Two Wings to Fly Away

by Penny Mickelbury

  Adelaide asked Genie to help her lift a heavy cauldron of water to the stove to heat, then led her into the storage closet at the rear of the blacksmith shop and closed the door. She lit a lantern that was sitting on a shelf, and even in dim light Genie could immediately see that the contents of the closet had nothing to do with blacksmithing. She wondered if Adelaide understood the importance of what was on the shelves and realized even more fully than she ever had that Adelaide was not kept in the dark about her husband’s other profession, that the woman knew everything she needed to know and acknowledged nothing—for her own safety as well as that of her husband. She pointed to a narrow bench and Genie sat while Adelaide withdrew a pair of shears from her smock pocket.

  “Relax,” she said, and gave Genie a gentle pat on the shoulder. “I won’t make you look like Eli,” and they both giggled again. Adelaide was swift and sure with the shears, and thick hair dropped to the floor. “There will be more than enough left to braid,” she said as Genie stole quick, worried looks at the floor.

  Genie touched her head again when Adelaide signaled that she was finished, and smiled at what she felt even though she could not imagine herself with less hair. While Adelaide swept the floor, Genie undressed herself and suddenly felt the closet’s cold. She shivered as Adelaide opened the door. “Wait here for one moment. I’ll return quickly,” she said, which she did, with the information that the men were pouring the hot water into the tank. “You will warm up instantly,” she said.

  Armed with soap and a thick cloth Genie more than warmed, she luxuriated. She washed herself from head to toe until the water was gone. The shower was an enclosed room at the back of the blacksmith shop that usually held warmth from the forge, but not on a day as bitterly cold as this one. Genie was shivering again until Adelaide appeared with a thick blanket and led her to a chair next to the stove, which she had stoked. Genie sat with a grateful sigh. “I can’t thank you enough, Adelaide. I feel like a new woman.”

  Adelaide stifled a smile and allowed that she looked like one as well. “Perhaps a bit less transformed than Eli but most presentable,” she pronounced.

  “I can’t put those clothes back on!” Genie exclaimed.

  “You most certainly cannot, since they’re fueling that fire,” Adelaide said with a nod to the stove. Genie had been so focused on cleansing herself that she’d given no thought to what she’d wear afterward. Adelaide, however, had, and she produced an armload of clothes for Genie to choose from: donations that were being stored here because there was no room for them in their shop. Genie was looking through the bundle of clothes when a look of horror crossed her face. Before she could speak, however, Adelaide dropped two leather pouches into her lap, and Genie grabbed them up with relief and gratitude. The small one, which she wore around her neck, contained objects from her barely remembered mother and grandmother. The larger one, a two-inch-by-three-inch square, she wore around her waist and it contained money and valuable documents. This one she opened and withdrew several coins.

  “Will this pay for my new wardrobe—and for Eli’s?” she asked with a genteel pat to her newly cut hair.

  Adelaide accepted the coins with a smile that she thought hid what she was thinking: that Eugenia Oliver more than paid her way in the world, every day. She had, just three days ago, risked her life for her people; she fed and clothed and found work for boys whom no one else cared about. And it was Genie who solicited the donations of clothes and food that they were able to give away to those most in need.

  “If I am able to pay my own way, Adelaide, then I should do that,” Genie said as she dressed herself. She looked lovely, and she looked down at herself, pleased with the effect, which surprised Adelaide. Genie had never cared about her appearance. “Are you hungry, Adelaide? I have stew and fresh baked bread on the stove. Will William mind?”

  “William will be glad to be rid of me for a while, and I of him!” And they bundled themselves for the ride to Genie’s in her horse cart, an experience she delighted in. Why had she ever believed that she didn’t need it, or, worse, that she didn’t deserve it? She drove the long way home—down the main street and through the alley—so that she could park the cart in front of her house and then Adelaide could take it, pick up William, and take them both home.

  Genie quickly lit lanterns and both fires, for even though she’d left coals banked in the stove the small cottage was frigid, which didn’t prevent Adelaide from walking in circles, exclaiming at its beauty.

  “Have you not been here before, Adelaide?”

  “You know that I have not, Genie Oliver!” she replied, recrimination barely disguised in her voice. Genie could but accept it for she knew that not only did she routinely reject Adelaide’s invitations to dine with them, she had never invited them into her home, preferring her solitude to anyone’s presence.

  “Then I apologize, Adelaide. Please sit down and make yourself comfortable while I see to food. Would you like coffee or tea? Or perhaps some warm mead?”

  “Eugenia! You have mead?” Adelaide exclaimed, shocked as well as pleased.

  Genie laughed. “I do. I make it myself so it is not very strong. In fact, it is more sweet than strong.”

  “Then I’d love some!”

  And they ate stew and bread and drank mead and laughed and talked until Adelaide declared that she’d been away for too long and should return for William. She thanked Genie for her hospitality, her earlier pique forgotten, and Genie let her know that as her friend she always was welcome in her home, and Adelaide reciprocated though it wasn’t necessary: Genie had refused more invitations to Adelaide and William’s home than she had accepted.

  And now here she sat three days later having accepted a dinner invitation. She was full and sleepy and trying to think of a graceful way to leave their home without offending them. She knew that both William and Adelaide would be hurt if she left now. Peter Blanding and Catherine Carpenter, now formally engaged to be married, were still present also. The five of them had attended service at the First AME Church earlier and then returned to the Tillmans for Sunday dinner. And a feast it was! Now seated before a roaring fire, relaxed and full, Genie let the conversation swirl around her. She didn’t try to participate; it required all of her energy to keep her eyes open. Then she realized that all the other eyes were on her, which meant that something had been said that required her response.

  “Well—” she began, not knowing how she’d extricate herself from this predicament, when William saved her.

  “Reverend Richard Allen and Absalom Jordan have been bringing regular reports from Eli—”

  “Every time you say those names!” Blanding exclaimed, and William raised his hand to stop him: He knew what was coming.

  “What they tell us,” Adelaide said, “is that Mr. MacKaye remains bedridden and therefore Genie can’t see him, but Eli will send for her as soon as he is able to receive her.”

  This was news to Genie but it made sense as she considered it. It would be most unseemly for her to visit Ezra MacKaye in his bedroom, even dressed as Eugene, and it would have been useless in any case as long as he remained unconscious.

  “We all will visit him when it is possible,” William said, looking steadily at Genie. “You will advise us when that is possible.”

  “Of course,” she replied, and at that moment a fierce gust of wind rattled the windowpanes and blew down the chimney, scattering ashes out of the grate. William quickly swept them up and added another log to the fire while Adelaide drew the draperies tighter at the window and her shawl tighter around her shoulders.

  Peter Blanding stood. “We should thank you for a most wonderful repast, Adelaide, and take our leave so that we all may be warm at our hearths.”

  And just that quickly Genie was free to leave. She resisted all efforts and offers to walk her the short distance to her home, insisting correctly that she could—and would—run more quickly than she could be walked. And she was correct. The blowing snow at her back pushed her
forward. She turned sideways and flattened herself to squeeze into the narrow space between two houses that took her to the Back Street, and while the wind was less fierce here it was just as cold. In a few steps she was at her door and quickly inside. She whispered a prayer of gratitude that Eli was safe and warm inside Abby Read’s house, and she hoped that Reverend Richard Allen, Absalom Jones, and the other boys were equally protected from the weather this night.

  ✴ ✴ ✴

  The morning brought a bright blue sky and an end to the wild, snowy wind. The temperature, however, remained dangerously cold and the snow that had fallen overnight was a sheet of ice. Eli, who gave no thought to attempting to get Ezra to the doctor, got him ready for breakfast instead. They were all seated, Eubanks had said grace, and Maggie and Abby were putting the serving plates on the table when Lyle Butler made his drunken, noisy entrance, almost tearing the front door off its hinges when he stumbled into it. He crashed to the floor and lay there in a drunken stupor. Abby was so shocked she almost dumped a plate of sausages on Mr. Eubanks’s head. She looked in speechless horror at Butler sprawled in the middle of the foyer.

  The commotion brought the normally reticent Josiah Jones to his feet. “I say sir! You simply musn’t behave this way!”

  “And I say sit down you stupid old goat!” Butler slurred at him, managing to sit almost upright.

  “You will leave this house immediately,” Abby said, having recovered, and angry now that the shock had worn off, “and you will not return. You are no longer welcome in this house.”

  “Not until I’ve had my breakfast,” Butler slurred, “and not until the end of the month. I’m paid up until then.” He had managed to stand but was weaving back and forth as if on a small boat on rough seas.

  Using his right arm for leverage Ezra pushed up to his feet. No longer bent by pain and drugs he stretched to his full height and glared at Butler, a much smaller man who, even drunk, should have been intimidated by the sight. He was not.

  “Or what, nigger lover?”

  Ezra withdrew the revolver that he now kept in his waistband. “Or I’ll shoot you and you’ll owe Mistress Read for a new rug. An expensive one, I daresay.”

  Butler sobered quickly. “But my things? And where will I go?”

  “Back to the docks where you belong!” thundered Josiah Jones, startling everyone. He filled his plate and started to eat.

  “See the landlady at 965 Flegler Street,” Ezra said. “That’s where I’ll have your things sent. Now leave here.”

  Butler turned and stumbled to the door and exited much more quietly than he had entered, leaving behind, however, his stench. Abby waved her hand back and forth before her face. “I wish the wind were still blowing,” she said. “We could leave the door open for a few moments and that smell would be gone, though it would be cold.”

  “I think I can help,” Eubanks said, withdrawing his pipe and tobacco pouch. “If you don’t mind?” he asked Abby and his table mates, and when no one objected he filled the pipe bowl and lit the tobacco and then walked over to where Butler had stood and drew on the pipe. Then he went to the front door, drawing in and expelling smoke as he went, then to the fireplace and sprinkled some of the tobacco leaves onto the fire. Soon there was no trace left of Lyle Butler—other than the bad memory of the man.

  After breakfast two of the cleaning women were sent to empty Butler’s room of all of his belongings and to report to Abby on the room’s condition: Filthy and smelly they reported, but other-wise undamaged. “But we’ll have to double boil them sheets to get ’em cleaned white again, Mistress Read,” they said.

  Abby nodded, thanked them, and told them to place Mr. Butler’s belongings at the front door. She went to inform Ezra and wondered whether she could ask him why he would send a ne’er-do-well like Butler to his former landlady. She found the door to his sitting room open and her hand was raised to knock when she heard a muttered ‘hellfire and damnation.’ She backed up a step, prepared to leave, when she heard her name called.

  “Come in, please, Abby,” Ezra called out, “before Eli kills me! I used to think the boy liked me but now I’m not so sure.”

  Abby entered the room to find Ezra up and walking, Eli close behind him, urging him forward, arms outstretched to catch him if he faltered, which he did not. “Well done, both of you,” Abby exclaimed. Eli beamed, Ezra growled.

  “The boy is trying to kill me, I tell you!”

  Abby smiled broadly. “Most impressive, Mr. MacKaye, considering that you could barely breathe when they brought you here ten days ago, to say nothing of walk. In fact, I wondered whether you’d be able to walk again, so dire was your predicament.”

  Ezra sobered immediately and turned to face Eli. He shook the boy’s hand. “He has been a godsend, no doubt about it, as has Genie Oliver for sending him to me, and you and Maggie for helping me heal.” He walked over to Abby and extended a hand to her. “You have my gratitude, Mistress Read.”

  “You’re welcome,” Abby said, shaking his hand, “but you did the hard work.”

  Ezra wanted to say that it was Eli who had done the hard work—refusing to let him die—but he’d embarrassed the boy enough for one day. He would never, though, forget the boy’s whispered incantations: You cain’t die, Mr. MacKaye, I ain’t gon’ let you die. You hear me? Don’t you die! I ain’t gon’ let you die! Not if he lived to be 100. Day and night the boy had sat by his bed . . .

  “Butler is gone and his belongings are at the front door,” Abby said.

  “Eli, will you hail a cart to deliver Mr. Butler’s things to Flegler Street? Tell the driver to collect his payment from Mr. Butler or he may drive away and keep whatever is in the bags.”

  Eli nodded and hurried away. He didn’t need Ezra to tell him to hire a cart with a white driver who could legitimately drive off if he wasn’t paid, something a Colored driver could not do. The first Colored driver he saw he sent to Miss Adelaide’s Dress Shop to tell Miss Eugenie to come visit Mr. MacKaye “at her convenience,” and he paid the driver from his own pocket, still amazed at the changes in his circumstances: He had coins in his pocket and words in his mouth and his own room in a big house.

  He hurried back to find Ezra at his desk writing notes that Eli would be asked to post later that day, though one he would want to be personally delivered to Mr. Cortlandt at his bank. While Ezra was busy at his desk Eli went looking for Maggie. He liked helping her and she liked having his help—and his presence. They didn’t discuss their pasts but she knew from his still jumpy behavior and the haunted look in his eyes that his past had been brutal and horrible. He made quick work of cleaning the ashes from the fireplaces and grates and replenishing the coal scuttles and firewood in the main rooms where fires burned constantly in cold weather, even in the rooms that were not in use, though those were smaller fires. “In the evening, just before the men come in from work, add more logs so it’s warm,” Maggie told him. He volunteered the information that he had never lived or worked in a manor house and he welcomed whatever she shared about how such houses worked. When she asked if he wanted to remain after Mr. MacKaye no longer needed his constant attention, he dipped his head once.

  “Yes’m, Miss Maggie,” he whispered. “Please ma’am.”

  The mid-afternoon ringing of the front door bell surprised them all. Abby went to answer it and the bell she rang brought both Maggie and Eli to the front of the house: Dr. Montague Wright and his assistant had arrived to tend to their patient. “We came to you because we didn’t think you could get to us,” he said in his too-loud voice. Eli hurried to get Ezra ready while Maggie took the men’s coats and boots and offered tea or coffee.

  “Coffee,” Wright answered for both of them, “which we’ll take in the drawing room once we’ve seen to the patient,” and he turned toward Ezra’s suite, remembering precisely where it was. Abby returned to the kitchen to make coffee and cut cake while Maggie went to add logs to all the fires.

  “You can leave now, boy,” Wri
ght said, waving his hand dismissively at Eli, his eyes taking in everything about Ezra. “You look quite well, Mr. MacKaye,” the doctor said loudly, as if they weren’t in the same room.

  “Thanks to Eli,” Ezra replied coldly, “whom I’d like to remain in case you leave orders that he will need to help me carry out.”

  Wright looked from Eli to Ezra and shrugged. “As you wish. Let me see you walk,” he demanded, and Ezra stood and walked.

  “Good. Now let’s see those bruises—though you walk as if they’ve quite healed.” Wright studied Ezra’s lower limbs, touching here and there, nodding and muttering to himself. “Remarkable, really. Never seen wounds heal like this.”

  Ezra would not tell him that Eli massaged oil and ointment supplied by Arthur into the bruises, and he would have cried out so great was the pain had Maggie not first administered laudanum. This was when he could have the drug as needed, and he needed it during Eli’s massages. Horse liniment was what Arthur sent, and horse liniment was what cured him. “I have practically no pain,” Ezra said, “and very little stiffness, as you can see.”

  Wright nodded. “Now, let’s remove the binding from that shoulder,” he said, directing his assistant to hold Ezra upright while he unwrapped the cloth. Ezra was breathing deeply, expecting more pain than he actually felt. Eli had rubbed some of the liniment into his damaged arm and shoulder as well, though not as often or as intensely, and Ezra didn’t know how effective it had been. “Stand now, Mr. MacKaye, and let that arm fall away from your body. Just endure the pain if you can.” Ezra closed his eyes while the assistant took hold of his arm and gently moved it away from his body, away from the position molded to his chest and side where it had lain for ten days. It hung weekly and limply though not very painfully. “All right, good. Now let’s lay you down on your belly while we make certain that shoulder has remained where it belongs,” Wright brayed.

  Ezra heard Eli’s intake of breath and felt him move slightly. He shook his head, signaling the boy to be still no matter what Wright did, knowing he would obey no matter how difficult. So even when Ezra cried out as the shoulder was manipulated in its socket, Eli did not move. Ezra continued to breathe deeply. Wright sat him up and touched all over his shoulder and down the arm, nodding and humming and muttering to his assistant.