Rush Home Road

by Lori Lansens

  Mary Alice lowered her voice. “I know it truly wards off a husband. I put a little under my arms from time to time just so Hamond be sure to give me a night off.”

  Addy was shocked at first, then began to laugh. Mary Alice began to laugh and soon they were both laughing so hard they sounded like madwomen. They’d been laughing that same crazy laugh on another occasion when Hamond had unexpectedly come home. He’d known that they were laughing about him and he’d sneered at his wife and warned quietly, “Neighbours think you lost your mind again, Woman.” Addy had wondered briefly what Hamond meant by again.

  Addy asked Mary Alice if she and the boys wanted to take a stroll down by the river or through the path in the woods by the edge of town. Mary Alice pretended to consider her invitation, then decided she had too much work to do. She was telling the truth, too, for there was still more food to prepare and decorations to be hung around her mother’s house. It was Hamond who’d suggested the ruse. He’d said, “Tell Addy old Nora’s got to tend to a sick friend. Just get her out the house for the day is all you really have to do. Have her come back after the dinner hour and make sure you got the party guests all in by then.”

  Hamond wouldn’t attend the party of course, and that was fine with Mary Alice. He’d promised to take the boys out to the pond for a swim in the evening and she thought that was the best help he could give. She didn’t need the boys getting in the way or making a mess of her mother’s house the way they did. They’d be happy to go swimming with their father and wouldn’t even have to know there was a party they were missing.

  Alone as she was, and unsure what to do with her time, Addy walked down to the park to sit in the shade, watch the river ripple, and think her thoughts. But today her thoughts were cluttered and confused, and though it was not to say things would make sense to her by the end of the day, at least some of the things she was wondering would be availed of a reason. Like why Mrs. Lemoine and Mary Alice had been so concerned about the welts on her face. And why she’d been told to take the day off and not come back till after supper, and why Gabriel Green had looked the way he did when she came in the front door on Degge Street.

  The bark on the maple behind her was sharp and informed her of a few bites on her shoulder blades she didn’t even know she had. She squirmed and scratched her back against the tree, thinking she must look like an animal and maybe that’s just what she was. She closed her eyes and, as often happened when she came here, L’il Leam whispered in her ear. “Hey, Sister. Why you think Mary Alice and her Mama acting so peculiar today?”

  “I don’t know. At first I thought I was just imagining. But Mary Alice was telling some lies.”

  “Why though?”

  “Must have something to do with Gabriel and me. He sure had a look on his face.”

  “She’d like to match the two of you up, that’s sure. Been trying for years.”

  “He make a good husband do you think, Leam?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Best husband be one that loves his wife.”

  “He could love me.” Addy was indignant at what Leam was implying. “I know he had that look on his face when he got close and smelled my ointment, but he’s had other looks on his face too. I see him glance my way. I see him think his thoughts.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  Addy sighed and scratched her face and thought it was lovely when the wind blew a gentle gust her way. “Leam? You think it’s fine I’m here in Chatham looking out for Mrs. Lemoine or you think I should be somewhere else?”

  “Where else you like to be, Addy?”

  “I don’t know exactly. I suppose I just worry sometimes that I might get to the end of my life and think I should have done something I never did.”

  “Done what?”

  “I don’t know. Something special, I guess.”

  “Special? Good thing Daddy’s not around to hear you talk like that. You know how he feels about people thinking they’re special.”

  “I know, but to live a life and never do anything important? Don’t it seem like that’s a life wasted?”

  “I never did one important thing in my life, Addy. Not one. I don’t like to think my life was wasted.”

  “You’re wrong, Leam. What you did important was you were good beyond measure and you made people happy and never complained when you was sick and never was cruel to any person and best of all, you loved Birdie Brown in a way that made her feel like she won a prize.”

  “That’s all just simple living though, Addy. Simple living.”

  “Think simple living is special living?”

  “I do.”

  If her feet had seen her fate they might have hastened to take Addy past the train station months or even years earlier. As it was, she’d fallen asleep under the tree by the river and awoken feeling groggy and thick. She thought she’d walk for a while then head on over to Degge Street to catch a glimpse of Gabriel Green and see what Mary Alice was fixing for supper. She saw him then, sitting on the old wooden bench with his legs propped up on a luggage trolley, a newspaper opened in his hands. He wasn’t wearing his uniform, but she’d recognized him, even a hundred feet away as he was. She’d hardly thought of that train ride from Windsor all those years ago, and only remembered him when she poked through her undergarment drawer and found the book he gave her, the one she never read.

  It was as though her flush and rush of blood called to him, for he looked up just then, folded his newspaper, and laid it down on his knee. He never took his eyes off her as she walked up the path to the bench where he sat. They neither of them smiled too broadly but were familiar with each other in a way that surprised them both. Addy had never forgotten his name. “Mose,” she said simply.

  “Addy,” he returned, and tipped his absent cap.

  She did smile then and was flattered by his recollection. “Shouldn’t you be dipping your feet in the Pacific Ocean right now? Or looking out the window at them big Rocky Mountains?”

  Gradison Mosely laughed and stood. Addy was surprised, being a tall young woman as she was, how far she had to look up, past his white neck and chin and cheeks, to see those grinning eyes.

  She looked at the newspaper in his hand and saw it was not the Chatham Daily News but something else. Mose followed her gaze. “It’s the Brotherhood paper.”

  “The Brotherhood. I remember you talking about that.”

  Mose laughed. “I haven’t stopped talking about it either. And never will. It’s the reason I’m here today. Brotherhood meeting at the hall in the East End.”

  “Quite a thing to see you here in Chatham, Mose.”

  “Quite a thing to see you, Addy. I thought you were heading to Toronto.”

  “I never made it.”

  “I figured. I asked—whenever I was at the Union Station—I asked did a pretty young lady ever come by to return a book and if so did she leave an address where I might reach her?”

  Addy cast her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. I only gave the book to you so I’d have a chance at seeing you again.”

  Addy looked at him, remembering what Willow Ferguson had said about his making flirtations. She grinned. “You likely keep a box of those old books and hand them out to every girl alone on the train. I know fellas like you. You’re a time maker.”

  Mose laughed and shook his head. “Whatever a time maker is, I swear I’m not one. I never in my life gave a book to one girl but you.”

  Addy didn’t believe him and didn’t care. “Well, Mose, whatever you are, I suppose you ought to be getting to your meeting and I ought to be getting on too.”

  Mose nodded and hesitated before deciding to venture, “Suppose you’re married off now?”

  Addy shook her head. She glanced at his ring finger but couldn’t see behind his paper.

  “You’re free to marry me then,” Mose didn’t so much ask as state.

  Addy giggled like a schoolgirl, turned, and began to walk away. Mose loped up behind her and linked his arm t
hrough hers. She wasn’t offended and knew Mose only meant to be charming, but she yanked her arm back anyway.

  Mose hung his head and sighed. “What sort of fiancée won’t let her intended escort her down the street?”

  Though her heart was fluttering, Addy smoothed the folds of her dress and tried to act bored. “Don’t you have to go?”

  “Not for an hour or so. Could I…in seriousness, Adelaide, could I stroll with you a little? I have thought of you over these years and I, well, I admired how you handled what happened on the train and I truly would like to know how you’ve been. May I? Stroll with you?”

  Addy looked up, and in the way a flash of lightning can reveal the secrets of the dark, she thought in that second she could see her future in Mose’s crick green eyes. She didn’t smile at him, but nodded and put her arm through his. Their strides matched perfectly as they headed toward the sidewalk. Though they’d never touched before, it seemed to Addy they’d always been like this, elbows linked, shoulder brushing arm, a breath apart.

  Neither of them noticed, or if Mose did he made no indication, the eyes of the people they passed. Some glanced with disapproval, some pierced with outright contempt, and some just widened in such surprise you might have thought they were watching Jesus and Mary Magdalene arm in arm on the sidewalk instead of just a tall, white-looking man and a pretty black girl in a pink cotton dress.

  They’d walked and talked, or rather Mose had talked, for more than an hour before he realized he’d missed his meeting. Addy hardly spoke a word, so charmed was she by the man she’d found boastful and boring on the train all those years ago. There seemed to be nothing that Mose didn’t know and his passion for what he called the cause was a thing she’d never encountered, a thing that stirred her.

  “My fellow porter was fired last week. You know what for, Addy? He shined a passenger’s shoes and left them outside the wrong berth. We were at the end of a cross-country run, been sleeping maybe three hours a night, on call the rest of the time. The man was tired. He was tired and for that he lost his job.”

  “Can the Brotherhood get his job back?”

  Mose shook his head. “But we’re fighting for rights, Addy. We want to be paid for the hours we work and we don’t want to work no more twenty-hour shifts. We want a decent place to sleep and eat. And we want the chance to be promoted. And we don’t want demerit points just because a passenger says we been rude. I myself once left a pair of shoes outside the wrong berth but caught my mistake before the inspector did. I have also been accused of rudeness, if you can believe that.” Mose stopped. “I have been going on, Addy. I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t mind, Mose,” Addy told him. “Though it do look like that vein in your temple might bust wide open.”

  Mose laughed and took her hand and walked on in silence. They weren’t walking anywhere in particular when they found themselves east on King Street. Addy stopped, gesturing at the First Baptist Church to their left. “See this church, Mose? A famous thing happened here at this church. Did you know that?”

  He’d only seen Chatham from the train window until today, but Mose was familiar with the town’s history. He knew it had been a terminus on the Underground Railroad. He knew the abolitionist newspaper The Provincial Freeman had been published here by a famous Negro woman. And he was aware of the historical significance of the ordinary-looking church Addy Shadd was pointing to now. He shrugged and shook his head though, because he wanted to hear her tell it.

  Addy grinned, pleased to know something that Gradison Mosely did not. “This here,” she said, “is the church where John Brown—do you know who John Brown was?”

  “He was an American abolitionist. A white abolitionist,” Mose said.

  “Yes, he was. He came to Chatham in I forget exactly what year, 1859 I think, it was just before the Civil War.” She pointed. “Right here at this church is where him and his men planned the raid on the U.S. Arsenal at Harper’s Ferry in West Virginia. John Brown was gonna lead the slaves in a revolt but it didn’t work out. He was caught at Harper’s Ferry and hung for what he done. People say that raid is what started the whole Civil War, but you likely already knew that.”

  In spite of the fact that she had strange bumps on her face and body, some of them bloody from scratching, and in spite of the fact that he’d detected the odour of spoiled food when he took her arm, Mose thought Addy Shadd was the most beautiful girl he’d ever known and he desired her beyond what he thought was imaginable. He looked at the church, then back at her smiling face. “You’re quite a historical expert, Mizz Shadd.”

  Addy shook her head. “I wouldn’t say expert. Just I learned about it in school is all. Most of the coloured folks around these parts know our own history.” She took his arm and started walking again. “Guess your meeting’s almost over now. Sorry I took you away from it.”

  She wasn’t really sorry. Mose wasn’t either, but as they walked back toward the river and found a quiet spot under a tree, he promised himself that he would not let down the Brotherhood again. For tonight though, he found it unthinkable to leave Addy Shadd’s side.

  Darkness crept up on them as they lounged beneath the tree, holding hands at first, then daring to share a first kiss. Addy, for her part, could hardly bear her own pumping blood. It was impossible to hide from Mose the craving of her mouth and the interest of her tongue. She pushed him off, though she wanted to pull him in. She scratched a welt on her forehead and watched Mose lick the film of perspiration from his upper lip. “Mose,” she said, “remember what happened, back on the train, that man accusing me of stealing? And how it was that lock of baby hair proved the ring was mine?”

  Mose nodded and pressed his finger to her lips. “It doesn’t matter, Addy. It doesn’t matter.”

  She kissed the finger and said softly but insistently, “It does matter. It matters because I need to tell you.”

  Mose leaned back against the tree and closed his eyes. Addy was grateful it was dark and his eyes were closed, for she didn’t want to see what they said. He made only two sounds throughout her whole tale. The first came when she told about smelling a smell and waking in her bed that Strawberry Sunday, the second when she told about baby Leam’s birth and death. By the end, though he kept his eyes closed, Mose had reached for Addy and was rocking her like she was a baby herself. He stroked her cheek and said, “It’s gonna be fine, Addy. It’s gonna be fine.” Addy knew it was.

  MRS. LEMOINE CHECKED THE clock on the wall. There were some two dozen folks in her home and not one of them was Adelaide Shadd. She sought solace at the food table, filling her plate a full three times before the evening’s end. There were four young men to every woman in the room but only one of the women, Mary Alice, did not have liver spots. All the young men knew they’d been brought there to mix with Addy Shadd and they came willingly, for even those who’d not yet made her acquaintance had been told she was an excellent homemaker, lively and lovely, except for her ears. All the men had been cautioned about her ears.

  Mary Alice exchanged a few glances with her mother. They were not worried, just annoyed. Addy had disappeared on several occasions and it only meant she went out walking and got lost in her thoughts or was sitting at the river or out on the path in the woods. Mrs. Lemoine herself stomped down to the river to have a look, long before night fell. She’d seen the couple reclining under the tree but hadn’t known it was Addy, having never seen the pink dress before. And she wouldn’t have expected to find Addy Shadd sitting under a tree with a white boy anyway. Mary Alice blamed her mother for not coming up with a good reason to bring Addy back to the house in the evening. Mrs. Lemoine blamed Mary Alice for the rest.

  One after another the folks left, bewildered by the absence of the guest of honour. Mrs. Lemoine and Mary Alice cleaned up the considerable mess and did not exchange a word. When the last glass was washed and dried and Addy still not home, Mary Alice left, slamming the door behind her. She stepped out into the evening, relieved to find a breeze. She che
cked the street to make sure there were no eyes upon her and lifted the fabric of her skirt to fan the flesh of her thighs. She thought of Addy on the short walk home and how she’d likely lost her chance forever with Gabriel Green. Gabriel’d be leaving in a few weeks, presumably to go work with his cousin, but mostly to see if he and the man’s daughter would get along well enough to make it permanent. Mary Alice wondered idly if Hamond was home, and if so had he yet laid down his head. She hoped he had, for Hamond slept like the dead.

  As it was, Hamond had come home and set the two tired, swum-out little boys in their beds, then gone to his mother-in-law’s to see how the matchmaking party was going. It wasn’t a likely thing, but he and his wife had just missed each other, like a thread slipping to one side of the needle’s eye when by rights it should have slid through. Hamond had agreed with Mary Alice that Addy Shadd ought to get on with things and start a life of her own. He didn’t care for his wife’s friendship with the girl. Seemed to him, since Addy had come to town Mary Alice had been slipping away again. Not so anyone else might notice. Just little things, here and there. The way she’d sing a song when she thought he couldn’t hear. The way she wouldn’t mind him. And the way she’d taken to putting creams on her skin and scents on her neck. She was trying to be young, he knew, and there was no telling where that might lead.

  Mrs. Lemoine was still awake and with the clock reading well past ten she was worried now, not terribly, but enough to ask Hamond to go have a look. Hamond set off on foot and went first to the park by the river. As always on steamy summer nights, there were a few dozen folks scattered around the lawn. The evening was bright with moonlight, and it was simple enough to see the families and lovers and single people out to get some air. Hamond’s attention was caught by a familiar figure sitting alone under a tree near the water. He knew her by the curve of her neck, the way she wore her hair. He moved forward, quietly calling her name so she would turn and see him. It was a young girl who tended the house on the farm where he worked. He approached slowly, not wanting to frighten her.