“Things can’t always be the way you want it. Grown-ups know this. Time you understood it too.” He looked away and rang up my purchase of diapers. It came to nine dollars and fifty cents. Just as I handed him the ten-dollar bill Robert had given me, a white family entered the store. They stopped, apparently waiting for me to step aside so their needs could be taken care of before mine.
“Here,” he said to me. The tone of his voice had changed from kindly to that of a white shop-owner bothered by this colored woman taking up space in his shop. “Your change. Now move along.”
He handed me back the ten-dollar bill that I had given to him. For a moment his fingers were on one end of the money and mine on the other.
“You got your stuff. Now take your change and leave.” He shooed me away with his arm while asking the couple if he could help them.
I took the bill, fumbled with my purse, and slipped it inside. Then I turned and faced the couple behind me. For a quick moment I looked the woman straight in the eye. She was about to say something when I lowered my gaze, staring at the tips of my shoes—shoes that needed to be polished. I backed away to the door. Behind me I heard the other man ask, “That colored girl giving you any trouble?”
The old man replied, “No, she’s the Jones girl. Lost her daddy. Back visiting from the North. Think she forgot this here is the South. I put her back in her place. Now what do you fine people need?”
The top step came at my feet before I realized it, causing me to stumble and lose my balance. I almost bumped into the truck, so resolute was my downcast gaze. I put the package of diapers on the floor in the back and made my way into the front seat. With trembling hands, racing heart, a tight knot tugging at my stomach, I sat and handed Robert his ten dollars.
“Had enough money of your own?”
“Guess I did, thanks just the same.”
“Sis, you okay? Something happen in there?”
“Nothing happened. I just remembered what I’d forgotten about here.”
April and Junior were still asleep, huddled next to each other in the baby seats Robert had strapped into the back. I ran my hand over their cheeks and hair. My babies are Northern children, I thought. I don’t want them to grow up afraid of a white accusing finger thrust their way, robbing them of innocence and possibly their lives. I moved my hand back and forth on my stomach, while taking in the beauty of our surroundings.
After a time Robert asked, “What’s it like up North, Sis? Is it as different as everyone says? Are we free there?”
Free? I saw an image of my life, always confined to our tiny apartment, with two children, never going out on my own, no money in my pockets, waiting for Henry to come home and lead us out into the world. Free?
“I guess we are. There aren’t any signs saying we can’t go somewhere or shop or drink water.” My voice trailed off.
“How’s your church?” he asked.
“Church?”
“You do go to church, don’t you?”
“Henry goes. I always have a Sunday dinner ready when he comes home. He tells me about the sermon and the hymns. He has some favorite hymns he’ll hum for us. Little Junior is beginning to learn them and can hum along with his daddy. I know most of the hymns from our church here. I could sing all of them, but I don’t. Henry likes to hum.” I was fiddling with my dress and looking at my lap. I reflected on how Henry would leave me at home, at first alone and then with the children. He’d told me in the early months, “You’re too delicate to walk all the way to church. Just stay here and have a nice Sunday dinner ready when I return; then I’ll read some of the bible to you.” As if I needed him to read to me. I was a reader. Henry struggled with words and sentences like the school kids in Miss Parker’s class. Whenever he heard me reading aloud, he’d tell me, “Hush, you’re making too much noise.” Once I’d started to have babies, Sunday would come around and Henry’d say, “The children are too young to be in church. You need to stay home with them. I’ll tell you everything the minister preaches.” And off he’d go. I couldn’t bear to share this with Robert.
“Sis, have the children been christened?”
“Christened? I—we—never thought about it. I just do what Henry wants, what he needs. Now I do whatever he and the children need. I don’t think about things like church and such. I don’t think much anymore.” I shook my head as though I was trying to air out a room where dust had filled every corner.
“You were always the thinker at home, Sis. The one person who had to know how everything worked. You wore Daddy and Momma out. Daddy used to joke that you would take the truck apart if you could, just to look at the insides. You knew more about the world than any of us. I know you and I didn’t talk much, and I was too old to play or hang out with you, but I thought you were the smartest girl around. I was proud of my little sis. Still am. You’ll figure out how to make things work at your home; it takes time. Look, you got married, moved up yonder, have two babies and a new world to figure out, and now we’re mourning for our daddy. It’s a lot for anyone.”
“I guess.” Suddenly I felt like a little girl again, confused about the world around me. I wanted to ask Robert so many questions. I just didn’t know the right ones to ask. As for the smart and inquisitive girl, I couldn’t remember her. What happened to that girl? I took deep breaths to ease the upside-down feeling that had a grip on me.
“I think you need to prepare yourself to see Momma. She’s not doing well.”
“She’s not sick too?”
“In a way. She’s sad about Daddy, of course, but there’s something else.”
“Robert, what is it?”
“I can’t really say. She seems lost. Bernice has taken over for Momma at the house, the way I took over for Daddy on the farm. We never thought our lives would turn out this way. I thought we’d eventually get a place of our own, raise children; but here we are. Anyway, I wanted to let you know before you saw her.”
I squeezed his hand.
The front porch was empty when Robert pulled into the dusty driveway of our farmhouse. I stared at the worn front steps, the crooked siding that was peeling more than I remembered; everything had been battered by wind and time.
The children were wide awake, hungry, dirty, and ready for clean diapers.
“Sis, I’ll take care of the children. You go ahead and find Momma.”
I stood at the base of the porch, wanting to walk right up and into the house, but my feet wouldn’t move. Daddy’s rocking chair was creaking back and forth as if he were sitting there, talking to the other men on a lazy summer evening. I could hear his voice, that deep baritone sound coming from the base of his belly. His laughter rang in my ears, and I doubled over, grabbing my stomach to ease the pain.
Around the back of the house I found Momma. She was bent over the wash bucket scrubbing sheets and clothes, moving her hands on the metal scrub-board that rested inside the bucket. She was humming a church hymn as her hands moved up and down in the hard water, beating every germ out of the sheets. “A good clean is important,” she used to tell me when she’d taught me how to clean linens years ago. “It hurts, Momma,” I’d protest, hoping my complaints would free me from the chore, but it never worked. “Sometimes good things hurt,” she’d said, and piled on more items for me to wash and hang on the line.
I moved to the wash bucket, began to hum along with Momma, and put my hands in the wash to help her. She looked up at me, her hands never stopping their dance on the scrub-board. “Welcome home, Baby Girl.”
Up and down, up and down, our bodies swayed in rhythm as the clothes slid in and out of the soapy water. It was as though we were on a seesaw, two children enjoying the warm day. Sheets and pillowcases on the clothes-line moved back and forth in harmony with us; at times they fluttered across Momma’s face like white sails kissing the wind. Sudsy water climbed up to my elbows. My skin welcomed the mingling of moisture and outside air, as it used to when I was a Southern child living in open spaces.
M
omma’s humming turned into singing:
On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross,
The emblem of suff’ring and shame,
And I love that old cross where the Dearest and Best
For a world of lost sinners was slain.
I responded with the second stanza:
So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross,
Till my trophies at last I lay down;
I will cling to the old rugged cross,
And exchange it some day for a crown.
We sang the final stanzas together:
Oh, that old rugged cross, so despised by the world
Has a wondrous attraction for me;
For the dear Lamb of God left His glory above,
To bear it to dark Calvary.
In the old rugged cross, stained with blood so divine,
A wondrous beauty I see;
For ’twas on that old cross Jesus suffered and died,
To pardon and sanctify me.
“You remember that hymn? My favorite.”
“I remember. You always sang it whenever you braided my hair. I’d sit between your legs, and you’d tug at me to keep still and sing along with you. It was the only way I could forget about the pain of your fingers pulling at my tight hair.”
Momma was wearing the black and red checked house-dress that I hadn’t seen in two years. It looked exactly the same except for a cluster of dark stains below her chest and a torn patch dangling at the sleeve. Small white buttons danced down the front of the frock, all the way to the hemline that rested just below her knees. A matching belt was tied off-center in a bow at her waist to keep the ends out of the way while she washed and cleaned. I could see the edge of a lace hankie tucked into her side pocket; it looked as if she needed a clean dry one.
I slid my hand on top of hers and inched closer to her side. Our hands came out of the water on the same piece of clothing. At first I thought it was one of Robert’s T-shirts, but as the light hit it, the embroidered letter D on the right sleeve began to take shape. When my brothers had grown to nearly the size of Daddy, we’d stitched the first letter of their names on the shirts so everyone would know which were theirs. D was for Daddy. I reached into the water and pulled out another; the D was there too. The same was true with each one I grabbed. The long-sleeved white dress shirt didn’t have an initial on it, but I recognized it as the one Daddy had worn to church every Sunday.
I backed away from the bucket. “Momma! These are Daddy’s.”
“Shush, Baby Girl. Your daddy expects me to have all his clothes clean and pressed. That’s what I do. That’s what I’ll continue to do. Keep washing. Tell me, do you sing these hymns in your church?”
“Hymns are the same everywhere.” I stared deep into the suds-filled water and saw the image of Henry’s back as he walked out of the apartment for church on Sundays.
“Have my grandbabies been christened? No mention of that in your letters.”
“They’re young yet. In time.”
Momma stopped. I could feel her fixed look on me. Her eyes, full of sorrow, bore into my skin, causing a burning sensation to rise up into my cheeks. I raised my eyes to hers, but I didn’t say anything as she continued scrutinizing me, searching for an answer to her question, the right answer. When she couldn’t see it, she shook her head in disappointment and said, “Your daddy left something for you. Go on up to the porch. On his chair. You’ll see it. Go on now. I’ll finish here.”
“Yes, Momma.” I dropped my eyes, wiped my hands on my dress, and backed away.
The worn front steps, which were in dire need of sweeping, creaked as I slowly moved to Daddy’s rocking chair. There I saw a small box I hadn’t noticed earlier. It was rough-hewn, made from the wood Daddy used to whittle stick figures and smoking pipes. Its lid was cut precisely to fit into the grooves on the sides of the top, so you could slide it out to reveal treasures inside. Daddy had taken pride in creating wooden things that served a purpose and didn’t need any screws or nails to make them work. There were etchings on the top of the box that spelled Baby Girl. I gently held Daddy’s gift and rubbed my fingers over the letters. It felt as though his large calloused hands were guiding me.
“This here is how you cut the letters into the wood.”
“Am I doing it right, Daddy?”
“Yes, Baby Girl. You got it. You have a way with this knife.”
“I can carve, just like you, can’t I, Daddy?”
“Yes, Baby Girl, you sure know how to handle my knife.”
“Sis,” Robert said before I opened the box. “Did you see Momma?” He walked onto the porch, cleaning his hands of the grease from a piece of farm equipment he’d been working on.
“She doesn’t look well, Robert. At first I thought she looked exactly the same as when I’d last seen her. But then I saw the stains and tears on her dress, the deep dark circles under her eyes, the red lines around her irises. There was a faraway aspect to her gaze, as though she didn’t really see me or know where she was. And I was helping her wash but then realized it’s Daddy’s things she’s scrubbing clean, like he’s still here.”
“She’s been that way since he died. She just floats around the house and out back, doing chores with the aim of pleasing Daddy. I hear her talking to him all the time; I’ve even heard her get into an argument with herself, believing it was him not agreeing with her. We’re worried—it seems to be getting worse each day. We don’t leave her alone; we’re not sure what’ll happen in the kitchen if she’s on her own.”
Momma, I thought as I rocked in Daddy’s chair, clutching my box, and here I was hoping you could ease my pain. “Maybe I should stay. She needs me.”
“You have a home. What about Henry?”
“Wouldn’t miss me.”
He sat next to me in the chair Momma used to sit in to be close to Daddy. “Sis, is everything all right with you and Henry? We all noticed that you never mention him in your letters.”
“Remember the adventures in my books I’d talk about? I thought that getting married and moving North would be my personal adventure; that I’d be out in the world meeting people, doing interesting things, dressed in fine clothes. Instead I sit in a cramped apartment all day with two babies, waiting for Henry to come home so I can take care of his needs. That isn’t what I wanted.”
“Your children are beautiful, a real blessing. Bernice and me would give anything to have babies of our own. You should be grateful.”
“Please don’t get me wrong. I love my children, it’s just that … I wanted more than Henry wanting me all the time. That’s all.”
“He’s your husband.”
“Don’t mean I have to like it.” I listened to the creak of the rocking chair scrape against the old porch slats, rubbing Daddy’s gift box in my hands. I imagined if I rubbed hard enough, I might be able to will a genie out of the box who would grant me three wishes.
“How’s that library job you wrote about?” Robert asked.
“Don’t go there anymore. Henry didn’t like me being out. Don’t go to the hairdresser any longer either; but at least I’m allowed to have the girls visit me one day a week. I miss the library. There was a group of young children I read to. One of the little girls reminded me of who I used to be.”
Robert patted the top of my head as he stood and said, “Well, I’d better get back to that tractor, finish with it before supper. Nell, spend time with Momma, but then you need to go home to your husband—that’s where you belong. Even if there’re things you need to work on. Bernice and me will take care of Momma.” He lumbered to the barn, his shoulders angled down as if big hands were pressing against him. He probably thought he couldn’t offer me empathy where Henry was concerned; that was a woman’s matter.
I watched him disappear inside the barn and found comfort in the back-and-forth motion of Daddy’s rocking chair. The expanse of early fall air enveloped my skin in welcome memories of a past life full of anticipation. But I could hear Junior and Ap
ril inside with Bernice, who I hadn’t even said hello to yet. Their voices grounded me in my present reality.
Momma walked up to the porch, drying her hands on the front of her apron, and said, “Baby Girl, did you find the gift from Daddy?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Did you open the box?”
“Not yet. Robert and I got to talking, and I just wanted to feel it in my hands. Made me think about Daddy.”
She sat in her chair with a heavy sigh, looked straight out, and began to rock slowly back and forth. I noticed patches of gray in her hair, sticking out like wires with a mind of their own. Deep wrinkles danced at the corners of her eyes and the sides of her lips. She held no expression on her face, it was like an image caught in a picture, similar to the one of my grandparents hanging on the wall.
“Momma, are you all right?” I placed my hand on top of hers. She pulled away.
“Seems everyone thinks I’m madder than a wet hen these days. I can see it in their eyes, the way Robert, Bernice, and the others tiptoe around me, always whispering to each other. Y’all may have lost your daddy, and that’s real sad. But I lost half of me. Everything about my life was wrapped up in your daddy. I woke each morning thinking about what I needed to do as one half of the whole that he and I were. If his right leg moved forward, my left leg followed; if he reached with his left hand, my right hand instantly connected to his. We danced every day to the same rhythm—raising all of you, working this farm, solving problems, dealing with the white man—without having to say a word to each other. My body’s been cut down the middle. Is it any wonder I’m out of sorts?”
“Momma.”
“Enough about me. What about you, Baby Girl? Why’re you hollow inside?”
“I’m sad about Daddy, not being here to say a proper good-bye.”
“My guess—that hollowness been growing for a long time. I can see that the bright spark of curiosity and love of life that lit up those eyes was been dim well before Daddy passed. Almost two years, over twenty letters, and not one mention of your husband. Why aren’t you happy with Henry?”
Child Bride Page 12