Jackson was near out of breath, as the only way he’d been able to get the story out was to tell it fast. He gulped for air, choked by the coarseness of the tale he’d been compelled to tell.
He went quiet, deciding he had not the courage to tell Mombasa about the threats Katherine Marie made if Stella exposed her. How her husband could dispatch men from the prison to hurt her if she told the authorities about the checks. The threats were all temper and desperation born of the moment anyway, Jackson was more than sure, so why bother exposing them now. Stella had kept her mouth shut anyway, out of pride and at his encouragement. The Sassaports owe that family greatly, he told her and she’d listened. And Katherine Marie had restrained herself.
The silence in the room stretched, became brittle, ‘til the room felt full of noise: the noise of breath, of clothes rustled against furniture, of bodies shifting weight.
I’m very sorry, Mombasa said at last. I’m very sorry that things came to that.
That’s alright. It took more than a decade of stubbornness, but they both got over it and made up. If you want to know the truth, I think Stella thought in the end that Katherine Marie had a point. She couldn’t know the pressures Katherine Marie was under from the very moment of her birth by virtue of a simple thing like skin color and the place she was born and the date. She might be able to guess what it was like to raise children with a husband in prison, but she couldn’t know that. It embarrassed her that she’d given her life to civil rights and social services and she still couldn’t know the half about that.
Mombasa had his head down but he smiled: But you know don’t you, Jackson? You know a little bit about it.
I should say I do know a little bit, just a little bit. I grew up in the goddamn middle, didn’t I?
Yes, you did, son. I was there. I recall. I recall everything.
They spent another hour together that afternoon and they shared three more appointments together before the parole hearing. After the final one, Jackson drove from Yazoo City to Guilford, where he met up with Stella over to Katherine Marie’s, as it was her turn to feed them supper. Against all reason, he was feeling optimistic about the hearing. His step was light up the walk to the Cooper home, one of those postwar ranch-style homes on the edge of town. It was situated in a nowadays-integrated neighborhood with damn decent property values, he thought to himself, proud of his town and its growth. He knocked on the unlocked door, let himself in, dropped his briefcase on the floor of the living room where the two women sat on the couch waiting for him, worry and consternation writ fierce upon their brows. He opened up his arms, smiled wide, and said: Well, we talked. He’s agreed to let me try. The women rose with features suddenly alight with hope and he wrapped his arms around them.
Acknowledgments
Home in the Morning is my seventh novel and the first one published after more than thirty years of effort. I had resigned myself to perpetual obscurity when the bold, bright energy of Peter Riva burst into my life and agented me into the light with remarkable speed. He was a godsend. So was my editor, Diane Reverand, a most wise, generous woman who made the editing experience a complete pleasure for me. I hope we work together again and soon. I must also thank my longtime agent Mary Yost, who was my lifeline during decades of rejection, keeping me honest, keeping me working no matter what.
During those years in the cold dark, there were the faithful who sustained me: my long-suffering husband, Stephen, of course; my beloved and most refined parents, Frank and Freda Kowalski; my siblings who encouraged me against all odds, Carl, Robert, and Debra Kowalski, Kathleen Baber, Patricia Romanello, Margaret Cerilli, and the inestimable Jeanne Kowalski; my loyal friends Karen Oakes, Sam Boyd, Linda Pochesci, Adele Lurie, Wally Kelly, Susan K. Howards, and Felicity Carter, all of whom kept me going by saying: This is the one, Mary! This one will make it!
How happy I am that they were finally right. And how grateful I am that all stood by me.
About the Author
Born Mary Kowalski on the south shore of Boston, Massachusetts, Mary Glickman grew up the fourth of seven children in a traditional Irish-Polish Catholic family. Her father had been a pilot in the Army Air Force and later flew for Delta Air Lines. From an early age, Mary was fascinated by faith. Though she attended Catholic school and as a child wanted to become a nun, her attention eventually turned to the Old Testament and she began what would become a lifelong relationship with Jewish culture. “Joseph Campbell said that religion is the poetry that speaks to a man’s soul,” Mary has said, “and Judaism was my soul’s symphony.”
In her twenties, Mary traveled in Europe and explored her passion for writing, composing short stories and poetry. Returning to the United States, she met her future husband, Stephen, a lawyer, and with his encouragement began to consider writing as a career. She enrolled in the Masters in Creative Writing program at Boston University, under the poet George Starbuck, who encouraged her to focus on fiction writing. While taking an MFA class with the late Ivan Gold, Mary completed her first novel, Drones, which received a finalist award from the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities but was never published.
Mary also began a career as a freelance writer working with nonprofit organizations on projects ranging from a fund-raising campaign for the Hebrew Rehabilitation Center to an instructional video for the National Scoliosis Foundation’s screening project. Mary and Stephen married in 1978. Mary made a full conversion to Judaism and later worked as treasurer/secretary for her synagogue.
The origins of her love for all things Southern arose from a sabbatical year. In 1987, Mary and Stephen first traveled to the south of Spain, soaking in the life of a fishing village called La Cala. After seven months abroad and, hoping to extend their time away, they sought a warm—and more affordable—locale. The romance of Charleston, South Carolina, its Spanish moss, antebellum architecture, and rich cultural life beckoned.
Settling into a rented house on Seabrook Island, Mary fell in love with the people, language, and rural beauty of her new home. Following a lifelong desire to ride horses, Mary took a position mucking the stalls at the local equestrian center and embraced riding, finding her match in an Appaloosa named King of Harts. The sabbatical ended and the couple returned to life in Boston, but the passion for Southern culture remained with them. They were able to return permanently to Seabrook Island in 2008, where they currently reside with their cats and an elderly King of Harts.
The Kowalski family in 1950. In the back: Frank Kowalski. In the front row, from left to right: Carl, Robert, Mary, Freda, and Kathleen.
The Kowalski brood around 1956. Carl, the oldest brother, is in the back; Robert is holding Patti; Mary is on the left with the braids; and Kathleen is behind her.
The Kowalski family in the mid-1960s, from left to right: mom Freda, Carl, Mary, Robert, Peggy, Kathleen, dad Frank, and Patti, with the youngest, Jeanne, in the foreground.
Glickman and her sisters Patti and Jeanne, seen here at home in the mid-1960s.
Newlyweds Mary and Stephen Glickman sitting on the bimah of Temple Beth Zion in 1978. According to Mary, “Stephen grew a moustache for the event. More’s the pity.”
Stephen, Mary, and their friend Risa Schneider Fine in 1981.
The Kowalski children in 1982. Back row, from left to right: Robert and Carl. Front row, left to right: Jeanne, Patti, Mary, Kathleen, and Peggy.
Glickman’s large family of siblings, with nephews, nieces, aunt, and grandmother, seen here around 1983. Glickman is in the back row, center.
Mary riding a horse in Spain during the seven months she spent in the seaside village of La Cala with her husband Stephen.
A rejection letter from the vice president of Norton, written to Glickman’s former agent about her novel Solomon’s Dotage. The book was one of six unpublished novels she wrote before Home in the Morning.
A postcard from fellow Open Road author Andre Dubus, written around 1990. Glickman and Dubus were friends for several years before his death in 1999.
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Glickman walking with King of Harts at home during her Open Road video shoot.
Glickman at home on Seabrook Island, South Carolina, where she lives with her husband, cats, and beloved horse, King of Harts.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 2010 by Mary Glickman
cover design by Ann Weinstock interior design by Danielle Young
ISBN: 978-1-4532-0126-8
Published in 2010 by Open Road Integrated Media 180 Varick St.
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com
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