Faith's Reckoning, page 9
Maudie reappeared from the kitchen again and set the plate of biscuits on the table. Then she sat down and fed Hannah from the small baby bowl full of cereal and applesauce. For a few minutes, the dining room was quiet except for muted ring of spoons against bowls, or the occasional smacking sound when a large bite of biscuit proved too big for an eager little mouth. When they had all finished eating, the girls wiped their hands and mouths and went to their rooms to collect their schoolbooks. Maudie slid the tray off the highchair and unclasped the strap around Hannah’s waist. She lifted her out of the chair and perched her on her right hip. She met the girls at the front door and inspected them to make sure they had their sweaters on and books in hand. The elementary school was only a few blocks away and the girls always walked to school. But the temperature was beginning to drop now that November had arrived.
“Now keep together on the way to school and don’t dawdle on the way home for your dinner. I love you, love you, love you,” she said, giving each girl a kiss as she balanced Hannah. “See you at noon.”
“Mama, will Delsey be here for dinner?” Grace asked.
“No, darlin’, she went back to Montgomery to see her family for a little while. Remember? She’ll be back soon.”
“What are you going to do this morning, Mama?” Grace asked, stalling.
“I’m going to have my devotional, Sweetie, like I always do, every morning.”
Maudie was already relishing the hour she would have after she put Hannah down for her morning nap. In that blessedly still time of morning, with the children in school and Hannah asleep, she found an hour, a whole hour, to read the Bible and listen for guidance from her Lord. Before the chores and cooking and the return of her flock with homework and skinned knees and stories of their day, she took one hour for herself.
“Mama?” Grace twisted the toe of her right shoe into a crack in the green floorboards of the front porch.
“I know what you’re doing, little Gracie, but you have to go to school anyway,” Maudie said, with a twinge of guilt. “Emma, I want you to hold Gracie’s hand all the way to school today.”
Emma took Grace’s hand and led her down the steps to the sidewalk. Faith waited a moment until the others were just out of hearing range, then she pulled on her mother’s sleeve.
“Mama,” she said with a look of deep consideration, “Now, I know why you named me Faith.”
Maudie met her eyes but didn’t answer.
“You named me Faith because your devotional is the most important thing in the world to you. Nothing matters more than your faith in God.”
Maudie smiled because it was true. It was her anchor and Faith knew that. Although parents purport they never have favorites among their children, there is often one they are hopelessly in love with. And just as Delta had curried her father’s favor, so Faith had won Maudie’s heart from the moment she was born.
“Well, I think you may be right, and I think you are a very smart and wise girl. I love you with all my heart. Now go catch up to your sisters and have fun at school.”
She watched Faith skip down the sidewalk until she reached Emma and Grace, watched them until they rounded the corner at the end of the block and were out of sight. Then she went into the house with a dozing Hannah on her hip to find her coffee and her Bible, and her hour all to herself.
“Can we hurry it up, Dad? I need to meet with Mr. Bullard before class this morning.”
Brett fought to blunt the edge in his voice as they brought the last of the crates in from the loading dock. The fabricated meeting with his physics teacher was a ruse to buy a little time with his girl, Justine. Between school, his afternoon job, and Hardee’s baffling new possessiveness, he felt like he never saw her. She was a dark-haired Cajun gal, full of Tabasco and filé spice and he felt certain he was going to marry her one day. He longed to walk beside her this morning, to brush against her hip as he draped his arm around the curve of her waist, his body rising to full attention.
Why had his dad insisted on his help this morning? It did not seem necessary. The rail hands would drop by on their way to work soon and, as always, were willing to trade their brawn for the prospect of a little of Fletcher Moody’s home brew that Hardee kept stashed at the store. Ever since Brett applied to the Georgia School of Technology aeronautical engineering program, Hardee had been fussing over him like a mother hen.
“You know Delsey’s gone, and I have to make a list of all this stuff!” Hardee groused back. “I’m here from dawn to dusk as it is, son. I ain’t asking for much, just a helping hand now and then.”
“I know Dad, but I gotta go. The guys from the rail yard can help you unpack the crate.”
The crate held the booty Hardee gleaned from the recent estate sale of another bankrupt cotton merchant, who had risked his profits on the market and lost. Hardee purchased the best remnants of an entire life’s work for a song. The salvaged parts of a new International Harvester, a thrown rod having crippled the engine; ornate chandeliers and wall sconces; mule harnesses and gang plows; the diaphanous drapes from a lady’s sitting room and a claw footed tub with its brass fixtures. Hardee was close to turning a profit within a year of opening the Trading Post, by working deals just like this against all odds. He worked sixteen hours a day and seldom saw his wife or kids awake except at dinnertime or supper. At night, after the evening meal, he would return to close the shop and take his time nursing his three fingers of whiskey. Fletcher Moody had a gift for turning corn mash into gold and he and Hardee had become friends. He sold a little of Fletcher’s brew from the shop in exchange for his free share. At first, he had been careful, allowing himself only a little taste each night, one neat finger. But over the year, as he worked longer and harder, one finger became two, then three until he was a little sloppy by the time he locked up the Trading Post and headed home to his sleeping family. He had to wrestle with the devil every morning, but at night he found refuge in the bottle. It soothed the ache in his aging muscles and the growing loneliness in his heart.
“All right, go. Get on out of here if you’re in such a damn hurry. But don’t be late for your mother’s supper tonight.”
The bell jingled as the front door opened. Hardee turned away from their bristling conversation and went to greet the visitor.
“Jeez-us,” Brett muttered under his breath and turned in the opposite direction.
He walked into the back office to retrieve his coat, glad to think the guys from the Southern had arrived and would occupy his dad while he slipped past them and out the front door. If he ran fast enough, he would be able to catch Justine before his first class.
But as he approached the front of the store, he was surprised to find the alluring figure of a well-heeled woman bent seductively over the front counter, a round mahogany bar Hardee had confiscated from an old speakeasy. His father was standing on the other side unlocking the cash register. She stood on her right leg with her left knee bent at a coy angle, her elbows resting on the counter, her gloved hands clasping the far edge. The calf of her left leg tapered exquisitely to its delicate ankle, extended in submission to the high heels she wore.
Hardee looked up without lifting his head and met her gaze, unable to suppress the boyish grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. Then he glanced past her to see his son returning from the back of the store, shock registering on Brett’s face. Hardee stood up and assumed a businesslike stance, telegraphing his caution to the woman, who glanced back to see Brett off to her side. She shifted her weight equally to both feet and pushed back from the counter. She smoothed the imaginary wrinkles out of the front of her dress as Brett watched, mesmerized.
“Mr. Wiggins,” she ventured, smiling demurely, “I was just hopin’ to see that candelabra you told me was comin’ from Vicksburg. You know the electric one that hangs from the ceiling?”
Brett lost track of time standing there next to the crates in the front office, watching Hardee’s spirits lift in front of this woman.
“Well, it is most certainly in one of those crates, Miss Styles,” Hardee said, motioning in Brett’s direction, “but I won’t have it unpacked until late this morning if you want to come back then.” Hardee emerged from behind the counter and came around to her side, gently grasping her elbow as if to usher her out of the store. But she lingered.
“I was also hopin’ you would be able to come by the house yourself and hang the thing, seein’s how I don’t know a thing about electricity and all.”
Brett’s mind and body were a conflagration of confusion. He could not take his eyes off this woman, the perfectly symmetrical opposing curves of breast and bottom, beckoning from beneath the red silk dress clinging to her like a jealous lover. And was he imagining it or did his father seem to know this woman? Maybe she was a good customer. She clearly had means. But he detected something else.
“I’ll do it,” Brett blurted out. “I could come by this afternoon after work and wire the chandelier myself.” He thought of his mother at home getting the girls ready for school, stealing an hour for her devotional before spending two hours in the kitchen preparing dinner for the nine of them.
“I can do it today, Miss….is it Styles?” Brett continued.
Hardee and Miss Styles stood next to each other and stared at Brett with bewilderment. Their bodies had stiffened into mannequin-like poses and they were equally mute. Brett suddenly remembered Justine and their promise to meet before school. He pulled the watch on its chain from his pocket.
Hardee finally spoke from his frozen stance.
“That’s OK, son, you run on to school before you’re late. I’ll get one of the rail hands to help Miss Styles out this afternoon.” He could see the worry in his son’s eyes, the fear that Hardee had betrayed his marriage.
“I promise,” Hardee added with weak reassurance.
“OK, Dad, OK. I’ll see you at dinner then. And it was nice to meet you, Miss…. Styles,” he added. He searched his father’s eyes for the briefest second before heading for the door.
“Tell Mr. Bullard to get that letter off to the Georgia Tech today,” Hardee commanded, having resumed his fatherly posture. “And tell Justine to join us for Sunday dinner this weekend,” he smiled. “She a wonderful girl, Brett.”
Brett didn’t look back, the bell jangling loudly as the door closed behind him.
MISSISSIPPI 1998
The two-lane highway stretched straight and taut across the flat alluvial plains of the Delta. Sylvia passed field upon field of spent cornstalks, parched brown and ready for harvest. They evoked thoughts in her mind of soldiers caught stock-still in the exact moment of their deaths.
She drove with one hand on the wheel, her left arm draped loosely over the driver’s door, fingers tapping out the rhythm of the radio’s blues beat against the side of the car. She was savoring the past two weeks with Faith. Their time together had expanded to the point of forgetfulness, where the luxury of conversation amidst the leisurely pace of tending house and garden had knocked the hands right off the clock. They had gardened and cooked, repaired screen doors and faucets, all the while pondering the unsolvable. As usual, Faith had displayed an easy mix of empathy and humor and a firm conviction that one can trust in the unseen. Sylvia was not so sure. She still considered religion a self-soothing invention that dismissed all suffering as a part of some bigger plan. How could the hungry faces and empty shops in ghost towns like Yazoo City be part of anybody’s plan? But what was it Faith had said about resurrection being around us all the time?
Sylvia decided to take an extra day to drive home, angling towards Clarksdale before heading south. She wanted to stand at the crossroads of US highways 61 and 49 and imagine the strains of “Dust my Broom” flying off the strings of Robert Johnson’s guitar some sixty years before. To find deliverance in the sung soul of that ramblin’ man and his mentor Son House. She had heard of a juke joint outside of Clarksdale and resolved she would allow herself a beer or two to accompany an evening of music. She reasoned it was safe after her two-week abstinence at Faith’s, but the memory of her night in Baton Rouge, the recklessness, still spooked her. It had been more than concern about Faith, or the rugged parting with Joe.
Sylvia missed Joe today. He would understand her detour here. This music was as alive in him as it was in her. They had talked every couple of days while she was in Florence, and he was warm, listening deeply to her stories. Flying down the road to Clarksdale, Sylvia wanted him by her side, wanted to find a cabin with a clean bed and make love all night long. She needed to wake up to the sound of him playing harmonica on the front porch, his steady calming tunes drawing her in, embracing her, jagged edges and all. Her passion for him came in spurts like this, when she knew in the deepest part of herself that she would not find a better man. Sylvia had met him a few months after returning from New York, just after her thirty-ninth birthday, fresh off the skids of having brokered her future for the sake of a man whose self-interest was supreme. Joe was the opposite of Jack; interested, and supportive of Sylvia. But early on he had pushed her to have a family. Sylvia would never consider it. She had her chance to be a mother when she was eighteen, and she had passed on it. Even after five years, Joe persisted, in a quiet sort of way. Sylvia knew she was keeping him from being the father he was meant to be. But how could she let him go? She pushed the question aside and focused on the road ahead.
When she came to a small town, consisting of a traffic light and a couple of grain elevators, Sylvia pulled into a gas station, stopped next to the pump and put the nozzle in the tank. She left it to run while she stepped off to the side to call home. Joe didn’t answer and she was just leaving a message telling him where she was and what she had been thinking about, when he picked up the phone somewhat breathless.
“Hello.”
“Hey Hon, it’s me,” Sylvia said.
“Hey. I didn’t hear the phone. I was outside unloading the truck.”
She could imagine the sweat coursing down his lean muscular arms.
“God, it’s good to hear your voice,” she gushed, surprising them both. “I wish you were here with me right now. We’d have ribs and beer for dinner with a side of blues and then each other all night long.”
“Is that a real invitation?” he asked.
“Yes, come right now!” she replied in a tone somewhere between plea and command.
“Nothing like absence to make the fond grow harder,” he chuckled. “How about this, I’ll come with you next trip.”
“Good idea! Are you busy?”
“Yeah. I’m slammed today finishing up the new corral but it will give us a couple of free days when you get back.”
“I love you, Joe.”
“I love you, too, Sylvia, and I’m glad you’re almost home.”
“See you tomorrow night.”
“OK, Babe, I’ll be here.”
Sylvia turned back towards the car and saw the gas station attendant replacing the nozzle in the pump.
“This your car?” he asked.
“Yes. I was just making a call.”
“Well, you can’t just leave it unattended like that. You need to pay up and move it. There’s other people needin’ the pump.”
Sylvia looked around. There was not another car in sight except for the old truck parked next to the gas station. And she saw that the pump registered only six gallons, half a tank.
“And that will be two dollars for the service. I washed the windows and finished pumping the gas for you.”
“What?” Sylvia was puzzled. She hadn’t requested any such service.
“Two dollars lady, plus eight for the gas.”
“But I didn’t ask you to wash my windows.”
“What, you want me to wait on you for free?”
“No, I.…”
“I ain’t your boy.” He stood up taller, daring her response.
She suddenly knew she was unwelcomed here with her Ray-Bans and sports car and implied privilege. But she was defiant in her innocence.
“I would never say or even think that sir! And could I be permitted to finish filling up my tank?”
“Nope. Pump’s shut down. That’ll be ten dollars,” he said, not budging.
She stood there, frustrated, unable to bridge the distance between them. He held out his hand and she placed a ten-dollar bill in it. He turned and walked back into the office, never looking back.
She felt a wave of nausea as she drove off the gravel onto the pavement. Her very being seemed to have offended the station attendant, although her defensiveness certainly had not helped. She ruminated about it, trying to dismiss her growing humiliation by understanding that this was the consequence of a near century of Jim Crow. It was her turn to feel unwelcome. It made some sense, but she could not stop wrestling with herself. She worked every day to fight for the neglected, she told herself. She found ways to preserve families who had to choose between parenting and a paycheck. Over half of her clients were Black or Hispanic. She wasn’t the bad guy here. She did not discriminate. Right? So why did she feel so guilty? Why had it been so hard to thank the guy for his service and simply pay him for it?
The speedometer registered almost eighty miles per hour before she realized she was speeding. The heaviness in her stomach solidified into a leaden lump. She pulled to the side of the road and turned off the engine, looked out over the fields planted with cotton and felt the hardship of this place. This land held the suffering that stretched back over three centuries to the bitter roots of slavery, a living hell her people had wrought. The violence against the Black body could be felt in these fields. She wanted to wiggle out of that feeling, banish the human sadness buried in this soil, fertilizing this very crop of cotton. But she sat there instead until the constriction in her chest eased. She let the sadness wash over her. Her mother’s ancestors never owned slaves, primarily because they didn’t have the wealth. But they treated their ‘Colored help’ as servants. They were as culpable for their demeaning beliefs and for turning a blind eye as were those who inflicted physical cruelty. She understood the debt Faith wanted to repay, even if it was impossible. When her breath began to flow again, she whispered something akin to a prayer. ‘May justice be served and healing found’. She did not try to contemplate what she was praying to. She pulled back onto the highway, determined to do her part by honoring Faith’s wishes.
