One Day She'll Darken

by Fauna Hodel

  “This is a big house,” Pat said. “Who lives here?”

  “Don’t you worry ’bout that, they white people, that’s all you got to know. And don’t you be trustin’ them neither. If they want to give you something, you know it ain’t free. There’s always a catch. May not be right away, but it’ll be there, don’t you worry.”

  A plain but comely woman in her early forties, dressed in jeans with a white riding blouse and tan boots let them in through the kitchen entrance. Jimmie noticed that she immediately focused on Pat.

  “Well, who is this little ray of sunshine?” the woman asked in an authoritative voice.

  “Oh, this is Pat. I’m babysittin’ for Mrs. Anne. I hope you don’t mind, she’ll be my helper today.”

  “No, not at all,” she said without taking her eyes off Pat. “Hi, I’m Candace.”

  “Hi.” Pat answered.

  “I want to stay longer to show you some things I need done, but I’ve got to run some errands and I’ll be back late.” She said and promptly left the house.

  Before Jimmie put her supplies down, she felt Pat tugging at her dress. “What’s you want?” Jimmie asked.

  “Who’s Mrs. Anne?” Pat whispered.

  “That’s our little secret.”

  “Why we gotta have a secret?” Pat asked.

  “Cause of the Welfare people. If they find out that I was your momma, they’d take you away. Do you want them to take you away from me?”

  “No, Momma,” she said. “Where would they take me?”

  “To the welfare home and you’d have to live with the foster parents, and you don’t never want to live with no foster parents. They won’t care nothing about you, they just want the money.” Jimmie added.

  “What about my other momma, my real momma. Where is she?”

  “I know lots about your real momma, and I know lots about your real family too. I can get hold of ’em any time I want to. Right now, I know your Momma’s living in Mexico . . . far away from here. And you know what?”

  “What?” Pat said.

  “I feel so sorry for her. She had to give you to me, because her mother couldn’t live with a mixed baby. All the whiteys feel like the coloreds got bad blood—and your real grandmother is one of ’em. But someday . . . someday, you’ll find her. I know that.”

  “If they’d of let me, I’d taken her in right along with you. She was way too young to have a baby of her own. I’d a raised the two a you myself. And when she’s old enough, I’d a given you both back to your real family.” Pat seemed satisfied with that and Jimmie was quiet the rest of the morning.

  When they arrived home, Jimmie retrieved a small, pink envelope from her nightstand. With a worried look, she sat down with her back toward the window, noticing the daylight peek through the wooden blinds, creating a ladder of light that covered Pat’s face. While Pat daydreamed, Jimmie opened the envelope and began to re-read a letter.

  Dear Mrs. Greenwade,

  George has told me of your mother’s recent illness. I am truly sorry and hope that she recovers quickly. We understand that Fauna is very fond of her, and the respect and admiration is mutual.

  Dorothy has taken Tamar to Mexico in order to help her relieve some of the pressures of her past hardships. Apparently, from what Dorothy has told me, Tamar has become intolerable with deep psychological problems stemming from the trial and subsequent adoption. She is no more capable of raising a baby then when she was fifteen. Dorothy is grateful to you for your generosity and understanding.

  She has also told me that Tamar has been telling outrageous stories, spreading rumors, and continually lying about the scandal that has so devastated her family. Everyone agrees that she is a beautiful girl and her looks will probably get even better with age. It’s just that she goes against the grain, so to speak, and that takes away from her overall beauty. We all hope and pray that maturity will bring her into the fold.

  Fauna’s grandfather has also been in a sizzle over the problem with Tamar. His practice has been reduced to a shambles due to the scandal and publicity, and he will be moving out of the country to the Philippines. But I am sure he will continue to keep his eye on all that is going on here at home.

  I hope that everything is well with you. If there is anything you need, you know where to contact me.

  Sincerely,

  Dorarro

  Jimmie stared at the letter, glanced at Pat and then placed it back in the envelope.

  “What’s that you got, Momma?”

  “Oh, nothing you need to know.”

  “Get up sunshine, get up sunshine,” Homer said. He knew that his early morning, gravely voice wake-up call annoyed her, but at the same time he was thrilled to have his shiny, bald head be the first thing the four year old saw when her eyes opened. After breakfast, with his transistor radio in one hand and Pat in the other, Homer marched off to work, limping down the street, listening to the Giants play the Pirates with the volume turned up loud enough to hear it a block away.

  “I can hear them talking on the radio, too,” Pat said, “It’s noisy.”

  “I got to keep it loud, so everybody knows I’m coming,” Homer said. But in reality, he loved the Giants so much that he didn’t want to miss a single word of the play-by-play action, not even the beer commercials.

  “Oh no!” he yelled, “they hit a homer with two men on. Now, what they go and do some foolish thing as changin’ that pitcher for?” The Giants were losing to the Pirates that day.

  As they turned on to B Street, Pat mimicked Homer’s limp by stiffening one leg, making it stick out to the right. He noticed right away and thought it amusing, until people he knew said hello. “Cut that shit out, Pat, you’re slowin’ us down. I’ll be late.”

  “Wait,” she said, “this ain’t the way we go.”

  “We got to go to the post office first,” he said.

  “What for? You got to send money again?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I got to send money, again,” he repeated, “but remember, this is a secret only you and I know about, so you can’t be telling your momma.”

  “Oh, I know. I ain’t telling no one nothing.”

  Homer’s first wife lived in San Francisco and didn’t know that Homer was living with Jimmie Lee, and he did his best to keep it a secret. Together they had eleven children and two of them, his eldest daughters, were older than Jimmie Lee and were the only family he trusted enough to let them know about his new woman. Once in a while they came to Sparks to visit him. When he had some extra money, Homer sent his sickly wife a few dollars. If Jimmie had found out, she might have crippled his other leg.

  The Esquire Barbershop was a well-known hangout for local businessmen, casino dealers, and hotel people who patronized the shop. When they first arrived at the shop, Pat noticed there was a customer getting up from her favorite leather-bound chair that had a foot pedal attached to a round white base that seemed to grow out of the hardwood floor. It reminded her of a giant, deformed mushroom. The sweet smell of colognes and shaving cream permeated the room.

  “Hello Pat,” Kirk said looking at her through the mirror. The short, stocky barber with thin graying hair, took two steps toward Pat and picked her up, gave her a big kiss and set her on a padded seat that he placed across the armrests of the barber’s chair. Pat felt important in that big seat.

  It was no more than a few minutes before Jim, the tall barber who looked like Davy Crockett, began to tease Homer. He wasn’t the only one who goosed him when he least expected it, causing Homer to lose his balance and tumble to the floor, but today he was the first.

  “Damn it, why don’t ya pick on somebody ya own size!” Homer grumbled, then began to steady himself, rising to his feet.

  “Yeah, why don’t ya pick on someone your own size?” Pat balked. “Leave Homer alone. Don’t be makin’ him fall.”

  “OK, OK. Take it easy,” said Jim. “It seems our little princess gets upset quite easily. Here, I’ve got something for you.” He reached into
his pocket and pulled out a crisp, new dollar bill and handed it to her. But before Pat could grasp it, he pulled it away and said, “First, you have to give me a big kiss.”

  Pat smiled and put her arms around his head while holding on to his soft, brown hair so she wouldn’t fall off the chair. The barber’s face was smooth, just like hers, and Pat gave him a big kiss right on his cheek.

  “Oh, that’s my girl. Now here, “ he said, handing her the paper money. “Don’t spend it all in one place, OK?”

  “OK, thank you,” Pat said.

  Everyone laughed and even Homer smiled again.

  “That little girl is gonna be rich someday. A dollar for a kiss, that’s something,” said Kirk.

  Pat felt special at the Esquire and seldom left empty handed. If it wasn’t a quarter, or a dollar, it was a toy, or a book, or a homemade pie. During the hunting season when Jim was lucky enough to bag a buck, he filled bags with fresh venison. For Thanksgiving, Shorty bought everyone, including Homer, a big turkey with all the trimmings.

  Mrs. Atkinson owned a very spacious two-story home on C Street. At the far end of the property, about 50 yards from the back of the house were three small cottages tucked neatly together in a semi-circle court. The wood-framed structures were built long before the war at a time when the area was used as a campground. In those early days, fishermen used the cabins on weekends rather than pitch a tent near the river. Jimmie and Homer moved into the end cottage when Pat was about five years old. It was still only one big room, but with an electric stove for cooking and heating that replaced the black soot from the old coal-fired one, it kept the cottage cleaner. The furnishings were also in better condition; the move was clearly a step up.

  Months later, a man everyone knew as Joe the Italian, moved into the cottage next door. He was friendly and spent some time with Jimmie Lee and her friends drinking beer. Frequently, he’d stroll off with Pat on snack runs or errands for Jimmie. As they walked together, a white man and a white child, she became almost invisible. No one called her ‘nigger lover,’ or made the rude comments that became routine when she was seen with Jimmie or Homer.

  Mrs. Atkinson never cared much for Joe and Jimmie Lee never cared much for Mrs. Atkinson. Often Jimmie chased Pat out of the house and let her stay with Joe just to annoy the landlady.

  One day when Jimmie had to leave for one of her cleaning jobs, she asked Joe to keep an eye on her six-year-old. Jimmie wasn’t gone for more than a minute when Joe came into the house. “Come on, Patty, get your doll. We’re going next door till Jimmie gets back. We’re gonna play a game and I got somethin’ for you.”

  “What is it? You got a prize for me?”

  “Yeah, but only if you’re a good girl.”

  “I’m always a good girl, everybody knows that,” she said.

  “You have to be real quiet, too. Not a word to anyone,” Joe said, holding a finger close to his lips

  “No noise, I’ll tiptoe. What’s the game?” Pat replied.

  “And then I’ll give you a dollar,” Joe said.

  In the beginning, Pat didn’t understand the game. He gave her money, which she used to buy candy, but she knew that what he was doing wasn’t right and prayed that he would disappear. Pat confided in no one for fear of Jimmie finding out. She isolated herself from other children and became sad and lonely. For two years, Pat lived with the guilt and shame as the sexual abuse continued when, suddenly Joe just moved away.

  At about the same time, Pat began having stomach pains. When she complained to Jimmie, it was first dismissed as something she ate. But soon, everything Pat ate didn’t agree with her. Jimmie wasn’t much of a cook and knew even less about nutrition. Pat’s diet consisted manly of chicken necks, pork fat, burnt fries, chitlins, and Pepsi. One night, a few months later, Jimmie found Pat crying in bed, looking frightfully ill.

  “What’s with you, Patta?” Jimmie asked. “Ya lookin’ pale, don’t you feel good?”

  “I got pains all around here.” Pat held her stomach and back.

  She put her hand on her forehead. “Ya burnin’ up! What’s wrong with you?”

  Patta shook her head, sobbed painfully and watched her Momma’s expression turn to genuine concern. “I better get Aunt Rosie to take a look at ya.”

  Jimmie sent Homer over to fetch her sister-in-law and then fed Pat some Bayer aspirin. When Rosie arrived with her bag of magic, the one she used when anyone in the family was sick, she touched Pat’s forehead, pulled her eyelids up, held her chin, opened her pajamas and began pressing on her stomach. Pat howled like a caged wildcat.

  “This child’s in bad shape. You better get her to the doctor’s.”

  “What’s da matter with her?” asked Jimmie.

  “I dunno, but it ain’t good. Might be her appendix.”

  “Nah. Can’t be no appendix. She’s been acting funny for a while now.”

  “For a while? How long for a while?”

  “Oh, maybe three or four months.”

  Aunt Rosie turned her head away from Pat and stared hard at Jimmie. Softly, she asked, “What did you do for her?”

  “Well, I been givin’ her aspirin.”

  Homer shook his head and limped over to the kitchen chair.

  Doctor Berger immediately put her in the hospital for tests. Pat had needles in her arms, a tube in her nose, compresses, alcohol rubs, blood tests, fluid samples, and a lot more procedures that she didn’t care for.

  Jimmie came in very early the next morning, waiting for the doctor. Pat wasn’t afraid because she was asleep most of the time. When Doctor Berger finally arrived, he examined her again. He kept looking over some charts and shaking his head, occasionally glancing at Jimmie with a disdainful eye.

  “What’s the matter with her?” Jimmie asked.

  “Mrs. Greenwade . . .”

  “Mrs. Faison,” she corrected.

  “What?”

  “My name is Mrs. Faison.”

  “Oh.” Doctor Berger looked puzzled. “Didn’t it used to be Mrs. Greenwade?”

  “Uh, huh, but now I’m Mrs. Faison.”

  Although Jimmie and Homer never married, she used his name, as was customary in the neighborhood.

  “OK. Mrs. Faison. What has she been eating?”

  “What she been eating? The regular stuff, why?”

  “The regular stuff? What’s the regular stuff? Has she been eating from the basic food groups? Has she been eating plenty of vegetables, cheeses, milk, fish, breads, cereals, and red meat? I know she hasn’t been getting well-balanced meals.”

  “She eats finicky. She likes chicken, and pork, mostly chitlins, and she just loves candy and ice cream. She lives off cookies and cakes.”

  Doctor Berger shook his head in disgust. “Mrs. Faison, this child is very, very sick. And it’s not something that happened overnight. This condition has progressed over a period of months, maybe years.”

  “What she got?”

  “It’s called glomerulonephritis and possibly arteriolar nephrosclerosis as well, but we won’t know that until further testing.”

  “Glomaflitiscis?”

  “Not quite. It’s her kidneys.” He said as he glanced back at Pat. “She’s been getting too much grease and fats and sugar and not enough proteins, minerals, vitamins. Her diet consists mainly of fatty foods and it’s caused havoc with her system.” He looked at Jimmie very sternly for a moment. Then, shaking his head, he said, “I just hope it’s not too late; another hour and for sure she would have been gone.”

  Pat looked at Jimmie, and for the first time saw tears in the older woman’s eyes that were meant for her. Jimmie’s expression was unlike anything she had ever seen. The pain in her face, a blank, heartbroken and empty face showed real fear. Now Pat was afraid, too. Jimmie Lee raised her hands slowly to her cheeks and glanced over at Pat. The doctor continued to describe Pat’s condition, but neither Pat nor Jimmie heard a word.

  “Doctor,” said Jimmie, “you can’t let anything happen to my baby. No,
she’s got to get better. You’ve got to do something. Anything that will help.”

  The physician looked at her and said nothing.

  “Can’t you operate?”

  “Operate, on what? This doesn’t require an operation.”

  “Then give her a transfusion, put her in one of those iron lungs that everybody uses. Do something, you got to make her better!”

  “We’ll do what’s necessary. Just stay with her and give her hope.”

  Jimmie slid to her knees at the side of her bed, praying. Pat was touched. She knew Jimmie really cared. Pat became drowsy and floated between light and dark, fading in and out. Her dreams were vivid. She envisioned a noble lady, draped in radiant blue, standing before her who said in a hollow voice “It isn’t time for you to leave earth, you have much work to do.” She parted by reassuring Pat that she would return to good health and when she became afraid to just call on her.

  Each time Pat awoke, Jimmie Lee was there, sitting silently at her bed, day after day, praying to God to make her well. When she wasn’t there, Homer or Aunt Rosie was vigilant. When Pat began to recover, the nurses asked her a lot of questions about living with the coloreds. Pat told them she was half-Negro, too, but somehow she felt they didn’t believe her. A few times, Dr. Berger asked her how they were treating her. When Pat asked him who he meant, he said, “You know, the colored people you live with.”

  “Fine,” Pat told him, “they’re my family.”

  “If they treat you badly, or if anything unusual happens,” the doctor told her, “you come to me.”

  Pat didn’t understand, but she agreed anyway. And then, at the first opportunity, she told her Momma.

  Before she left for home that day, Jimmie Lee intercepted Dr. Berger in the corridor. “What do you mean by askin’ my baby, ‘If they treat you badly, you come to me?’ And just wut are you gonna do? You think I spend my whole life looking after my child, giving up everything I have for her just to treat her badly? You think cause I’m colored that I don’t know what’s good for my child?” Tears swelled her eyes; Dr. Berger became a blur. But she could see that he was taken by surprise.