by Ruth White
“Yes. Do you want me to do something with the berries?”
“Oh, would you, child?” she says, seeming greatly relieved. “That will free me up for dinner preparations. The missus has ordered fresh seafood from Norfolk.”
“Do you want jam or preserves?” I ask.
“The boys like jam the best,” she says. “Save out some of the prettiest berries for dinner dessert.”
I begin by picking out the debris, and washing the fruit gently.
He he is with her. He is with her.
I have the sudden sense that somebody is watching me. I turn and find Roman standing in the doorway near me.
“Smile for me, kitten,” he says. “You look so intense.”
“Hello, Roman.”
He comes to stand beside me, eats a couple of berries, and says, “When is your next day off?”
“Friday.”
“That’s a great night to put on your glad rags and visit a juice joint,” he says. “The excuse that you can’t dance won’t work anymore. You were the liveliest spark at Father’s party.”
I continue with my work.
“What about it?” he persists. “A little hooch and a lot of dancing? We might even take in a gourmet dinner.”
“I don’t think so, Roman,” I say.
“And why not? Do you have other plans?”
“Maybe.”
“Oh, you do?” he says in a rather sarcastic tone. “Anybody I know?”
I don’t answer.
“Is it Luke Wayne?”
“Aren’t you supposed to be on your way to meet him?” I ask.
“Yes, but first I want an answer from you.”
“I gave you an answer, Roman.”
“Lorie!” Bridget calls suddenly.
“Yes ma’am?” I turn to her, wiping my hands on my apron.
“Oh, excuse me, Mr. Roman,” Bridget says, as she comes to my side. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but Mrs. Myles wants to see Lorie in the library immediately. It’s important.”
“By all means,” Roman says. “When Mother calls, we all snap to it, don’t we?”
In the library Mrs. Myles is sitting at her desk. When I walk in, she stands up and hands a yellow envelope to me.
“Lorie, this just arrived for you. I hope it isn’t bad news.”
It’s a telegram. I rip it open and find it’s from Caroline. Samuel is critically ill and wants to see me. She will be looking for me on the nine p.m. train in Granger.
“Oh..hh,” is all I can say.
“You look pale, my dear,” Mrs. Myles says kindly. “Please sit down.”
She comes over to guide me to the sofa where Brody sat the first time I saw him. I hand the telegram to her.
“I’m terribly sorry,” Mrs. Myles says when she has read it. “Is Samuel a brother?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Then you must leave right away,” she says. “I will call the station for you and see which train you need to get there at nine.”
“Thank you.”
“You must stay as long as you are needed, and not worry about anything here. I will call Delia or Marge to fill in, but your job will be waiting for you when you return. Do you need money? Train fare perhaps?”
“No, ma’am. I have money.”
“Chris will take you to the station.”
And so it is that I find myself, thirty minutes later, distraught and thoroughly discombobulated, riding in the Model A into Charlottesville with Chris. Mrs. Myles has asked him to rush, for my train will be leaving soon.
“Sorry about your brother,” Chris says as he speeds toward town. “And I’m sorry for what I said to you the other day.”
“What?”
“The things I said about you and Mr. Brody. I was out of line.”
“Oh, that,” I say. “Forget it.”
I can’t think of anything but Samuel right now. I keep seeing him on Gospel Road as we said goodbye, with his arm around Jewel – crying.
The “all aboard” is sounding as we reach the station platform, and I am in a panic. I am forced to run, and Chris runs alongside me, carrying my carpet bag. I jump onto the train as it begins to move. Chris shoves the bag into my hands, and I’m on my way.
“Thank you, Chris!” I call out to him, as the train leaves the station. He waves to me.
Darkness has fallen by the time the train’s whistle echoes through the hollows of the hills, and we come to a noisy stop in Granger. Caroline and Jewel are waiting for me. We can only hug each other, too emotional to speak.
Then they tell me about Samuel. He’s in the new Granger Hospital, a short distance from the train station. He is very weak, they say, and does not look well at all. He goes in and out of consciousness.
We walk to the hospital, where we find Dr. Wayne in Samuel’s room. To ease his struggle for air, Samuel has been placed in a new-fangled apparatus called an oxygen tent. It’s made of a filmy transparent material, and surrounds his upper body. Pure oxygen is pumped into the tent. Samuel’s eyes are closed.
Caroline touches his hand and says, “Look who’s here.”
He opens his eyes and smiles when he sees me. He squeezes my hand. For his sake I manage not to cry. The tent is momentarily clipped aside so that Samuel can communicate with
us. He is able to speak only a few words between pauses for breath.
“Is the lucky fella…with you?” he asks me.
I shake my head. “There’s no fella.”
“Don’t believe it,” he says. “I read between…the lines.”
More hugging follows as Trula and Mack enter the room. Then we all gather around Samuel, touching him, speaking softly. He tries to sit up, but doesn’t quite make it.
“Take it easy,” Dr. Wayne says to him and starts to put the oxygen tent back into place.
Samuel raises his hand to push it away. “Something….to say.” He motions Caroline to come closer. She leans over him, and he takes her hand. “You are…the love…of my life,” he whispers.
“I love you too, Samuel.”
This inspires us all to say it. I love you. I love you. I love you. We have never said it enough.
Samuel falls back onto his pillow, exhausted, and Dr. Wayne quickly replaces the tent. He closes his eyes and says no more. The rest of us are quiet, as we huddle around him. He doesn’t open his eyes again. Near midnight my Samuel, who has been father, mother and brother to me, is no longer in my life at all.
In the wee hours Mack and Trula drive me, Jewel and Caroline up Gospel Road. Caroline has a flashlight to guide us the rest of the way to Uncle Green’s old home place where she now lives. Jewel and I spend what’s left of the night with her, because it’s easier than walking on home in the dark, to wake everybody and tell them the bad news at this hour. It can wait until morning. In Caroline’s extra bed I hold Jewel while she cries. When she is asleep, I lie awake and remember a long-ago day in August – the very day Jewel was born.
He lifts me to his shoulders where I can see all the pretty world.
Monday, July 8th, 1929
Jewel and I rise early, dress quietly, and slip away without disturbing Caroline. We walk to the log house, where Bea and my brothers welcome me. Lawrence is all over me.
“Lorie! Lorie! Kissy, kissy!”
“Oh, I missed you too, doodle bug!”
But Dad still will not speak to me. Even after we have given him the bad news, he just grumbles and walks out to the barn by himself. Bea makes breakfast, and as we eat, Charles, who is now sixteen and works for Luther at the Watkins sawmill, tells me he has a girlfriend from Cole Hollow. Her name is Lucy, a little sister to the Cole twins who graduated highschool with me. I ask him to go with us into Granger to make arrangements for the funeral. He is pleased to be asked.
We meet Mack, Trula and Caroline on Gospel Road. Charles and Trula have not seen each other since he was seven. They embrace, and Trula sheds a few tears.
“Look how tall you are,” she says. “You were
just a little thing…back then.”
“I remember you rocking me to sleep,” he says a bit shyly.
Mack drops me and Charles off at Luther and Sally’s house to tell them about Samuel, but the news has already spread. Everybody knows. We spend a few moments with Madge and Christine, who are four and five years old now, before Mack drives us on to Call’s to send a telegram to Nell. Mrs. Call is actually helping me until she looks out the window where Mack is waiting in the car with Trula beside him. Then she slams a catalog angrily against the countertop, turns her back to me, and walks off. Mr. Call helps me finish the telegram.
In Granger Trula picks out a beautiful coffin, and Mack pays for it even though they will not be coming to the funeral.
As we part, Charles shakes Mack’s hand, and kisses Trula on the cheek. “I’m gonna bring my girl over to see you,” he says. “Dad don’t need to know about it.”
When we return home, the old patterns begin to fall into place again, and I feel a heaviness in my soul. If I am gone for five weeks or fifty years, nothing ever changes here. Meals must appear on the table three times a day, the children must be tended, the cows milked, the garden weeded, the eggs collected, the animals fed, the water drawn, floors scrubbed, clothes laundered – even when your heart is breaking.
Tuesday, July 9th, 1929
Mid-morning our kin start arriving with food and flowers and sympathy. Aunt Sue comes with fried chicken and potato salad. Aunt Laura and Aunt Clara come with a ham, a pot of green beans and two black raspberry pies. That’s when I remember that I didn’t finish the jam Bridget asked me to make. Oh, well, I’m sure Marge or Delia knows how to make jam.
In the afternoon I slip away and go to Call’s to send a note to Mrs. Myles. I tell her about Samuel, and that I will be staying for a few days. I will give her specifics later regarding the date of my return. I estimate the letter will be in Mrs. Myles’s hands in two days, three at most. I’m sure she will share the news, so Brody will know what has happened and where I am.
At the store I find a telegram has arrived from Nell. She will try to make it for the funeral, but she may be late. She doesn’t know how late, so we shouldn’t alter any plans for her.
Back at the house, I walk to the Starr graveyard to look at the stones. I whisper the names of those long-ago women who lived and died on this mountain. “Eunice. Olive. Nancy. Cornelia. Ruby.” I don’t have to imagine what their lives were like. Each one did what her mother did before her, and what her grandmother did before that, and on and on. They didn’t know how to break the cycle.
The sun is relentless, and I rest in the shade beneath a maple tree. Jewel appears and sits beside me. As I place an arm around her, the awful realization comes to me that when I go back to Charlottesville, most of the woman’s work will fall on these thin shoulders. Bea will not ease her burden as Samuel did.
“I know you will miss him terribly,” I say to her.
“I miss you more than anybody, Lorie,” she says. “You make me feel safe.”
“Safe? What do you mean?”
“Oh, nothing. It’s just that Dad is, well, you know, he’s….addled.”
“You wrote that he was doing strange things,” I say. “What kind of strange things?”
“For one thing, he doesn’t seem to know who I am. He calls me different names, most often Gertie.”
“That was Mommie’s name – Gertrude. Does he ever call you Roxie?”
“Never, but he calls me Sue and Nell and Lorie, even Trula sometimes.”
“So he finally said her name.”
“Yes, but not in a nice way. Oh, Lorie, he…” She cannot go on, and I see that tears have welled up in her eyes.
“What, Jewel? What is it? You can tell me, honey.”
“He…he hits me!” She blurts out the words with a mild explosion, like a teapot suddenly going off, and the tears spill over.
“What!”
“For no reason at all!” she cries. “And it’s only when there’s nobody else around, so he knows perfectly well it’s not right.”
“Oh, Jewel.” I pull her close and kiss her golden hair.
“He’s old,” she goes on between sobs, “but he’s strong. He can knock me down with one hand. I have to hide from him. Why does he hate me?”
I look at the beauty and sweetness in my sister’s face, eclipsed at the moment by her pain.
“Did you tell Samuel?”
“No. I started to tell him one day, but then I couldn’t do it. He was coughing so hard, I was afraid it would make him worse.”
As she lies across my lap and weeps, I rub her shoulders and look out at the distant horizon, thinking of the day we buried Mommie. I was in mourning, but not for her. I was weeping inside for myself because I couldn’t recall a time in my life when she had hugged or kissed me.
Now Jewel has nobody but me. Sure, Trula or Caroline would take her in, but Dad would just fetch her back home. And even if I returned to live here, could I protect her? What would I do if Dad decided to hit her? Fight him? I can picture another big blow up between us. Then I would have to take Jewel and run away with her to a place where he could not reach her. So why go through all that trauma? Do it now.
“You will not have to put up with Dad anymore, Jewel,” I say to her.
“Why? What do you mean?”
“I mean I am going to be the mother you need. I will take care of you as Samuel and Trula and Roxie took care of me.”
She rises up and looks at me through tear-filled eyes. “I don’t want you to give up your dreams for me.”
“I’ll not give up anything, but when I leave here again, you are coming with me.”
“How, Lorie? I know you have to work. What are you going to do with me?”
“I haven’t completely thought it all out,” I admit, “but I will. In the meantime, secrecy is the word. Don’t say anything to anybody about our plans.”
“Oh, I won’t!”
“On the day we leave,” I say, “we will announce that you are coming with me for a short visit; then we’ll just go and never come back. Dad will fuss for a while, but, sad to say, he’ll forget about you. And he certainly won’t come after you. He won’t go outside the county even for a cow auction.”
“Oh, Lorie, do you really mean it?”
Now there is so much hope in her voice and in her face, I could cry. She has lived through a nightmare all by herself.
“I really mean it.”
Wednesday, July 10th, 1929
The space on the right side of Mommie’s grave is reserved for Dad, and Roxie is on the left. So we bury Samuel on the other side of Roxie where the maple tree will shade him in summer, and the golden leaves will fall on him in autumn. I stand with an arm around Caroline on one side and Jewel on the other as the preacher says his closing words. Then Luther and Charles shovel the dirt into the hole over the casket.
Someone hugs me from behind and I turn to find a very pregnant Opal. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “I know how much he meant to you.”
“Thanks, Opal, you look pretty. Where’s Eddie?”
“He stayed at home so Dad could come to the funeral.”
Yes, of course somebody has to hang around at Uncle Ben’s place in case he gets a customer. Uncle Ben, Uncle Green, Uncle Artemis and Uncle Tom are clustered around Dad. Bea and Aunt Sue are gathered with the wives and all the many children.
“Hey, Lorie,” I hear a familiar voice and turn to see Vic and Rose.
I hug them both. “How good to see you! You look so happy.”
“We’re moving to St. Petersburg, Florida,” Rose gushes. Her eyes are shining. “Vic has joined the Merchant Marines as a deckhand.”
A stab of envy and resentment goes through me. Vic and I are the same age and have the same education; yet it’s so easy for him to find a job and re-locate hundreds of miles away, all because he’s male.
“Wow!” I say, practically choking on the words. “Florida!”
“Did yo
u see who came with us from Granger?” Vic says.
It’s Mr. Harmon. He stands apart, hat in hand, looking at me. I go to him, shake his hand, and thank him for coming.
“It was always reassuring to me,” he says, “that you had a brother as fine as Samuel to encourage and support you.”
“Yes, I will miss him.”
“And how is my prize student doing out there in the big world?”
“Very well. I know being a maid is not ideal, but I’m making my own money, and I’m learning a lot.”
“Are you reading?” he asks.
“Oh, yes!” I name the two books I have read and the two I plan to read as soon as I return.
“Good for you!” he says. “As for me, I had some bad news from the county last week. The Saturday classes in Deep Bottom are to be discontinued.”
“But why?”
“The cost is too great for the small number of students.”
One more reason to get Jewel out of here. If only I could send her to highschool in Charlottesville!
At this point I see that Nell has arrived. She is even taller and thinner than she was the last time I saw her. Her hair is long and twisted into a bun at the back of her head. She is wearing wire-rimmed specs, and she keeps her lips pursed as if she disapproves of everything and everybody she sees, which is probably true. We give each other a polite hug, and I introduce her to Mr. Harmon.
“Oh, the highschool teacher,” Nell says to him. “All that education you gave Lorie, and look what she does with it. She becomes a maid!” She laughs as if she has said something funny.
Mr. Harmon seems taken aback, but he recovers quickly and comes to my defense. “Education is never wasted,” he says. “Lorie will go on learning her entire life because she has a good foundation.”
Back at the house the funeral guests drift into small groups inside the house and out. I gravitate toward my classmates and Mr. Harmon in the back yard. He is having a first-hand look at the home his “prize” student had to live in during those highschool years. I try to see it through his eyes. The isolation. The lack of electricity. The primitive facilities. The log house with mud in the chinks. Nobody has a house like this anymore. I’m glad Brody will never see it.
