"Are you a doctor?"
"Yes." He was busy with the birds and lost in his own thoughts. I decided it would be more polite to go back to my book and not intrude on his private time. I began to read. I turned a page and was learning how Jane got her name when the man on the bench abruptly stood up. The bench shook a bit and I noticed his shoes in front of me, almost touching the toes of mine.
I put my book in my lap and my eyes followed the pants legs up and traveled to the drawstring, then the green V-neck shirt that was semi-tucked into the pants. His hands were in the pockets of his lab coat. I think I was afraid to look at his face, but I wasn't afraid of him. Something about this man made me feel safe.
When I finally lifted my chin and saw the wavy brown hair with a touch of grey at the temples and the large green eyes staring at me, I realized I knew him.
"Josh?"
"Yep. In all my glory." I stood up and we hugged. He held me a little longer than was probably normal, but it felt good. He put his hands on my shoulders and stepped back, staring at me as if trying to read my mind. "Let me look at you, Susie Burton. It's been a long time. You are still the most beautiful girl I know." He grinned at me.
"You look good, Josh," I said. "Tired, but good. How have you been?"
"Do you have time for a cup of coffee?"
"Now?"
"You busy right now? I just got off a 48-hour surgery emergency. Eleven patients involved in a school bus accident. We lost three children and the driver, but were able to save the rest. I could actually use a drink. What do you say?"
"It's too early for a drink, but I'll sit with you while you have one."
"Follow me." He took my hand and sort of pulled me out of the park, down the sidewalk and into an Irish Pub about three blocks away. We didn't talk while we walked. It was as though we were on a mission.
We sat in a booth in the back of the pub, near a window where we could watch people walk by. Josh ordered a beer and I got a cup of tea.
"I've been trying to reach you, Josh." I stirred my tea and dipped the bag in repeatedly.
"I know. Busy." He looked up at me and his frown started to disappear. "Actually, I've avoided you, because… well. I didn't want to see you again and find out I still feel something."
"Josh…" I didn't know what to say. I knew what it felt like to care about someone you couldn’t have, so my heart broke for him.
"Tell me about yourself, Susie." He was staring at me as though trying to recognize something he'd lost.
"Nothing to tell. I graduated from Sarah Lawrence, went to graduate school at St. John's, finished last May, and I'm working in the publishing industry."
"You attached?"
"What kind of question is that?"
"It's not like we don't know each other well enough to be blunt."
"Josh, we haven't seen each other in, what? Four or five years?"
"How old is your little girl now?" That stopped me dead. I put my cup down with a clink and stared at the brown liquid. "Is that a taboo subject? I was there, remember?"
"Actually, that's what I've been calling you about. Do you know where she is?"
"Why do you care now?"
"I just do. I've grown up. I'd like to meet her."
"She's happy. She has great parents, a wonderful life. Do you really want to waltz in and disrupt her? Are you that selfish?" His look told me he disapproved but I didn't care. I had to meet my little girl, Rodney's baby. I just had to.
"Susie, I've kept up with you ever since your daughter was born. When I saw what you did—gave your child away—I knew you must love that guy in Louisiana more than you could ever love me. I realized I couldn’t compete with him, so I walked out. I was right, wasn't I?"
"Hmmmm. I don't know what to say. You've caught me off guard." We were quiet for a long time. I was thinking about when Josh walked out, and how I’d thought he left because he realized my baby was mixed-race. Was he saying something different?
He nursed his beer, barely drinking, just playing with it, running his thumb around the rim of the glass, moving the mug around in the moisture that gathered under it. I watched for a while. I wanted to get up and leave. I didn't want to answer questions or face Josh and his displeasure, but I needed to find my child.
Josh had been my rock throughout my pregnancy and never pressed me to tell him about the father. He didn't try to have sex with me. He didn't judge me for being unmarried and pregnant. He just doted on me for over seven months, then walked out of my hospital room and never called me again.
"What about you, Josh? What have you been up to? Married? Children?"
"I've had a couple relationships. Nothing to write home about. They weren't you."
"Josh. Please."
"What? You don't want to hear that I've never gotten over you?"
"You walked out. Not me."
"Yep. That's right. I knew I couldn't have you, that you would never love me. You belonged to someone else."
"I'm sorry. I really am."
"Okay. So we've seen each other again. Now we can move forward. Is that what you're saying?"
"What I'm saying… What I'm asking, is… can you help me find my daughter?"
"I'll see what I can do. Call me in a few days." He put a piece of paper on the table, slid out of the booth, and walked away. I watched him stop to put money on the bar, then he marched past the front windows and took long strides down the sidewalk. He didn't look at me; he just stared ahead, walking quickly, almost running. I sat in the booth for a long time. Finally, I put the piece of paper in my pocket, picked up my book and purse and left.
That night in my apartment, I took the paper out of my pocket, looked at it, and dialed.
"Josh, I'm sorry. Look, I'm healing from something."
"I know."
"What do you know?"
"I know you're sad. I'm sad, too. I'll try to set something up for you to meet Lilly." He hung up. His voice was still kind and thoughtful but he was abrupt in a way that didn't suit him.
I called him back.
"Lilly? Is that her name?" I whispered when he answered.
"Meet me at Marco’s tomorrow night? Say seven?" He asked, a bit more docile than before.
"Okay." I held the phone, but he hung up again.
The Italian restaurant had been one of our favorites. I'd lost weight the first few months of my pregnancy so Josh would take me out to eat something he called "substantial." He'd order a pizza and eat the entire thing, less the one piece he'd make sure I consumed, except for the outer crust which I didn't like. He'd eat that. He had been fun and funny and he was about the most handsome white man I'd ever known. He was almost six-four with thick, wavy, dark brown hair that he wore a bit long, cut over his ears but hanging past his collar where it flipped up.
It was comfortable being with Josh before, but there was a wall between us now; a barrier of untold stories.
"Have you seen her?" I was in the restaurant near Utopia Park chewing my pizza and he was sitting across from me.
"Who?"
"My daughter."
"Yes."
"Well?"
"I'll give you the address. Her parents have agreed to let you meet her." He pushed a piece of paper across the table.
"Oh, Josh. How can I thank you?" I stood up and slipped into the booth on his side and hugged him. He didn't hug me back.
"I guess that's all you wanted. If you want to see me again, you have my number." He couldn't get out of the booth because I had him trapped. I kept my arms around his waist and my head on his chest. His heart was racing in my ear. I didn't let go and eventually he put his arms around me. The top of my head began to feel wet and I looked up to see huge tears rolling down his face. He shut his eyes so he didn't have to look at me.
*
I stood on the front stoop of an attached craftsman-style home in a row of two-story brick residences in the Laurelton area of New York City, called Spri
ngfield Gardens. Leaves blew off the trees like snowflakes and there was a sweet, pungent zing in the air as though it were about to rain. I pulled my coat tighter around me and lifted the collar to ward off the biting wind as I pressed the white button next to the door.
I heard the doorknob jiggle and a second later the white, wooden door with an oval glass swung open and there was Emalene Franklin with a smile on her face. She wore a brown-plaid shirtwaist dress with a skinny, gold belt and looked as beautiful as I remembered her from the day she and Joe came to take my baby girl home with them.
Behind Emalene's skirt, I could see the top of a small head with curly, reddish-brown hair. The little girl peeked shyly around her mother's side and I winked at her. She smiled and wrapped herself in Emalene's dress. I stood like a statue, not knowing what to expect, when Emalene reached for me with both hands and folded me into her arms, as a mother would her wayward child.
I was speechless. Maybe it was the anticipation, the fear of not knowing what to expect, the loss of Rodney and our dreams for the future. Maybe it all came on me at once because I melted into Emalene's arms. She stroked my back and said, “We are so happy to know you, Susie.”
Emalene put one arm over my shoulder and ushered me into the warm living room with a fire blazing in the fireplace. We sat on the sofa and the little girl climbed on her mother's lap.
"Lilly," Emalene said. "This is Susie."
Lilly stared at me and the sides of her mouth started to lift. Her eyes were amber with green specks and she looked so much like Rodney that I wanted to grab and squeeze her. When she finally broke into a smile, the dimples in both her cheeks were so deep it was difficult to see the bottoms.
"Hi," she said. She slid off her mother's lap and stood directly in front of me. Then she held her skirt out on both sides and curtsied. I burst out laughing. She was the most adorable child I'd ever laid eyes on and I was instantly in love.
I reached out to shake hands with her and was reminded of the time Catfish shook my little hand. I wondered if Lilly looked at my pink hand and saw the difference in color, although it was not as dramatic a difference as Catfish's. Her hand was light brown, as though she'd spent all her time in the sun. My skin was so fair that next to anyone else's there was a contrast. I folded her tiny hand in both of mine and stared at her. We both smiled broadly and I felt goose bumps on my arms.
I saw Rodney in Lilly, but some of myself, too. She was precocious and soon took me by the hand and led me to her room to show me her baby dolls and stuffed animals. Emalene left us alone to spend an hour playing tea party with her dolls at a small table with four pint-sized chairs set in the center of her pink, blue, and white bedroom that smelled of lavender and pine. I couldn't remember ever having had so much fun.
Later, as Emalene and I sat in the kitchen with real cups of tea after Lilly went down for her nap, we talked about why I'd waited more than four years to visit.
"So many reasons, Emma," I said. "I was afraid I'd fall in love with her, which I have. I was afraid she'd love me. Or that she wouldn't. I was afraid I'd want her. I knew it wasn't fair to disrupt her life or yours and Joe's."
"We want you in Lilly's life," she said. I looked at her with the strangest feelings. How could they welcome me in this way knowing that, as Lilly's birth mother, I might try to take her away? How could Emalene not be jealous of my love for this precious child she had raised from birth?
"I'm surprised you allowed me to come."
"What surprises you, Susie?" She looked at me with the kindest stare. Her eyes were dark brown and her skin was about the color of Tootsie's—“like pecans," as Tootsie would say. "When you have a child, you want everyone to love her. There could never be too many people who love Lilly. The more people who love and nurture her, the richer her life will be."
"But aren't you afraid she might love someone… uh, uh… love me, more than she loves you?"
"That's a selfish love. It's not the kind of love you have for your child. The kind of love you have for your child is total and giving. We want what's best for her, not what's best for us."
I'd never known such unselfish love. Even Rodney had his loyalties that superseded his love for me. And my parents, well, I'm not sure what you'd call their kind of love.
I was equally perplexed and intrigued by Emalene. She was special, and I realized how blessed I was to have chosen her to be Lilly's mom. Even at eighteen, I must have had some sort of instinct. I held on to that positive thought about myself because I didn't have much else I liked about me at that time.
We talked for hours. She said that they'd always told Lilly she was adopted, "We use the word chosen," she said, and that they celebrated her adoption day and birthday on the same day every year, August 21. "Because we did adopt her the day she was born. That was so generous of you, Susie,"
"Rodney." I didn't know how to say it. "That's his name. Lilly's, ummm, you know…"
"Biological dad?"
"Yes."
"You're still in love with him, huh?"
"Uh-huh." I nodded because I couldn't talk.
"Do you want to tell me what happened?"
"Well. I guess you realize he's, ummm…"
"A Negro? I figured as much."
"He and I. Well. We just couldn't…"
"In the South?"
"Uh-huh."
"Why didn't he come up here so the two of you could be together?"
"We tried. They almost killed his brother. Before that, his dad."
"Oh, Susie. I'm so sorry. I've read about prejudice in the South. It's hard to believe."
"Believe."
"How long has it been since the two of you gave up on being together?"
"Not quite a year, I guess."
"I can't imagine that kind of hatred," she said. "The kind that keeps two people from loving each other." She was quiet for a while, and I knew she was thinking about how she and Joe could have been kept apart had they grown up in a different place. She put her arm over my shoulder and pulled me to her, and when I put my head on her chest I felt comforted in the way Tootsie had made me feel when I was a little girl.
I told Emalene about Rodney. I described his gentleness. I told her how gorgeous he was and how much we loved each other. I told her how much Lilly resembled him, and Emma said she saw a lot of me in Lilly.
Lilly came stumbling into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes with the backs of her hands. She ran into Emalene's lap, which I thought was my cue to leave, but when I rose from the sofa, she ran to me and wrapped her little arms around my legs.
"Please don't go, Susie." She looked up at me with those amber eyes, her thick eyelashes touched her eyebrows and a soft furrow crossed her forehead. Her loose curls were tossed around her head like she'd slept upside down. She looked so much like Rodney in that moment.
"Looks like you're staying for dinner," Emalene said. "Now, you two run off and play while I put something in the oven." She disappeared and Lilly took my hand and led me back to her room.
We got into a routine. Every Wednesday afternoon I'd get off early, pick Lilly up at school, and take her for an outing. On nice days we'd go to the park or the zoo. On dreary days we'd take the subway downtown and go to the library. She loved the books, the smells, the quiet whispers we spoke in.
Lilly was smart beyond her four years and inquisitive, like a sponge soaking up everything around her—the sounds, the way people walked, the different languages she overheard when we sat in cafés, and I introduced her to hot chocolate with espresso. Emalene scolded me when Lilly couldn't sleep on Wednesday nights, but I knew it was more than caffeine that kept her awake. It was her little brain running overtime. I'd stay for dinner and put Lilly to bed on those nights, reading books to her and telling her stories—Catfish’s stories.
My love for Lilly and hers for me salved the open wounds left by losing Rodney. I didn't answer his letters that begged me to see him. I knew it was fruitless and would leave me mi
serable and unable to recover. I needed to move on with my life, without Rodney.
It wasn't simply the love I shared with Lilly that filled the huge gap Rodney left in my life. Emalene was like a big sister and mother. Joe was the gentle, kind, big brother that James had never been. I'd found a family to substitute for Catfish, Tootsie, and Marianne, who had been my adopted family in Jean Ville.
Once I settled into a new, contented life I was able to focus on my Catfish stories. In the evenings, I wrote. It was as though my hand glided across the page, the ink from my blue ballpoint pen making words as quickly as my mind could relay them to my fingers. I could visualize Catfish telling me the stories in his deep, soft, Afro-Cajun drawl, eyes twinkling, feet hitting the floor of the porch as his rocker went back and forth.
I had wanted to write the stories as though Catfish were talking to me, because that was how they could be told with truth and integrity. I'd heard him tell stories for years before he died and his voice echoed in my head when I thought of his tales.
He had told me how things changed at Shadowland Plantation after Mr. Van got married. I had thought I would be married by now, to Rodney, so the story of falling in love and getting married had a certain ring to it for me.
"After a few years running the plantation, Mr. Gordon Van knew it was time to marry," Catfish told me.
I sat there with my pen in my hand and closed my eyes. In my mind, I pictured Catfish rocking on his porch, staring at the corn field with a thoughtful grimace across his face.
Changes at Shadowland
1860
Mr. Van was almost forty years old and while he learned the business of growing cotton, corn, and sugar cane, and rebuilt the plantation, he looked for the perfect match. He wanted love, desire, beauty, intelligence—someone who could give him smart, handsome children. And he needed a lady who could entertain—he owed lots of people who'd invited him to they houses.
He had his eyes on a beauty at Evergreen's Oakwold Plantation, about fifteen or twenty miles southwest of Jean Ville. There were a couple of drawbacks: she was young, about twenty years his junior, and she had a serious suitor, the son of a plantation owner on Big Bend with about 2000 acres. Mr. Van was no competition with only 900 acres, but he was not the son, he was the Man. Maybe that counted for something.
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