Birthday Dinner

by Jeffrey Anderson

Chapter 4

  The storms last night had ushered in a dry front that brought along with it vibrant blue skies and a light breeze that seemed to Becca more divine blessing than the simple result of a meteorological pressure imbalance between the former system and the current one. On her walk from the church to the parking lot she rolled her head to the sky, closed her eyes, shook her long blond hair against her neck and shoulders and back, and felt again her youth—the youth of no unmovable obstacles in the path of her hopes and her ideals, the youth of days bright as this far out as she could see, Zach beside her, life good.

  But the rolling cooler that she dragged along behind and the shoulder bag strapped across her neck tethered her to a different world, one constrained by too much need for too few resources. Tuesday morning was her weekly visitation period, the time set aside to contact those charges who were incapable of coming by the church. Zach called it her “field time,” combining references to his farm background and the title of Peter Matthiessen’s recent novel At Play in the Fields of the Lord, and trying to defuse his concerns for Becca’s safety while plowing in those impoverished and sometimes treacherous environs. The cooler held containers of deep-frozen meals—chicken and dumplings, chopped pork barbecue, Brunswick stew—prepared in bulk by a team at one of her churches and packaged in single-serving foil tins. Atop the food were three zip-sealed plastic bags holding a mix of basic first-aid items and toiletries donated by a local drugstore chain. In her shoulder bag she carried copies of the government forms she could help those who qualified fill out to begin their slow slog through that bureaucracy in the hope of reaching the Oz of public assistance before time and the world took them beyond the need for such help.

  She stopped behind her car, unlocked the trunk, and raised the lid. She sighed to herself at the sight of a few fluffy white clouds marching their way east, toward the long North Carolina coast. She thought of that coastline and her times playing there in that sand and water and sun, the highlight of every summer till now. But not this year, she lamented, as her work commitments and Zach’s writing schedule would likely keep them in Shefford at least till fall. She mourned the loss of her freedom from commitment and expectation. And she longed to share the beach with Zach—her beach, herself at the beach, the carefree exuberance it brought out in her, the playful dreamlike escape. Where had that dream gone? And what had pushed in to fill its place? She shivered once despite the warm June sun on her shoulders, took a deep breath, then hoisted the heavy cooler into the trunk with a groan and a grunt.

  Her first stop was at the one-bedroom project apartment of twin elderly white sisters, Nina and Tina Overton. Nina had congestive heart failure and was confined to bed where she spent most of her time in shallow unconscious, occasionally rousing to eat a little or sip on her ginger ale. Each time Becca saw her, the gap her body defined between the bottom and the top sheet grew thinner and thinner; and Becca knew, despite her hopeful claims to Tina, that one day soon there would be no separation between those two sheets, and Tina would be left to try to carve out a new life in the absence of her companion since before birth. The food she dropped off in their dorm-style fridge was for Tina, not Nina (who probably consumed less than one of those meals—pureed to help her swallow—the whole week), as Tina would not leave her sister’s side to shop or run errands, even when a neighbor or church member offered to sit with Nina while she was away. According to the ministry’s guidelines, Becca wasn’t supposed to be here, as Tina was fully capable of getting to the church to pick-up her supplies, either via bus or in the pristine Studebaker the sisters had bought nearly twenty years ago and driven no more than a few thousand miles. But her second day on the job, Becca’d made an executive decision to not hold Tina to that rule and force her to decide between her heart’s needs and her body’s—Becca well knew which would win, and then the ministry would have two convalescents instead of one with a round-the-clock caregiver. She touched Tina’s shoulder where she was stationed in the chair beside her sister’s bed, paired her hands as in prayer, pointing first to Tina then Nina, and gave a silent wave. Tina, her eyes weary and weighed down by immeasurable sadness, still managed a nod of appreciation and mouthed the words thank you as Becca left the room where spoken words had lost their efficacy.

 

  Her second visit was to Ronique, an overweight black woman with five school-aged children and a herniated disc in her back. Child Welfare made sure the kids were fed and clothed and got to school each day, but there was no public assistance available for the temporarily disabled—at least none that would get approved before the disability passed or entered the category of “permanent disability,” thus requiring submission of a whole additional series of forms. Ronique’s eldest daughter, twelve-year-old Shamira, helped her mother by giving her sponge baths and braiding her hair in tight rows. But there was no money for the health and beauty supplies that were essential to the spirit as well as the body. So Becca dropped these supplies off along with current issues of the magazines Ronique liked best at her two-bedroom apartment in a newer housing project across town. She had a key and let herself in after three loud knocks on the door and a grunt in response from inside. The apartment felt like a tomb with all the children off at school, and had a stale smell from too many days with the windows closed. Becca opened the blinds and slid open the apartment’s three cheap metal windows with the screens already busted out. Ronique didn’t say a word from her spot lying on her back on the couch with one leg dangling off the edge in a futile attempt to find a position that relieved even a little of her excruciating pain. The black skin of her face had a gray cast, like the ashes left over from an old fire; and she looked closer to fifty-eight than her actual twenty-eight.

  “Bad pain today?” Becca asked.

  The woman grimaced in response—maybe to the reminder, maybe to the simple pressure of the words’ sound waves against her skin.

  “Taken your pain medication?”

  Still no response, just that blank stare at the textured ceiling.

  Becca saw the prescription bottle, along with a glass of water and a box of toaster tarts on the stained coffee table in front of the couch.

  “I brought you some magazines.” She set the current issues on the table beside the toaster tarts and did a quick glance around the room for last week’s issues. They were nowhere to be seen, so someone had done something with them—maybe read by Ronique, maybe cut up for paper dolls, maybe used for toilet tissue. Becca told herself it didn’t matter how they were used, but was secretly saddened to not know for sure if they’d been read and enjoyed, by someone if not by Ronique.

  She held out the bag of toiletries like a peace offering or a flag of surrender. It felt suddenly heavy in her hand—a lead weight pulling her down. “I’ll leave these on the high shelf in the kitchen. Make sure Shamira puts the bottles somewhere the little ones won’t get into them.”

  “She know,” Ronique grunted.

  “I know she does,” Becca said. “She’s a smart girl.” She went into the kitchen and left the bag on the shelf above the sink. She then went around and closed the windows but left the blinds open. On her way to the door through the small family room, she paused. “I closed the windows to keep the bugs out.” (She didn’t have to add the obvious—to keep thieves out as well, though neither those cheap windows nor Ronique’s near-paralyzed presence would stop one of the desperate thieves known to roam this project.) “I wish I could keep them open; it’s a beautiful day outside. I’ll stop by the main office and ask maintenance to check into the screens.”

  “Good luck.”

  “Yes,” Becca said. “We could all use that.”

  She’d taken two strides toward the door and had her hand on the knob before turning suddenly, walking quickly back across the room, and kneeling beside the couch. She took Ronique’s near puffy hand in hers and spoke quietly to the side of that taut face. “You will get better, and I’ll keep coming until you do. Call me if you need anything I can help
provide.” She didn’t wait for a response she knew wouldn’t be coming.

  She was out the door and onto the breezeway when her hands started shaking, a tremor that continued till she was behind the wheel of her car and struck the dash twice in anger and frustration.

  Becca got no answer at her third stop, a modest ranch house with an overgrown front yard in a decent working-class neighborhood. Marlene Saunders, a white woman with a gentle smile and small timid eyes set deep in her face, had lived here with her husband Nathan for sixty-two years until he’d died of a heart attack two months ago. Now Marlene spent most of her days (and her nights too, apparently, judging from the pristinely made up bed in their tidy small bedroom) seated at the worn kitchen table talking to Nathan seated, in her mind and heart, directly across from her. Nathan had so thoroughly cared for Marlene since they’d met at the old Shefford High that she’d never got a driver’s license or bought groceries or been to a drugstore, and they’d never had (or desired, according to Marlene) children. So now Marlene was happily but hopelessly marooned within her spotlessly maintained prison with weeds growing outside the doors and dust gathering on the pick-up in the carport. Becca’s task was to keep Marlene in food and toiletries until the paperwork for committal worked its way through the courts with a lawyer from one of her churches serving as both advocate and petitioner.

  But where was Marlene today? After her fifth loud rapping on the aluminum storm door, Becca opened that door and turned the knob on the wood door beyond. “Hello?” she said in a loud but hesitant voice. “Marlene?”

  Still no answer.

  Becca stepped into the familiar entry. She knew she was breaking ministry guidelines by entering unaccompanied, but she wasn’t about to leave without checking on Marlene. “Hello?” She moved past the living room to the right and the den to the left walked down the hall toward the back of the house. “Marlene?”

  She got to the kitchen’s doorway and saw Marlene seated at her normal place at the kitchen table, her back to Becca. The thin woman sat bolt upright and totally still facing the far wall with its window over the sink.

  “Marlene, it’s Becca Coles—from the Ministry,” she said from behind so as not to alarm the woman (and hoping also to rouse some response from the frozen figure). “I’ve brought you your meals.”

  The woman gave no sign of hearing her words, made no motion or gesture whatsoever.

  Becca set her bag of frozen meals on the linoleum floor and moved slowly around the table, not quite knowing what she expected to find but fearful of the worst.

  Marlene’s eyes continued staring toward the far wall but blinked once, and her neat gingham dress moved ever so slightly at her shallow breathing.

  Becca pulled out a chair from one side of the table and sat quietly, leaving the chair opposite Marlene—Nathan’s chair—empty. She sat in silence watching, studying, the side of the woman’s face. Once she’d seen the color of life in those sunken cheeks and the blink of consciousness in those deep-set eyes, Becca felt calm enough to wait and watch. She saw for the first time a clear glimpse of this woman’s residual beauty—the graceful slope beneath her eyes and the full well-shaped lips that, with those eyes, had made this woman a stunning beauty once, and could make her beautiful again if the hollowness behind the eyes ever left.

  Marlene turned to face her without moving any muscle or bone in her body except her long and lean neck. “Did you see him leave?”

  Becca shook her head. “No,” she said quietly.

  “Me either. You’d think he would’ve said good-bye.”

  “There are ways to say good-bye that aren’t words.”

  Marlene nodded. “I well know that now.”

  “How will you make do with him gone?”

  The woman fixed her with a calm stare. “I can’t drive. I don’t know the first thing about the world out there. I need someone to help me.”

  Becca nodded. “I can help. I brought you your meals. I can bring you other things you need, or get someone to bring them. The church has volunteers.”

  “I should move somewhere with people. This house is empty now.”

  “Your friend Mrs. Johnson is working on that. I’ll tell her you’re ready to sign the papers.”

  Marlene nodded slowly to Becca then faced the chair opposite and the window beyond. “I should leave now that he’s gone.”

  “I’ll let Mrs. Johnson know, and Father Mark. I’m sure one or both will be in touch soon.”

  “Let them know, dear,” she said without facing Becca.

  “Will you be O.K. if I leave now, to finish my visits?”

  “I’ll be fine. One thing I know how to do is survive in this house.” She smiled ever so slightly to the bright day beyond the window.

  Becca reached for the woman’s near hand resting limply on the table but stopped before grasping it. She’d not risk disturbing Marlene’s calm resolve with touch. “I’ll put the food in the freezer. Do you want me to put one of the meals in the fridge to thaw?”

  “Barbecue would be good, dear; Darren brought some snap beans and I can make a skillet of cornbread. Nathan always loved my skillet bread.”

  Becca nodded and stood. “I’ll leave a tin of barbecue in the fridge.” She retrieved the bag of food and walked across the kitchen to the refrigerator.

  From behind her, Marlene said softly, “Maybe we should’ve had a child. Maybe she would’ve been like you.”

  Becca had no idea how to answer that heart-felt regret so she offered the only response that came to her mind. “I’d have been honored.”

  Marlene nodded in silence.

  Becca set a tin labeled cue in the fridge and put the rest of the food in the near-empty freezer, last week’s meals dutifully consumed. She paused beside the seated woman on her way toward the door. “You sure you’ll be O.K.?”

  Marlene turned and faced her with a calm stare. “You don’t die of loneliness, dear. Your body doesn’t even show the pain.” She flashed a tight grin that had a hint of bitter irony around the edges. “Nobody ever tells you that.”

  Becca returned her steady gaze. “You just did.”

  “Did what?”

  “Told me.”

  Marlene laughed—first time ever in Becca’s presence. “So I did. But will you remember?”

  Becca gave back the simple truth. “Yes.”

  Marlene brushed her hand as she turned to leave. “Thank you, dear.”

  Becca’s last stop was a new one. She made two wrong turns onto gravel drives off the paved road far out in the county—one to a warehouse tucked behind a grove of pines, the other to a dead end at a rusty chain strung between two fat cedar posts—before she finally found her way to the log and chinking shack surrounded by a clutch of leaning outbuildings surrounded by perhaps ten acres of gold-leaf tobacco stretching their young leaves to the sky in orderly rows. She was there to see Solomon Murphy, an ancient black man who’d been living on this farm his whole life and whose grandson Isaiah had just been called to active duty in the Army reserve. Solomon’s wife of forever had died of cancer a few years ago and Isaiah had come to live with his grandfather and help tend the farm. But with Isaiah gone for an indefinite time period, the Ecumenical Outreach Ministries had been asked to step in to provide Solomon the support no government agency offered. Like Marlene, he’d never learned to drive anything more than a mule or, in the last ten years, a third-hand small tractor; and at his age, he surely wasn’t going to learn to drive now. So the Rutledges, the white family next farm over, had told Pastor Jim who had told Father Mark who had told Becca to check into the situation. So here she was. It was of little use to anyone at the moment that Solomon’s farm was worth a small fortune to the research companies starting to populate this end of the county, with the U.S. headquarters of one pharmaceutical giant almost within sight through the scrubby pine woods.

  Becca parked her car in front of the shack with its shallow porch of well-worn boards and single rough-hewn handrail on similarly u
ndressed posts supporting the wood-shake roof. She stayed in the car to let the cloud of dust she’d stirred rush ahead and settle about the shack. She was simultaneously intimidated and enticed by this homely farmstead under the hot sun and crystal clear sky. Except for her car and the tractor tire leaning against, or supporting, one outbuilding (no tractor in sight), this scene could’ve been from any decade in the past three centuries. She’d often observed such hardscrabble farms from the highway while racing past with her family or friends on their way to the beach or some relative’s house for a holiday meal or reunion, and she’d often wondered what it was like to live in their world forgotten by time. But she’d never stopped and engaged the owners, and felt uneasy doing so now. What could she possibly offer this Solomon Murphy that he didn’t already have or possess the empirical resources to obtain? What match were her gifts to this timeless self-reliance? She had no answers to those questions echoing in her mind, but nonetheless opened the car door and boldly stepped out into the pounding sun.

  “Show nuff beatin down today,” a bass voice said in a resonant slow monotone from the deep shade on the west side of the house.

  Becca followed that voice to the far end of the porch and squinting into the shade discovered a thin black man in worn but clean denim overalls and no shirt leaning back against the logs of the house seated on a long bench made from a split pine trunk. “Good morning, sir. I’m Becca Coles, from Ecumenical Outreach Ministries. Are you Solomon Murphy?”

  “That’s what they says is wrote in the book at the Crossroads Church, but now the church gone.”

  Becca was confused by what he said. She felt dizzy in the sudden intense sun. She wavered and thought she might faint.

  The old black man was beside her in a flash, caught her by the elbow, and guided her into the shade and to a seat on the bench. He drew some water with a ladle from a galvanized bucket hung from a peg, and poured that water into a tin cup. “Drink this, child.”

  From the fog of her dizziness and in the new dark shade, Becca thought the man’s voice sounded like that of God—that sure, that compassionate. She greedily drank the water he offered.

  Solomon stood in front of her, watching closely, till her tremors faded and her skin lost its pallor. Then he sat on the bench a few feet from her, still watching her profile closely, ready to act fast as before if needed.

  Becca took a deep breath after she’d emptied the cup. She finally faced him with a weak smile. “Thank you for catching me. I believe the long morning and the hot sun got the best of me.”

  “Not old Solomon giving you a fright?”

  Becca shook her head and managed a laugh. “No, sir. I think I might’ve given you one.”

  Solomon nodded. “Did at that; did at that. Been years since a pretty girl fainted on my doorstep.”

  “So it’s happened before?”

  The old man turned loose a high-pitched cackle of a laugh. “Back in the day; back in the day. Like to give me a heart attack now.”

  “I’ll testify you managed just fine.”

  Solomon nodded. “So I did, young lady. Don’t try me no more, though—hear? This ticker can’t take no more of that.”

  “Deal,” Becca said.

  They sat a moment in silence, each staring straight ahead across the field of dusty soil and sturdy young tobacco that started just twenty feet in front of them. In the shade of the house it was still cool, with a faint breeze dancing around them before dissipating under the relentless assault of the sun. The stillness of the late morning and the rural setting mixed with the improbable juxtaposition of this old farmer and this young social worker to form a kind of surreal capsule around the two, a fleeting moment of trust and sharing that extended only as far as the fast-shrinking shade.

  Solomon finally spoke, straight ahead to the rows of pale-green plants. “Don’t get folks like you out this way.”

  “Like me?”

  “Young white women.”

  Becca laughed. “Run them all off?”

  Solomon paused to let her laughter fade before responding. “There are men in this county, almost within shouting distance of where we sit, who would put a noose around my neck just for talking to you.”

  Becca met his words head-on. “Mr. Murphy, if my presence is endangering your well-being, I’ll leave this minute and not return, send someone better suited to the task of finding out if the Ministry can help you.”

  This time Solomon could chuckle. “You bold, young lady, I’ll grant you that. But I guess I knew that already, soon as I saw you drive up and get out of that car like you ready to take on the world and all its injustices.”

  “I thank you for that compliment, sir; but you give me too much credit. I’m neither bold nor near ready to take on all the world’s injustices or even a few little ones. I’m just doing my best to try to figure out how I can help a few needful souls. But you don’t appear to need any help, Mr. Murphy. And even if you do, if my presence is of potential harm to you, I should leave.”

  “Stay put, child. I was just telling you the world ain’t near as far along in its changes as some might hope. Hatred dies harder than a kudzu vine. But I stopped living in fear twelve years ago; ain’t going to backslide now.”

  “How’d you stop being afraid?”

  “Not how but when—the day Reverend King was shot. I told Lilith—my wife, may she rest in peace—that if Reverend King could face a white man’s bullet I could stop being scared. And I did.”

  “Just that fast?”

  “Wouldn’t say seventy-seven years to get there is fast.”

  “But the change?”

  “Been building all my life—took Reverend King’s murder to bring it out.”

  “And no problems since?”

  “Not a one. Still knocked up against blind hatred and ignorance now and then. That didn’t suddenly disappear because I changed, or because one good man took a bullet. But now I saw it for what it was—their burden, not mine.”

  “Will it ever change, Mr. Murphy?”

  “Young lady, my father was born into slavery. He shed those chains for the shackles of bigotry and intimidation, died in a bondage not far removed from that into which he was born. But his son was born free and grows freer by the day, thanks in no small part to the courage of many people black and white—people like you brave enough to see a better world.”

  “And like you—strong enough to stop being scared.”

  “I’m just a farmer, child—grow fine tobacco for sale to the white man back since I can remember. I tend my small corner of God’s good earth and let well-educated folk like you save the world.”

  “How can I help you, Mr. Murphy?”

  “Come see me once in a while, child; bring me news from the world that my grandson used to bring before they sent him off to fight white man’s wars.”

  “I can bring the news. Anything else?”

  “Not a thing in the world I need but your glimpse of hope in my later days.”

  By then the sun was licking at their feet—his bare, gnarled, and nubbled by callus and scar; hers safely cased in clogs and white ankle socks dusted by the ochre leavings of the tilled clay.