by Diane Munier
"Hello?" I said it urgent, and I listened, the receiver pushing into my ear and my head. I couldn't hear anything, then some traffic far back in the call, and then the sense of someone there…just there.
"Is it you?" I asked.
Nothing.
"Okay, just stand there, just…don't give me an answer. Is it you?"
Nothing.
"Okay. Okay." So many tears in me, but they were deep, like deep blood when you cut your finger and it don't bleed right off. But it's coming.
"Just listen then, listen to me, I love you. I told you, you got hurt…oh Danny…Danny," now they were coming, and I didn't care to spare him or not, I didn't care. "Come home. Come home to me. We belong together. Come back to me. Don't do anything that will keep you away, take you away. Come back to me. I can help you. You can…help me. I need you. You need me. Don't you remember? Come home. Come home to me. I…hurt. I hurt for you…with you. I need you to hold…me. I need to hold you."
Then choked and wadded in a ball, his voice, his music, "Hilly."
Then crying, both of us, just those sounds. So many tears I had to hold the receiver away from my mouth so I didn't get the phone wet.
Then breathing, sniffing, swallowing, "I love you," he said, his voice, the pain. My heart, my hands shaking on the phone, on Seth, my arms trembling.
"Your leg," I whispered, knowing I shouldn't, it would be too much. But I had not moved, I had forgotten myself, my body, the room, I had gone into another place, into this phone, its cord, the dark place where voices wrapped around one another. "Your leg," I said again and it poured out of me, sorrow, my chest hurting. The emotion overtook me, and the chair held me, and I listened. "Come home," I whispered when I could breathe. And nothing, and sound, and nothing and the line went dead.
I didn't say his name a hundred times, I didn't push the receiver buttons. But I sat there a long time, the longest time and held the receiver through all of its protests, its warning sounds that I needed to hang up. I waited and held that one link that he had spoken out of like a miracle done on the Sabbath, out of order, offensive and wrong and unfair and profound and wonderful and hopeful.
And for hours, until Seth stirred, I realized I held the phone. Naomi had gotten up because Seth was crying and I was barely realizing I could do something about it.
"Hilly?" she said seeing me sitting there, the phone truly dead in my hand.
"He called," I whispered. "He…called me. I think he's here…in the states."
Well I knew he was. A few days later I got an envelope filled with money. I knew it came from him.
Finding My Thunder 54
Now that Seth and me had our six week check-ups I went ahead and got on birth control. Then Naomi insisted I see about where I stood in terms of getting back to school. But I was no longer 'amenable' to the regular high school situation. At least that's what Principal Brown was telling us as we sat in his office, me holding my darkish baby.
They would allow me to take final exams to finish out my junior year, since I had been so close to finishing anyway. But students with special circumstances like mine were, they felt, better served in a special school.
"It's a tricky thing when one of our students falls in the family way. It's just not conducive to good morale for the students. Especially one such as yourself, Miss Grunier, a…good student. We have to be careful of the tone we set."
I suspected he was talking more about my morals than the schools morale, but he'd always given me a headache pretty much. I put Seth on my shoulder and patted his back and he did a loud burp. I kind of thought that said it all. Then he loudly passed gas. Well that was for Hannah. My son was brilliant.
"I have wondered in my time," Naomi said adjusting the collar on her red coat, "if there were a way to detect some of the fathers of these babies. I have wondered if they also would not be found less amenable to the regular high school situation but I suppose that's a foolish idea as this situation seems tailor made for them."
Mr. Brown tried to scoot higher in his chair and his face flushed red. Well, she didn't know her place and the climate was such, any hint of discrimination by anybody for anything could be construed as potential lawsuit material.
"But of course…that is the way, the womenfolk carrying the burden of 'tone,'" Naomi laughed, "for the 'tone deaf,' who set the pace of this world." Well, she was pretty pissed off I could tell but he might think he imagined it and she was smiling.
"Mrs. Blue there is a very fine technical school in Corning and girls like Hilly are welcomed there. Negroes as well, of course," he said, his face flushing a deep red.
"Of course," she said, "according to the Desegregation Act." Naomi looked at me, her brows raised and a smile on her lips. I was an official member of the Negro club now and he was letting us know. "But I've got to tell you, there are no other girls just like Hilly. This girl has been through a lifetime of difficult circumstances many adults have not known, and now she is a mother and she has talent, and ambition, and so many plans. So what can this technical school do to assist her in her journey to take care of her son and be a productive member of society?"
Here's what he said, I couldn't start technical school until the following school year, but it was a one year program and I'd have my diploma. I would receive secretarial training. That was what was available for me. That or Keypunch. The rest of the school was dedicated to training young men, auto body, auto mechanics, carpentry, and welding.
"What about welding?" I said.
He stared at me, then came to and coughed some. "Welding and sheet metal. Hardly the thing a young woman would ever take in the history of that school," he said. "We need to have a serious conversation here. Your future is serious."
I didn't plan to be a welder, but it would be nice to understand the business and what better way to learn it since I happened to need my high school diploma. Well, Naomi thought I did. So might as well learn something I was actually interested in and could use in my life. I'd already had typing and shorthand at Ludicrous, and an intro class for accounting. I had the office part pretty well figured, but welding…did I really want to be in the dark about that? I knew Allie wasn't.
"They got a rule against girls taking those classes?" I asked, cause it was always thought cute when one of the guys signed up for home ec and sewing. But I knew this was nobody's idea of cute. If I showed up in an all boys' class, it could be seen as a joke and a challenge.
"Miss Grunier," he said, fingers folding over his stomach. "They have a no-pants rule for young ladies in that school. Just that alone…how are you going to weld in a dress?" Yes, spreading my legs had always been a problem apparently, but I did not say this, of course. And making me an exception since I'd be doing something that obviously would require pants, that took too much imagination.
"It isn't natural, not any of it," he went on. "Oh I know you all want to be men these days…well that's ruining our country. Burn the bra and all." He shook his head with disgust.
Then that died down and we sat quiet just staring. Welding was it. It's what I needed.
Where else was I going to get that kind of education and my diploma all paid for by the state of Tennessee?
Naomi said, "Principal Brown, who would we speak to about the technical education you've mentioned?"
That threw him a bit. "You mean the secretarial?"
"I mean who is in charge of that school," she said back and I had to look down so he wouldn't see my smile.
Then the strangest thing, before that month was out, a knock on Naomi's door, and it was a man in a suit. Seems Lonnie had an uncle and there was money. Eight thousand five hundred dollars and fifty-two cents. With Lonnie gone, I was in line to inherit that money.
And next I got some social security money for my dead father, one seventy five. And fifty-five a month until I was eighteen and back pay to catch it up. I was damn near rich.
I walked the property that day, my old yard, and all around the house. There it was, too old
and sick to breathe fire. Silent. Sad. I was tired of seeing it like this, truth be told. Where else would I be? You couldn't budge me out of Ludicrous with Danny out there wandering. I would stay here, my love a candle in these windows. I would wait for him here. I knew there were better ways to spend this money, and this house would suck it down like it was a kid with a soda on a boiling hot day.
Practically speaking, it took a dumb kid like me to believe it could rise, this empty tomb without a savior…but I could save it. It knew love because of me…because of Danny. It could know that love again.
Back at the bank they told me they wanted nine thousand, but seeing as I had lived there all my life and I had cash and it wasn't likely to sell very quick, they took eight and Naomi signed.
I could have talked her into anything at this point. If I showed life or interest over a rock or a stick she said yes to the rock and the stick.
I was a home owner. I had no virtue to protect so she didn't have to worry if Danny came back he'd sneak in my room. We were adjusting to the new way of things. We were both a little crazy but it's like a new spark got in us and we were laughing again…sometimes. Yes, I'd had a home with Naomi and I did not need more. But her home was a place of rescue, refuge, and others needed it too. When Danny came home…he couldn't stay there…we couldn't stay there, and I was making a way. But in truth I had cast this place on the waters…cast it off…first time in sorrow, second time in relief, but it had come back to me of its own.
I had so much to do but it was pretty exciting to open that old place again. Dickens and Annie snuck down so much, and their mother looked the other way, and the father wasn't paying close enough attention. He was a drinking man being taken over since Sukey took off and no one heard. He had two sons out there, one in dishonor, one in honor, but both gone.
So we cleaned and shined and painted. I had to make Annie change her clothes cause she had ruined a dress and her mother wasn't happy. And soon as school was over there they were, those two, then another. The older sister Rita who didn't want anything to do with me before, but she was just harder to win. At first she didn't want to help, but she did like to work in the kitchen. She liked to make things neat and tidy more than paint, so she did that a lot, and she'd arrange again and again. And then she'd read a book or do her homework and she was pretty negative most the time, but not so bad. Sometimes she was downright encouraging. She told me she didn't believe that Sukey hurt me and that Seth wasn't his, probably Danny's and I didn't want to say and that's why Danny wasn't coming home and that's why Sukey had to leave. It was all my fault. Everything. I had ruined their family.
Dickens about lost it. "Shut up Rita, you're not supposed to say," he shouted.
"You all believe that?" I asked him.
"No. Dad does. That's where she heard it. Mom said not to repeat it. She knows that. She knows how he is when he drinks."
"Rita…I want you to know something, Seth is mine. When you're older maybe your mom will want to tell you more, maybe she won't. But right now, you need to promise me you'll never speak about this again. It would hurt Seth if he heard such a thing, and it hurts me."
She broke down crying then. She grabbed her things and said she was going home and not coming back.
But the next day she was back, and she had some cookies for me her mom had baked. She hugged me then, and I hugged her. After that things got better between us.
It was not so long after that I was living in the old house again. I took to Lonnie's room of all things, well I'd torn everything out of there was ever his. I even changed out some of the furniture with my old stuff, I don't know why. It was chilly, but not bad, and once I had Seth down for a few hours I hoped, I kept the living room dark and I stepped out on the porch. No sooner I did that and he took to crying cause he'd woken up again. I went in and got him. "You little bugger," I said. I got the bottle and wrapped him good and took him out on the porch and I sat out there on the stairs and had him on my lap, his little kicking feet against me. He wasn't really hungry so I sat the bottle beside me. Seemed like he liked it out there in the dark, just looking around with his googly eyes. He had that look like he'd come from that other world, that water world, especially now his dark eyes picking up the moon's light.
I heard it first, and I knew it even though I didn't. But my head snapped up and I listened and I guess I was being protective with Seth and all, but it was more, someone walking, but a halting in it, and I gathered Seth up and put him on my shoulder, but I was leaning forward looking far as I could down the sidewalk, and I saw him. Walking toward me, in his army shirt, his hair long, but everything in his thinness, everything what I knew. And he was at the gate and he looked at me for just a beat, and that halting gait now, him walking to me, and using his hands on the steps, sitting next to me, like we'd barely missed a night together.
His eyes were not on me, but on that baby, and I lowered Seth and slowly shifted him in my arms and set him on Danny's lap, that broken altar, I laid the baby there.
And Danny was bent over him, and his hands went to the boy, his hands so large and strong on that boy, even as they were thin and brown and they had done so many things I did not know. And I moved closer, as close as I could, and my arms around. And such a feeling came in to me, as if I could finally breathe, finally settle inside.
And for quite a time we were there, like the day, in the water, and he held me, and I felt his legs kicking under me, holding me afloat, the way I held him now, my arms around him, around the outside of his, holding him together. And I realized he cried, and Seth's blanket, it caught so much of the wet sorrow and repentance. "I…," he finally said, "I found him in Canada."
"Did you kill him?"
"I planned to. I went there…to. But…I tried…I had my hands…on his…on his…," Seth set to wailing then and I reached for him, but Danny scooped him up and put him on his shoulder and shushed him, and he rocked him a little, and I realized how good he was with babies, and how much practice he must have had. He held Seth.
He loved Seth.
"You couldn't do it," I said.
"I tried," he said, but he kept rocking Seth and Seth was soft against him.
"Who told you?"
"Robert. He got it all from Bixby. He even found out where Sukey was headed." He was here, holding Seth, talking to me.
I touched his hair. Oh God, his hair on my fingers.
He was crying again, sobbing so hard, I took Seth.
"He's beautiful," he choked out. Then he just collapsed, fell over on the stairs crying.
"Come in the house," I told him. I took Seth in and settled him in his bassinet. Then I hurried to Danny but he was just entering the door, and I saw his face better, though the lights were out. It's like he just made it over the threshold before he half fell on me and we lowered to the floor together. "My Hilly," he kept saying, gripping me, crying, crying. "My Hilly."
Now I was shushing him as he had Seth. I wanted him to cry. I knew he'd held it…all these months, this year. So I held him and he held me, like I knew we needed to do.
"I love you," I said, and he dug in his back pocket and opened his wallet and pulled it out, the thinnest tatters of all the I love you's I'd written, when I was a girl, just a kid.
I laughed, and he laid it carefully on the stairs there and he held me again, and I held him, tried to let my hands adjust and believe.
"I don't ever want to be apart again," I said.
He held me and cried in to my neck.
"From this day on," I said.
He cried and rocked me. "Will you marry me?" he said working to get calm.
"Of course," I said.
He nodded. "Still got my ring," and he picked up the hand that wore the ring and kissed my fingers. Then his face crumpled in, his beautiful too thin lined and desperate face, and he grabbed me to him and cried. "He…he…."
I cried some more with him. "It's over," I said. "It's over. He can't come home he'll be arrested. He can't ever come home."
"I would have brought him, but I didn't want to put you through it," he said. "Hilly…I…when I couldn't kill him…I could stop. I didn't know. I found the strength to stop. I don't know if you can understand…but being able to stop…it's like…I'm still in there, you know? Like maybe…one day I can be worthy…again."
"You are worthy," I said. "You're a hero. You're my hero."
"Hilly," he whispered, and I struggled onto my feet, and I took his hand, and it was no easy thing him getting on his feet with that leg. And I led him into my new bedroom, and I knew God was with me when I saw Seth finally asleep, and as quiet as two people could ever be, I pushed his army shirt off of his shoulders and laid it on a chair, then he slowly lifted off his t-shirt and laid it on the army shirt, and I saw him, his flesh, and I went to him, he was thinner, and he'd been a long time in a sick bed, but he was still my Danny, still beautiful. I touched his chest and by the dim night-light I ran my hands over him looking for every mark, every scar, until he put his hands on the sides of my face and pushed my heavy hair back and lifted my face and we looked at one another, in the eyes mostly, like we did, which should have been hard to do, but even now with so much time apart it was not hard to do, it's like we had to do it, had to see what was in there, all this time, too much time, and I needed to see the rest, and he kept my hand and we went to the bed, and he took off one boot, then stood and opened his jeans and pushed them down his legs, and pulled out his good leg, and already I could see the hard plastic of the leg strapped to his thigh, and I went down on my knees over this leg, and I fell on it, and it was more crying then, I couldn't stop, but I tried to be silent, except for the gasping, and he was over me, sad, but not like he'd been, a strength in him, like he'd come to terms. I looked up at him, and he pushed back my wet hair, and he wiped at my face and pushed my hair behind my shoulders, his hands under my chin, wiping my cheeks. "You should see the other guy," he whispered.
And I smiled, but it didn't last, I threw myself against him as I raised, and we fell onto the bed, and he kissed me, and it started so sweet, and I groaned with relief, and he groaned with all of the things he must have felt, and I kissed his face, and his hands stayed on my face as if he wanted to feel my expressions, feel my tears.
