by Julie Kibler
I smiled at his correction. I waited.
“I love you more than anything, anyone, anywhere. I never dreamed I could love a girl as much as I love you. I suspect it started up a little bit that night in Newport, when we walked along, and you weren’t ashamed of me, when you wanted me next to you, not following. I’d never seen a white girl act like that.” Now he chuckled.
Ashamed of him? I’d been so grateful for his appearance, I couldn’t imagine being ashamed. I almost interrupted, but I held my tongue so he could continue.
“Believe it or not I am thankful for every crazy thing you’ve done, even if at times I wanted to strangle you. Now, I want you to be proud of me. I want to make you happy and take good care of you. I want to protect you and keep you safe. I don’t want to hurt you. Not now, not tonight. Not ever.”
How could I deserve this man? My breath caught, and I tried to keep the tears that had threatened during his beautiful speech from slipping down my cheeks. I didn’t want him to imagine I was scared, or worse, regretted my choice. One lone tear broke loose, though, and it drifted lazily down my face until Robert caught it with the edge of his finger and swept it to the side.
I pulled his face close to mine then, forcing him to lift himself back onto the bed. His weight against my ribs and hipbones reminded me of the thimble I’d carried all evening, first in my dress pocket and now in a pocket hidden in the seam of my robe. I reached for it and handed it to Robert. He placed it on the nightstand, where it glimmered in the lamp’s faint glow, a whole range of hues reflected in its surface.
He switched off the lamp and reached across me to raise the blackout shade over the window. My eyes adjusted to the light from the moon, and in it, eventually, I studied the contrast between our clasped hands. The nuanced differences of our skin tones, the browns and pinks and creams, were indiscernible now—everything was black or white, with few shades in between. Just as the world would see us. But I reveled in our differences in spite of the slightest tremble of nervousness I experienced as Robert began to make love to me.
I sighed at the brush of his skin against mine, smooth and silky, the downy hair on his legs stroking my smooth ones, exposed when he untied the sash of my robe and gently pushed each side away.
I marveled at the sheer number of nerve endings that stood on end when he ran his fingers and palms over every inch of my skin, bared when he gently released my arms from my robe and lifted my gown over my head.
Small sounds of pleasure and pain and pleasure again slipped unguarded from my throat when he entered the secret place of my body, using the instrument I’d scarcely dared imagine even in the darkened privacy of my old bedroom to create an eternal union between us.
There was no doubt about it now. I was his. And he was mine.
22
Dorrie, Present Day
“OH, MISS ISABELLE, it was so romantic.” I felt a lump in my throat as we continued up the southern Kentucky highway. Her sweet story of her wedding night made me regret many of my stupid teenage decisions. Times had changed, that was for sure, but maybe all those folks with their talk of abstinence had a point. Still, you had to tell kids how to protect themselves.
It was too late for me, and, obviously, too late for Stevie Junior. He’d crossed so many lines in the last few days—most of them far worse in my mind than premarital sex.
I still hadn’t decided how to approach Teague with the news that Stevie was the one who’d robbed me. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t given up on me yet, though his texts and calls were coming with less frequency now. He would quit calling eventually—I was counting on it—but I had to admit a small part of me hoped he’d hang in there while I figured it all out.
“I’m glad we had our romantic wedding night, yes.” Miss Isabelle’s voice interrupted my thoughts. I glanced over, and her eyes seemed to fade in an instant, their silver blue going a little more gray. “It changed my life and his, without a doubt.”
“What happened next? What about your families? I bet your mother totally flipped a wig.”
“You could say that.” Miss Isabelle pulled her crossword book close to her reading glasses. She appeared to puzzle over a spot that still lacked a few letters, as if she were struggling to combine the clue with the letters already there to find the right answer. Then she sighed and turned her head to gaze out the window for a while. Eventually, I turned the radio up a couple notches, hinting that I didn’t need to hear the story if she didn’t want to tell it. She was worrying me. We were on our way to a funeral, what had to be a sad and painful occasion for her already, and here she was, baring her soul, telling me a story I suspected she’d never shared in full before. I felt honored she trusted me with it. But I was scared it wasn’t good for her.
It was clear things had changed dramatically at some point for Miss Isabelle and Robert. Every face in the photos on her tables and walls was white—her husband, her son, extended family members. There wasn’t a single shot of a black person. Something bad had happened. I was amazed Miss Isabelle was so giving and had such a positive attitude anyway. If I’d lost my soul mate—I had no doubt Robert and Miss Isabelle had been soul mates and that they had lost each other—I wasn’t sure I could have gone on like she had. I was dying to know what happened between that night and when she met and married the only husband I’d known about.
But I could be patient for Miss Isabelle’s sake. If I never found out, well, I’d live with it.
After a while, I asked whether she was ready to stop for lunch, but she wanted to press on. She studied her travel atlas, then determined we could make it to Elizabethtown. Seemed like every other town in Kentucky was either somebodytown or somebodyville. By her estimation, we’d have a little more than a hundred miles to go after that—maybe an hour and a half—and we could snack before bed in Cincinnati. I didn’t care. My appetite had taken a hit from all the thinking about Stevie Junior. As far as I was concerned, the sooner we arrived in Cincinnati, the sooner I could take stock of things and figure out what on earth I was going to do.
I studied the scenery while the radio played in the background. To my surprise, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky had all looked much like East Texas so far. I’d never traveled this far from home by car, and somehow I’d expected things to look different. There were plenty of trees, of course, but those started just west of my old hometown. I’m not sure what else I’d expected. I guess I thought bluegrass might actually be blue. Miss Isabelle had explained it only looked blue if you let it grow two or three feet tall—like anyone would do that. The land rolled gently around us, off to the east and west of the interstate, but I was hoping for something a little more exotic. Older, maybe. More antique. More something. I spied a few of those little split-rail fences—causing me to fight an unnatural longing to stop the car and shoot a few pictures. I smiled. I was never one for taking pictures of anything, much less scenery. I didn’t even own a camera.
“Some of the next part is hearsay,” Miss Isabelle said out of the blue, interrupting my thoughts about grass that color and picture taking.
“Hearsay?” I pretended to peer at the book in her lap. “Is that one in your puzzle?”
“No. Hearsay … what you hear through other people—what I heard from Sarah Day and others, eventually.”
Sarah Day? A creepy-crawly feeling in my stomach scritch-scratched its way up to my heart. I’d hoped for at least a little bit of happily ever after for Miss Isabelle and Robert following that beautiful wedding night, as impossible as it seemed. But I had another feeling that what had actually happened would make my troubles with Stevie Junior and Teague look like a Sunday drive.
I gripped the steering wheel tighter.
23
Isabelle, 1940
WHEN I DIDN’T return home the night I was married, Father wanted to contact the police immediately. Mother suspected the truth.
Cora and Nell had come in early Sunday to prepare dinner, and my mother cornered Nell in the dining room while she wa
s laying the table. She questioned her repeatedly, but Nell pretended ignorance.
Mother ransacked my room. Nell watched, terrified anything my mother discovered would incriminate her, too. She slipped away and told Cora what we’d done. Cora led her back upstairs, where she stuttered through her confession. I’m sure Cora hoped Mother would spare their jobs. I’d left a note on my father’s desk in his office, and Robert had left one with Nell for his parents. We didn’t say where we’d be living, only that we’d found someone who would marry us in Cincinnati and that we would be in contact eventually. Nell handed over the note to Mother—a note in which Robert had named the church where we planned to marry. He’d wanted Cora to know we’d be married in the eyes of God, and not just the law.
Mother dispatched my father and brothers there immediately, and, of course, the hostile preacher sent them right along to St. Paul’s.
Reverend Day had just finished Sunday service. He was enjoying a quiet dinner with his wife when they arrived. Sarah hurried to the kitchen to clear away the mess left by her meal preparations, leaving her husband to answer the door. Members of their congregation often showed up unannounced on Sunday afternoons, bearing desserts or problems that couldn’t wait for Monday. She rushed to wash pots and pans and wipe down the counters to prepare for guests, but she froze at the sound of angry voices in the entryway.
One of my brothers ordered Reverend Day to tell them whether he’d married Robert and me on Saturday. The reverend tried to divert their questions, but their voices grew loud and furious.
Sarah peeked around the kitchen door to see my brothers crowding her husband, their fists in his face, threatening to injure him if he didn’t tell the truth.
My father tried to intervene. “Boys, this isn’t the way to do it. Now, Reverend, you can see we’re very upset my daughter is missing. She’s only seventeen and didn’t have permission to marry. We just want to find her and see what this is all about. We want to bring her home.”
“Pop, we’ll handle this. We know how to make this niggra talk.” Jack—I know because Sarah later described him as the shorter, stockier one—dismissed Father and continued to harass Reverend Day. I was relieved to learn that my father had attempted reason with Reverend Day instead of intimidation. I was heartbroken he hadn’t been more forceful with my brothers. But I guess I should have known he wouldn’t stand up to them—not even then, not even for me. As a child, I’d watched him shake his head and turn away when he found the dismembered carcasses of bugs my brothers left in their wake, or the remains of baby rabbits they’d skinned for fun, then thrown carelessly in the grass. I’d cried and begged him to punish my brothers, to make them suffer as much as the lesser creatures they’d tormented, but my mother had simply said, “Boys will be boys, John. Let them play.” As always, he bowed to her directive.
From the corner of his eye, Reverend Day spied Sarah, and his frantic look signaled she should go to warn Robert and me.
He delayed them as long as he could. My brothers roughed him up. They slapped his face and punched him in the gut, while my father stood by, helpless, his protests ignored. But when they threatened to hurt Sarah, the reverend surrendered. He gave them the address for the rooming house—and prayed Sarah would reach us in time.
Robert and I had spent a lazy morning lounging in bed—or perfecting what we’d discovered we did very well together. But by early afternoon our stomachs rumbled. Robert reluctantly pulled on trousers and a shirt. He went down the hall to clean up, then returned to drop a last kiss on my lips. I still lay in bed, savoring the dream it seemed I was living. “Don’t you move,” he said. “I’ll be back before you can count to sixty-three, and then we’ll have a picnic, right here on this mattress.” I sighed and smiled. He left, then threw open the door again to peek in and throw another kiss. Finally, his steps receded down the hall, then the stairs, and I drifted, half-sleeping, half-awake. I knew I should rise soon to straighten my hair and brush my teeth, but I was too contented to move. I drifted back to sleep.
Later, I learned Robert had difficulty finding an open shop; in our bliss, we’d forgotten it was Sunday. He regretted turning down Sarah Day’s offer to send leftovers with us the evening before. Finally, he found a café serving lunch and spent too much money on a meal that was expensive to carry away. He wouldn’t return empty-handed on our first full day of married life.
A nervous tap startled me fully awake. I knew it wasn’t Robert. I threw on my robe, tying it clumsily as I moved toward the door.
“Who is it?” I said in hardly more than a whisper.
“It’s Sarah Day. Hurry now, open the door.”
My insides went cold and steely at her voice. I feared right away something had happened to Robert. Somehow, Sarah knew and had come to inform me. My second thought—that my family had found Reverend Day and made him talk—was the correct one, of course.
I pulled Sarah inside. The apron under her overcoat increased my dread. She hadn’t bothered to remove it before leaving her house—and I knew in my gut that Sarah Day wouldn’t wear an apron in public. I clutched at her arms. “What is it? Is Robert all right? What happened?”
“Oh, honey, you’ve got to act quick. Your brothers, your father, they were at my house, and they’re probably headed here now. They know about the wedding. I came to warn you—I’m sure there isn’t much time.”
I heard her words, but in my shock and terror, I simply sank onto the mattress. “What do I do? Robert’s gone to get us something to eat. What can I do, Sarah? I don’t know what to do.”
“Robert gone is probably the best thing. I don’t know about those brothers of yours. They were angry when I left, threatening my husband. I think maybe I should go watch for Robert, head him off. They could hurt him real bad—if they even leave him here.” I know we both saw pictures in our minds of the boy the reverend had described the day before. “Your daddy, he just stood there, not wanting to cause trouble, but I don’t believe he’s a match for those boys.”
She was right. My mother’s insistence on leniency had ruined them, had made them confident to a fault. I knew they weren’t scared to fight or hurt anyone who got in their way—not even our own father.
“You’re right. Please go, Sarah. Go watch for Robert. Tell him not to return until—I don’t know when. I’ll deal with my brothers.”
She hesitated at the door. “Honey, your father said you’re only seventeen. Is that right?”
I nodded, ashamed of my lie.
She shook her head. “Oh, honey, that wasn’t the smartest thing to do. You lied, not only to your parents but to us. It’s going to be hard for this marriage to stand up to that, much less everything else you’re facing.”
I doubled over in a sob, and she let herself out. I’d lied before God, too. All my plans were useless now. What I’d done so far was all I could do. I prayed Robert was far enough away he wouldn’t run into my brothers, and that Sarah would find him and warn him in time. Robert knew my brothers wouldn’t hurt me, even if they were furious. I was almost certain he’d do the smart thing and stay away as long as he needed to.
Finally, though, I pulled on the dress I’d worn before our wedding and tidied up the place so it wouldn’t look as though I’d spent half the day in bed with a man. Even though I had. Even though he was my husband and I’d had every right to.
I could have left. In the spare moments after I straightened our room, my heart could have pointed it out as the obvious course. Gather up what I could, find Robert, and race toward the place where we could begin again, where we could live peacefully as husband and wife.
Was there such a place?
But in the back of my mind, I knew running wouldn’t work. I knew if my brothers didn’t find me, they’d find both of us eventually and it would be even worse. I knew that if they didn’t find us, they’d hurt Reverend Day, or, God forbid, Sarah, as they’d threatened, and I couldn’t be responsible for bringing such pain to folks as kind and generous as the Days. In the l
ight of day, I saw it plainly: It wasn’t just the two of us. It was Cora. It was Nell. It was a whole circle of people we respected and loved.
I sat in the easy chair and waited for the second knock—this one, no timid tap.
The knock became a crash. My brothers kicked in the door, desperate, I suppose, to rescue their sister from the monster they believed Robert to be. Why else would a Negro think he had the right to marry a white girl?
I sat in my chair, scared but resolute. Thankful when I saw all three—and only the three. My brothers hulked in the door frame. My father stood behind them, not exactly apologetic. Perhaps he was entitled to be displeased with me for leaving home without permission, for making a choice that could alter irrevocably what he’d worked so hard to create.
If all three were there, it must mean Robert was safe, distracted from returning to our room. I hoped Sarah would have the sense not to tell him right away, perhaps to act like she’d encountered him by accident, then keep him busy talking for a while before she told him the truth. A part of me still feared he might take it upon himself to come inside the house and up to our room, to try to protect me, when he’d be the one in danger.
“Are you crazy, girl?” my oldest brother yelled. “Where’s that boy? Where is that nigger boy? Soon as I see him, I’m going to wrap my hands around his neck and squeeze until he can’t feel it no more.”
My father finally stepped forward. “Now, Jack. That’s not necessary. We found Isabelle. We can take her home now.” He placed a hand on Jack’s arm, but Jack pushed him away.
“That boy ruined our sister, Daddy. Your little girl’s been ruined by a nigger. We won’t let him get away with it, will we, Pat?” He looked at my younger brother. Patrick shook his head and threw me a look of contempt. “If he argues, I got something better than my hands.”
I gasped when Jack withdrew a handgun from his coat pocket. They wanted blood. I could almost smell it. But now I desperately wanted to know if my mother had sent them with her blessing, knowing what Jack carried in his pocket.
