, Brother raided the garden for flowers, and if Evelyn didn’t know better, she would have sworn it was the same family from a year ago, preparing for Renard and Andrew to come over for dinner.

  The night before the big day, Daddy called Evelyn and Renard to the table.

  “I want to talk to you, son,” he said. He seemed to stand straighter, and some of the light seemed to have reentered his eyes.

  “Evelyn’s mama and I have been talking, and we want to make things easier on you all. That’s why I worked so hard, so my daughter would be able to sail through this life as much as a Negro woman can, and I reckon you deserve a little ease too; maybe you can finish school.”

  Mama slid her a key. “It’s nothing,” she said, “nothing, just a two-bedroom old shotgun house down the block where Miss Georgia’s son used to live, but I thought it would be a perfect starter house for you two. Then, when Renard gets on
his feet, well, you can have your dream house then.”

  After her father had retired to bed and Renard had gone home, Evelyn sat with Mama.

  “What do you think it was?” Evelyn asked.

  “What do I think what was, baby?”

  “What do you think changed Daddy’s mind?”

  “Oh.” She sat for a little while just thinking. “Hard to say with that man,” she said finally. “Maybe it was the way Renard addressed him like a man first thing when he got back, or maybe he could see his family slipping away from him and this was his last chance to salvage it. I overheard Ruby talking to him the other day, so maybe that worked too. Maybe it was a combination of all those things. Lord knows it wasn’t me. When it comes down to it, he loves you, Evie, and he just wants you to be happy.”

  Evelyn walked back into her bedroom. Ruby was lying down but not asleep. Evelyn sat on the edge of her sister’s bed.

  “Mama told me you talked to Daddy,” Evelyn said.

  Ruby shrugged. “He needs to realize how much he’s hurting us, how much he’s hurting you.”

  Evelyn pulled her up in a tight embrace. “Thank you, sister.”

  Her sister held her back for the first time Evelyn could remember. “Evelyn, it’s the least I could do.”

  It was a simple wedding. Evelyn’s gown wasn’t what she imagined it would be, as it needed to accommodate the bump in her belly, but by the time Mama had unhooked the curlers and tightened the girdle, and Ruby had made up her face and positioned her crown, Evelyn couldn’t stop looking at herself in the mirror. From a certain angle, she wouldn’t have even known she was pregnant.

  Still, it was a house ceremony instead of the lavish church affairs they were accustomed to, and they didn’t invite many people, just Uncle Franklin and Aunt Katherine, Miss Georgia since she’d made the gowns. Mama made everything look nice the way she always did: Petunias and pansies hung from the stairwell, rose petals danced on the floor of the foyer, and the table was spread with the cake in the center, gorgeous, white swirls of frosting on top.

  When it was time for Evelyn to walk down the foyer, her daddy met her at the doorway to her bedroom. His eyes lit up when he saw her, and she started to cry.

  “You look beautiful,” he said.

  She had been so angry at him, so disappointed that he couldn’t make room in his heart for her love. But today was different. And maybe it wasn’t just him who had changed. Maybe it was thinking on having a child herself. She had hopes for her already. There was no question in her mind that the girl would be a doctor. By then, there might be other lady doctors, maybe even Negro lady ones. Wouldn’t that be something? She understood now that was what her daddy had dreamed for her. He had a good life: Most Negro men they knew tipped their hats at him on the way to church; everybody called him sir, but she knew he’d wanted more for Evelyn, could hear it in the charged way he’d asked her what she was studying when she’d pore over her books at night.

  “Oh, but, Daddy, is my makeup smeared from crying?” she asked.

  “No, no, absolutely not.” He shook his head. “You look beautiful,” he repeated.

  He gripped her hand as if he were the one who was nervous, and they walked on together.

  She passed Mama, who dabbed at tears in her eyes with her embroidered handkerchief, and Ruby who beamed as if it were her own wedding day, but Evelyn couldn’t quite trust it. She felt it was all too good to be true, everything she’d imagined coalescing in one solid reality, and she didn’t know if she deserved it. Still, she told herself to make room for it anyway, to assume it should all be hers, to hold her hands out and embrace it.

  Her father dropped her off with Renard.

  “Take care of her,” he said in a soft admonition, and Renard nodded.

  All of a sudden, she wanted to reach backward, cling to the man who had been her most sturdy guide, but he was already joining Mama in the hallway, and she was left afloat with her man, yes, with her unborn child too, but weren’t they all virtual strangers when she compared them to her family? What if she had mischosen? What if her father was right?

  As if her daddy’s consent triggered her own mistrust, she found herself staring at the leg of Renard’s hem, which was still uneven if she looked closely, though it seemed someone had tried to mend it the night before.

  And the hem began to represent the uncertainty of their new life, the question of whether Todd’s would hire him back, if there would be enough money coming in for them both to return to school, what she’d do with a baby strapped to her breast.

  “Renard and Evelyn, have you come here freely and without reservation to give yourselves to each other in marriage?”

  Then Renard slid the ring on her finger, which was nothing like Mama’s, but his eyes were so hopeful, so impossibly hopeful, his smile wide enough to wrap them both inside it.

  And so when it was her turn to speak, she said I do because, her nerves aside, standing across from Renard on this day was everything she’d ever wanted. She let herself be swept up in his arms, though as big as she had become, it was uncomfortable to be held. The pressure of the ceremony behind her, she could feel the joy surging inside her. The sun streamed in through the glass panes on her front door and slanted across Renard’s face, and she kissed the spots where the light landed as he carried her down the foyer. When he set her down, alone in her bedroom for the first time together, she squealed despite the people on the other side of the door listening because it was still so early in the morning, and their lives lay out uncharted before them, and the voice of ambivalence that had taunted her a minute before had gone.

  Acknowledgments

  I am eternally grateful to my parents, my first fans. You never stopped believing in me, and you never stopped convincing me to believe in myself. Daddy, you encouraged me to dream, and you made it possible for me to make my vision a reality. Mom, my creativity comes from you, and so does my courage.

  Kathryn and Roy, you always made me feel like I was one of your own. Carlton and Betsy, your love and support mean the world to me.

  The following books greatly influenced me and the writing of A Kind of Freedom: Black Life in Old New Orleans by Keith Weldon Medley; Creole: The History and Legacy of Louisiana's Free People of Color, edited by Sybil Kein; and Witness to Change: From Jim Crow to Political Empowerment by Sybil Haydel Morial.

  To my editor, Jack Shoemaker—thank you for shepherding this book with such passion and care. I owe so much to Jane Vandenburgh who treated me like an author before I was one. To my agent, Michael Carlisle, thank you for your unwavering dedication.

  To my early readers: Jennifer Levitt and Johanna Thomas, the world would be a better place if everyone had friends like you. Jessica Redditt, Megan Nicholson, Pat Connelly, Nancy Lai, Chloe Pinkerton, Cary Fortin, Iris Tate: I know it is awkward work reading an unfinished manuscript, and I appreciate you for doing it anyway. Kerry Radcliffe and Kathryn Goldberg, your feedback was indispensable. Joseph V. Blouin, Joseph M. Blouin, Zara Blouin, and Raymond Williams, thank you for spending hours with me sharing stories about the city you love. Nubia Solomon, you help me do life.

  Special thanks to my village: Josie Wilkerson, Debhora Singleton, Patsy Wilkerson, Felthus Wilkerson Jr., Kevin Williams, Bruce Williams, Oran Williams, Cynthia Williams, Felicia Johnson, Buck Johnson, Roy Williams Smith III, Joseph Sexton, and Abbye Simkowitz. Florence Wilkerson, Felthus Wilkerson, and Audrey Chapital Williams—I know you are celebrating too.

  Nina, Carter and Miles, you are my greatest blessings.

  And my Chuckie, without you none of this would be possible. You were a tireless editor and supporter, and your faith was tireless too.

  About the Author

  Born and raised in New Orleans, margaret wilkerson sexton studied creative writing at Dartmouth and law at UC Berkeley. A recipient of the Lombard fellowship, she spent a year in the Dominican Republ
ic working for a civil rights organization and writing. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and her stories have been published or are forthcoming in The Massachusetts Review, Grey Sparrow Journal, Limestone Journal, and Broad! Magazine. She lives in the Bay Area, California. A Kind of Freedom is her debut novel.