Aunt Tilda frowned as she handed the feather duster to Adria. “And why wouldn’t she like it?” She looked around. “Appears to be a fine house.” She opened up the front windows.
Adria slipped her gaze over to the couch where she’d last seen her mother and Eddie. It was empty now, with the cushions her mother had made arranged the way they were supposed to be. Eddie’s baby blanket that he liked to hold when he was going to sleep was nowhere in sight.
She wasn’t going to cry. Not here in the middle of the day. Better to wait until night for that when she could hold Callie close and not bother anybody with her tears. She swallowed and pulled in a shaky breath. “What if she doesn’t like me?”
“Now what on earth put that thought in your head?” Aunt Tilda reached down and put her fingers under Adria’s chin to make her look up at her.
“Louis says she was never a mother. Maybe she won’t know how to be family.”
“Don’t you worry none about that. The good Lord has put a motherin’ feel in most ev’ry woman I ever knew. I’m guessin’ this woman ain’t no different, whether she’s had her own babies or not.” Aunt Tilda turned loose of Adria’s chin. “Now where can I find a broom?”
“Behind the kitchen door.” That’s where Adria’s mother kept it. Handy, she said.
Adria moved the feather duster over the table and chairs. Her mother always just gave her a rag for dusting, but the feather duster was more fun to use.
Aunt Tilda started sweeping. “This woman, she might not do things like you remember your mama doing them, but it’ll all work out fine. You just have to do what she says and not be thinkin’ your egg has to be cooked a certain way come morning.”
“If she wants me to, I can cook her egg.”
“So you can.” Aunt Tilda paused in her sweeping to give Adria one of those soft looks. “You’re a right good hand at cookin’. It’s a blessin’ to have a helpful child around. A body don’t have to have a baby to understand that.”
“Did you ever have babies?” Adria couldn’t imagine Aunt Tilda with a little baby of her own. She was too gray and wrinkled, but she could be a grandmother. A woman couldn’t be a grandmother unless she was a mother first. That was just how it worked.
Adria used to have a grandmother, but then Mama said she went to heaven to get things ready for when they might come. Mama said Adria’s grandmother was a great one for getting things ready. Adria shut her eyes and imagined them all sitting down at a shining table to eat. That had to be good.
Aunt Tilda was quiet so long Adria almost forgot what she’d asked her after her mind ran off to her family in heaven. But when Aunt Tilda started talking in a voice that sounded too quiet, she remembered.
“I did have babies. A long time back.” She leaned on the broom. “How I did love those sweet bundles. That motherin’ feel I spoke about from the Lord was strong inside me. That can be more of a curse than a blessin’ for a slave like me.” She waved her hand and began sweeping again. “But ain’t no need burdenin’ your young mind with any of that. Things won’t never be that way for you.”
She knew Aunt Tilda didn’t want to talk about it anymore from the way her shoulders were stiff as she swept, but Adria asked anyway. “Where are they now?”
“Hard to say, child. They’d be older than Louis now.”
She looked so sad that Adria moved over in front of her. “They could have gone across that river you told Louis about. Not the one to glory but that other one to freedom.”
Again Aunt Tilda stopped sweeping. She shut her eyes a second while a hint of a smile played across her lips. “That’s how I think about them, child. Done run up to freedom land. I’m thinkin’ they might have made it. I whispered the want-to in their ears while I was nursin’ them on my breast.”
“Why didn’t you go find that river, Aunt Tilda?”
She blew out a long breath. “Too fearful when I was young. Too old when the fear left me.”
“Is Louis afraid too?”
“These is things you can’t understand, child. Hard things. But Louis ain’t your regular man. He walks on the Lord’s path and I don’t reckon that path has ever took him toward that river you’re thinkin’ on.” She started sweeping again, slow, measured strokes. “Could be the Lord will reward him for that someday, whether here on God’s green earth or in the heavenly realm. We’re all measured and weighed by the Lord’s scales.”
Adria started to say something more, but Aunt Tilda held up her hand to stop her. “We ain’t a-gonna talk about this no more. Ever. You understand?”
Adria nodded a little.
“Good. And don’t be talkin’ ’bout that river to nobody else either. That wouldn’t do nothin’ but bring trouble down on us all. You is ready to start a new life where you don’t never have to worry about findin’ no river to cross to freedom.”
“Will I ever see you again? Or Louis?” Adria squeezed the feather duster up against her chest as though it were her doll, Callie.
The hard look faded off Aunt Tilda’s face. “Ain’t none of us goin’ anywhere, and I’ll be back to help the schoolteacher woman here at your house from time to time. We ain’t throwin’ you aside, child. We just doin’ what has to be done and you is gonna be fine.”
She reached a hand toward Adria and that was all the invitation Adria needed to wrap her arms around Aunt Tilda’s waist and bury her face against the woman’s apron.
Aunt Tilda stroked her hair. “There, there, child. I done told you. You has had some hard times, but things is gonna get better now that this schoolteacher lady is comin’ to stay with you. Louis and me, we prayed and this is the answer we got.” She pushed Adria away from her and bent down to look straight in her face. “And the Lord’s answers are always the best answers. You understand that?”
Adria nodded her head.
“Then you wipe away them tears and get back to usin’ that feather duster. Louis’ll be here with that schoolteacher lady anytime now.”
When Louis got there with the schoolteacher’s wife and her trunk, everybody was busy putting things here or there. Then Aunt Tilda had to go back to the hotel. Not long after that, Louis and the other man helping him finished carrying things in and they left too. Adria and the schoolteacher’s wife were alone with neither one of them seeming to know exactly what to do next.
They ate at the table where Adria had last sat with her mother and father and Eddie. She tried not to think about that, but it was hard not to. Everything about the kitchen made her think of her mama. The schoolteacher’s wife sat across the table from Adria and did more stirring of the soup Aunt Tilda had given them than eating. She did smile, but something about it wasn’t right. Adria smiled back and wondered if something wasn’t right about her smile too.
“Aren’t you hungry?” the schoolteacher’s wife asked.
Adria looked down at her soup. She’d barely eaten any. “I guess not.”
“You need to eat.” The woman looked worried.
“Yes, ma’am.” Adria ate a spoonful. Aunt Tilda told her to try to do whatever the schoolteacher’s wife wanted her to do. She thought about telling the woman she needed to eat too. She was even skinnier than Aunt Tilda and she looked kind of pale. “Are you sick?”
The woman looked surprised. “No. Why would you ask that?”
“I don’t know.” Adria shrugged a little. “I just didn’t want you to be sick.”
The woman’s face changed, got softer the way Aunt Tilda’s did, even though she didn’t have any wrinkles to ease out.
“I’m not sick.” The schoolteacher’s wife reached across the table and put her hand over Adria’s. “Listen, Adria. This is a little strange for the two of us. But if we both try, I think we’ll be all right. You can tell me what you need and I’ll do my best to help you.”
Adria wasn’t sure what to say. She needed her mama, but this woman couldn’t make that happen. Nobody could.
When Adria didn’t answer right away, the woman said, “We just need
time to get to know each other. Then it will be fine.”
Aunt Tilda’s words echoed in Adria’s head. You is gonna be fine. “Yes, ma’am.”
“So you ask me something and then I’ll ask you something.” The woman squeezed Adria’s hand when Adria hesitated. “Ask anything you like.”
Adria moistened her lips. “What should I call you? Mrs. Harmon?” That might be better than “the schoolteacher’s wife” that kept being in Adria’s head.
“Oh no. That’s much too formal.”
“Do you want me to call you Mother?” She had never called her mother that, only Mama.
The woman flinched a little and pulled her hand away from Adria’s. “No. Best you keep that name for the memory of your real mother.” She took a deep breath. “I could be your sister and you could simply call me Ruth, but others might think that wasn’t proper. Not that we have to worry about what others think, but if I’m going to be the schoolteacher, I need to keep the opinions of my students’ parents in mind.”
“You could be my aunt like Aunt Tilda.”
The schoolteacher’s wife smiled. A real smile that went all the way up to her eyes. “I think that would work. Aunt Ruth. Do you want to try it out?”
“Aunt Ruth.” Adria tried a smile out on the woman too. On Aunt Ruth.
She reached back over to touch Adria’s hand. “Good.”
“Now it’s your turn to ask me something,” Adria said.
“So it is.” Aunt Ruth let her eyes wander all around the kitchen and then back to Adria’s face. She looked uneasy again. “What would you like to do next? After we eat.”
Adria remembered all the books Louis had carried in for Aunt Ruth. “Could you read me a story out of one of your books before I go to bed?”
So later, they sat close together on the couch where Adria’s mother had died while Aunt Ruth read from Gulliver’s Travels. Her voice was strong and carried Adria into the story. While she was reading, Adria didn’t think about her mother. Finally Aunt Ruth marked their place and promised to read more the next night, but even then they just sat there together a moment.
“I liked that. Mama used to tell me stories, but we didn’t have any books but the Bible.” Adria leaned her head against Aunt Ruth.
“The Bible has good stories. We’ll read it sometimes too.” Aunt Ruth eased her arm out and around Adria.
“I’m glad you’re here, Aunt Ruth.” Her name was beginning to be as easy to say as Aunt Tilda.
“I am too. We’re going to be fine,” Aunt Ruth said, and Adria believed her.
Eight
12 Years Later
June 1845
I’m not going to wait on you forever, Adria Starr.” Carlton Damon ran his hand through his hair, mussing it even more than usual. He had a couple of cowlicks that only going bald was apt to tame, but with his thick brown hair, that looked a long time away.
Adria tried not to sigh, but she couldn’t help it. Usually she could tease Carlton out of talking marriage, but tonight she was tired. Ruth had been baking all day. Pies and cakes. Adria had helped her as soon as she got home from work. A few cakes were still cooling before they could frost them. Adria was sick to death of sugar icing. Why couldn’t people just want bread? She liked to make bread. But Ruth said desserts sold better, and when school wasn’t in session, they needed the extra money.
That wasn’t quite as vital as it used to be since Adria started working at Billiter’s Mercantile. All day long she had waited on customers, smiling whether she felt like it or not, and then came home to get elbow deep in sugar. That hadn’t made her the first bit sweeter when Carlton showed up to complain about her working at the store. He didn’t like her waiting on the drovers and wagoners who came through town. A lady didn’t need to be exposed to that kind of riffraff. Especially his girl.
Carlton was always pushing her to quit her job and get married. Everybody in Springfield thought they were headed to the altar. Everybody. Even Adria most of the time, but she still hadn’t said yes. She hadn’t said no, but tonight she was wondering if maybe she should.
They’d known each other forever. Carlton started following her around before they got out of primary school and then asked Ruth if he could come calling on Adria when she turned sixteen. Ruth thought that showed proper manners, but he should have asked Adria, not her aunt. She was the one who could decide what she wanted to do when it came to romance.
Ruth had never really told Adria what to do. About romance or anything else. Not even when Adria was just a kid and started living with her after the cholera. Ruth seemed to assume Adria could figure things out for herself. Not that she didn’t take care of Adria. She did. She put food on the table for Adria, heated water for her baths until Adria was old enough to do that herself, and saw that her clothes were clean and suitable for the occasion, whether that was school or church or baking pies.
She and Ruth had worked things out step by step, two strangers thrown together by need. Ruth was kind to Adria, but sometimes Adria felt like she was living with her schoolteacher instead of family.
Adria smiled at the thought. She was living with her schoolteacher, and she was glad about that. But sometimes she longed for a family like the one she’d lost in the cholera epidemic.
That made her not jumping at the chance to get married even odder. Here was Carlton right in front of her, ready to be family. Ready to start a family with her. He wanted sons and daughters. A houseful, he sometimes said. She had always assumed she would get married, probably to Carlton, and have children someday, but that day hadn’t come yet.
She summoned up her sweetest smile to make Carlton forget her unfortunate sigh. His lips were pressed firmly together, as though he was trying to keep the wrong words from exploding out of his mouth. She ran her hand up and down his arm. “Why are you in such a hurry?”
“You’re nineteen. My mother had two babies by the time she was nineteen.”
“I’m not your mother.” Adria tried to keep her voice soft, but an edge of irritation came through. Carlton’s mother was great. Adria liked her, but she didn’t want to be her. She wanted something more. The problem was, she wasn’t quite sure what the more was.
“You need to get your nose out of storybooks and start seeing what’s right in front of you.”
It was useless. She was too tired to dance around and pull up sweet words. Not when he was attacking her love of books. “Maybe you should try reading a few books.”
“I do read books. History books. The Bible. What’s real. Not romantic nonsense that keeps your head in the clouds all the time.”
“Sometimes the view is better from up in the clouds. Better than what’s right in front of my eyes anyway.” Adria planted her fists on her hips and glared at Carlton.
Nothing was wrong with reading books. Ruth would back her up on that. Reading was what had helped the two of them find a common ground. From the very first night they had lived together, they had ended almost every day by reading to one another. So many stories through the years. And the Bible too.
She was sorry she thought of the Bible. That brought to mind all that James wrote about how your tongue could get you in trouble. Aunt Tilda had made her memorize that one about being swift to hear and slow to speak. Slow to wrath.
Dear Aunt Tilda. She had tried to step in and be the mother Ruth seemed unable to be. Aunt Tilda didn’t let Adria get away with anything and she taught her so much. Ruth too. Not about mothering, but she taught Ruth to cook and shared her recipes for cakes and pies. Any time Aunt Tilda could steal a few minutes away from her work at the hotel or her mistress, she was in their kitchen, helping Ruth and making sure Adria behaved.
“You’re free, child. You can do anything you want. But it ain’t good to want to do what ain’t right. Or to lose your temper over ev’ry little thing. Best remember that slow to wrath verse in the Good Book. You understand that?”
Sometimes Adria wondered what Aunt Tilda would think about her hesitating on the edge
of matrimony. She wished she could ask her, but Aunt Tilda had gone on to glory four years ago. Happily. Rejoicing in the thought that in heaven she wouldn’t be a slave. She would finally find freedom in eternity.
The black woman was buried toward the back of Cemetery Hill with other slaves, but Adria kept the place in mind and carried flowers there whenever she and Ruth visited the cemetery.
With Aunt Tilda’s words whispering through her mind, Adria shut her eyes and drew in a deep breath. “Look, Carlton. I don’t want to fight with you.”
“Then don’t. Kiss me instead.” Carlton put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her toward him.
Adria jerked back from him. She could never understand how Carlton could say things that made her mad enough to spit and then the next instant expect her to kiss him. She might not want to fight, but she didn’t want to make up either. Tomorrow, if he came around talking nice, might be a different story. Then she might entertain the idea of a kiss.
“Why don’t you just go home?” Adria said.
“Maybe I will.” Carlton dropped his hands back to his side. “And maybe I won’t come back.”
“Fine with me.”
Ruth stepped out onto the back porch behind Adria. “Whatever are you two fighting about now?”
“She won’t listen to reason, Miss Ruth.” Carlton dropped his head to stare down at the ground. He looked something like his nine-year-old self from their school days.
“And what reason is that?” Ruth asked.
That was one thing about Ruth. She didn’t let a person slide past an explanation. A person needed clarity of thought, she was fond of saying. In the schoolroom, the answer “I don’t know” would get her ruler pointed toward your forehead. Think, she would say. Think. She wanted her students to figure out more than an answer but the reason behind it.
Instead of a ruler, she pointed the spoon she held at Carlton. Once a student of Miss Ruth, always a student, no matter how long it might have been since he sat on the schoolhouse benches.
“You know she should marry me. You said so yourself.” Carlton glanced up at Ruth.
River to Redemption Page 6