by Janie DeVos
“Let her go, Papa!” I interrupted, wedging myself between them. I placed my hands firmly in the middle of his chest and pushed him hard.
Papa stumbled back, nearly falling, but he stopped himself by grabbing the edge of the kitchen table. Stunned, he glared at me for a moment as if trying to decide what to do; then, swearing under his breath, he grabbed his half empty bottle of whiskey and walked out the door and down the trail, out of sight.
“You all right, Mama?” I asked as I turned away from the window after making sure he was gone. She nodded, but she rubbed the indentations left by Papa’s fingers. She’d have bruises. “Where you think he’s goin’?” I asked, looking out of the window again.
“I don’t know, Eve. I just don’t know. But I wouldn’t mind him stayin’ gone—for a while, anyway.”
I figured that the heat of the moment had made her say that and that she’d feel different in a few hours or a few days. I had gotten to the point where I felt the same way and highly doubted that I’d feel any different. The sad truth was that the man I held most dear in life, the one I’d always counted on, who gave me the greatest sense of security, had now taken that security away. By example, my own father had taught me a most valuable lesson: If you allowed your heart to love and trust someone fully and freely, the odds were that your heart would be shattered into a thousand tiny pieces, and there were no directions for putting it back together again.
Chapter 9
New Roles
Papa didn’t come home for three days. Mama wanted to search for him, but I told her not to. I figured he’d come home when he was ready, and until that time, he probably didn’t want to be found. And I just wasn’t ready for him to come home yet. There was a sense of relief in the house and a quiet peace that hadn’t been there in a long while. Although, some of that quiet was caused by the fact that we were worried about Papa, what the future might bring, and how Papa figured in to our future. On the morning of the fourth day, he walked into the house looking the worse for wear, and without saying a thing, he went straight into my parents’ bedroom and slammed the door behind him. He slept through the night, but I was fairly certain no one else in the house did.
Papa said nothing about the episode, other than that he had stayed with his good friend Alfonso Kite, who’d been the cook on the Jocelyn before it exploded. He neither apologized nor tried to explain his violent behavior. However, something seemed to have humbled him, and I wondered if he could remember what had taken place and was ashamed of it. Whether that was it or not, something in him began to change. He started busying himself with little projects around the house, such as working in the garden or tending to the horses. These were things the rest of us usually did, but because we were often away at our jobs, Papa took it upon himself to take over those chores. And, in time, he seemed to go back to normal; his old self flickered alive in him. As a result, we didn’t dread returning home from work as much, wondering what might set off another round of fireworks and send us scurrying for cover.
While the situation with Papa seemed to be improving, the situation with Ivy was not.
There were many times when my sister came home very late in the evening, and when asked what had kept her, she couldn’t quite look any of us in the eye as she answered. According to Ivy, she was working extra-long hours with Mayoma or hunting and fishing with “friends,” and as if to prove that was where she’d really been, she’d lay a freshly killed turkey on the table or put a nice string of bass in the sink.
My folks didn’t ask too many questions about her activities, and I figured that Mama just wanted our home to remain peaceful and not revert to the battleground that it had been. Papa, though better, remained detached and less interested in family life than he’d been prior to the accident. I felt that was because my father finally accepted that the roles had changed in our family, and that he needed us to help keep food on the table and a roof over our heads. I also wondered if my father didn’t quite trust the way he might react to us, or overreact to us, so it was just easier for him to turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to our goings-on. There was no doubt about it: Papa was still a broken man, and the result was a seemingly apathetic tolerance to what his wife and children were doing or might be doing.
Easter was in mid-April that year, and we were looking forward to the holiday. The town was having a parade on Saturday. It was really nothing more than the women and girls walking down Main Street wearing their Easter bonnets and the men riding their horses dressed in their best finery. Afterward, there was to be an egg hunt and a picnic. I’d gotten up early so that I could be at the store to help color eggs for the hunt. Mama and I had boiled dozens of them the night before to add to those being contributed by families in the area, and I was loading them into the wagon when Ivy walked out of the shed with her saddle. It was just starting to get light; beautiful wisps of purple, orange, and gold highlighted against the soft gray of the sky, heralding another beautiful spring day to come.
“Will you be in town later?” I asked.
“Probably.” Ivy threw her saddle over Sage. “I have a bunch of jars of honey to sell, but I have a couple of things I have to get done at Mayoma’s first.”
“Well, if I don’t see you in town, I’ll see you later at home,” I said, settling myself on the wagon’s seat. Then I flicked the reins and drove Maggie out through the corral gate and onto the trail to town.
By the time I got to the store, Mrs. Brody had already wrapped three dozen hard-boiled eggs with different colors of yarn. The dye in the yarn would bleed out in the boiling water, which was laced with vinegar, coloring the eggs a softer shade of the yarn’s color. The work left our hands and nails stained dark brown from the mixture of colors, but I didn’t mind; the price was small in comparison to the pleasure. Grabbing more yarn, I joined Mrs. Brody in the tedious process.
About midmorning, I walked outside for some fresh air. My eyes stung from the vinegar water, and from the onions I’d been peeling. We’d use the skins as another method of staining. The eggs dyed from them would be a brown color, but before we dyed them, we’d mark each egg with a cross made from a stick of beeswax. The dye wouldn’t color the beeswax, leaving the mark of the cross to stand out boldly against the brown. We’d run into a problem, though: We were nearly out of wax.
Aside from needing fresh air, I wanted to see if my sister was around. Chances were, she’d have some beeswax with her. Scanning the different people who were selling things on the porch and under trees, I didn’t see my sister, but I spotted Mayoma sitting under one of the massive oak trees off to the right. I hurried down the steps and over to her.
“Morning, Mayoma. Is Ivy around?”
“Morning to you, too, Miss Eve. I ain’t seen Ivy in a couple of days. Coulda used her yesterday, too. I was pickin’ bull nettles, and four hands woulda made these two hands a lot less sore.” She smiled good-naturedly.
“I thought she was… Never mind. If you do see her, would you tell her I’m lookin’ for her?”
“Will do, Miss Eve. Though don’t know when that’ll be—tomorrow maybe.”
“Thanks, Mayoma.” I turned and walked away. The tears that had been brought on by the vinegar and onions were being replaced by ones brought on by anger and frustration. My sister had lied to me again. I was both angry and afraid for her. I knew that whatever she was doing couldn’t be good or she wouldn’t have to lie about it. Keeping my head down so that I wouldn’t have to talk to anyone as I fought back the tears, I came around the front porch of the store heading for the steps when I suddenly slammed into something solid and broad: Max Harjo. I stumbled backward, but before I could fall, Max grabbed my upper arm and steadied me.
“Whoa there, kaccv hokte! You’re gonna hurt yourself.”
Startled by his sudden appearance and embarrassed at being so clumsy, I was at a loss for words. All I could get out was, “Sorry…I…sorry.” I couldn’t look at h
im, so I smoothed down my apron instead. Then, mumbling for him to please excuse me, I started to walk around him but immediately stopped. “Mr. Harjo, you haven’t seen my sister, have you?”
“Un-uh.” He shook his head, watching me closely. “Saw her yesterday, but not today. She’ll turn up, though.”
There was almost the hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth, as if there was some joke I wasn’t privy to. He irritated me beyond measure. “Well, I know she’ll turn up! I just wondered…I…Never mind!” I walked around him and up the steps. I entered the store, and when I turned to close the door behind me, I could see that Max was leaning against the railing watching me and still smiling.
Chapter 10
In Black and White
I worked until late in the afternoon and though I was tired, I knew it would be a while before I could get home. I wanted nothing more than a hot bath and my warm bed. Also, I was curious whether Ivy was back; if she was, I was going to confront her. I wanted to know what was really going on. However, I had one more job to do before heading home, and it required me to go to the old school house. I was going to put the final touches on the quilt that I had been making for my parents for last Christmas but hadn’t had the chance to finish until now. The long hours of caring for my father during his convalescence, plus the many hours I’d put into work at the store, not to mention my writing, had prevented me from spending much time on the piece. But I was determined to give it to them for Easter; so, tired or not, I would burn the midnight oil finishing the quilt.
There was just one more task I needed to do before leaving the store, and that was to sort the mail into the receivers’ mail slots. Fortunately, there wasn’t much mail, so I hoped to be able to get the job done quickly, before Mrs. Brody could find something else to hold me up. With just a few letters left, I came to a card addressed to Mama from Aunt Emma Jean, in Lexington, and a letter for me. The return address on it was the Florida Times-Union, a newspaper based in Jacksonville. Wanting to be out of the store as quickly as possible, I stashed both pieces of correspondence in my apron pocket, finished sorting, grabbed my straw hat, and called out to Mrs. Brody that I was leaving. She bade me a good night, and I hurried out.
It was even later than I’d realized. The sun was beginning to go down, so I set Maggie at a good pace down the trail. I didn’t like being on the trail in the dark, though I knew that’d be the case after working on the quilt. There were many nocturnal hunters, and I’d not thought about bringing the shotgun with me. About thirty minutes later, I reached the schoolhouse. As I approached, I saw a soft light glowing in the back room. It was the room that was available for any teacher who might need housing, especially if he or she was single and wasn’t concerned with finding a place big enough for a spouse and children. The new teacher was a young woman from Kansas, and though Miss Langford seemed nice enough, I hadn’t known her long enough to feel as though I could barge in on her unannounced. I slowed Maggie down, debating whether I should intrude upon her or just go on home, but it was early in the evening, so I hoped that she wouldn’t mind my working for an hour or two on the old sewing machine.
I pulled the wagon to the side of the building; then, after grabbing the large satchel that held the quilt and materials, I walked toward the back to knock on the door. Before I reached it, I came to a low window, and as I passed it, I glanced in and some movement caught my eye. I started to turn away, so that it wouldn’t seem as if I was spying on the woman, but then recognition stopped me. Immediately, I looked back through the glass and there, on the bed, was my sister Ivy, lying naked and pale in the light from the candle burning softly on the nightstand. Her skin looked as fair as fine porcelain, especially compared to the much darker body that moved against hers, rhythmically and urgently. It was hard for my head to comprehend what my eyes saw. But there it was, flesh on flesh, as my sister moved in perfect unison with Moses Hailey.
For several seconds, I couldn’t move. I stood there just long enough that my sister caught sight of me watching her. The look of absolute shock and horror on her face must have reflected my own. Moses turned to see what she was reacting to, and as he did, my sister’s hands moved from their tight grip around his buttocks to his chest to push him off.
Stunned at seeing me, and unbalanced by my sister’s push, Moses half fell out of bed, but he immediately scrambled up, snatching his britches off the bedpost as he did, and then he ran out of my line of vision.
Ivy reached for her clothing on the floor by the bed. As she moved, I was finally able to do what I hadn’t been able to just seconds before: I ran—and ran fast. I got back to the wagon, grabbed the reins, and slapped them hard against Maggie. The sting of the leather startled her, and she shot out of the school yard as though a swarm of bees was after her. Darkened woods or not, I had to be away from there fast, and the faster I could put the two of them behind me, the better off I’d be. Finally, about a mile down the road, I had to pull off. Standing up in the wagon, rather than stepping down onto the trail, I leaned over and threw up in a clump of palmetto bushes. After nothing more could be purged, I wiped my mouth and took in great gulps of fresh air, all the while listening for the sounds of Ivy and Moses coming after me. Above all, I didn’t want to see them. So, taking in one last deep, steadying breath, I urged Maggie on, and we made our way home by the light of the full moon.
Chapter 11
Dreams and Nightmares
When I got home, my parents were just sitting down to supper. Mama was plating pork chops. “Good timin’!” Mama smiled over her shoulder as I immediately went to the sink and began washing my face. “I set a place for you even though you said you’d be kinda late today.”
I kept my head hanging over the sink. “No thanks, Mama. I can’t eat. I’ve got a splitting headache. I’m just goin’ to bed.”
“You runnin’ a fever, Eve?” She immediately put the skillet back on the stove, then came over and placed a hand on my forehead while I was trying to dry my face. “Lord, but your eyes are red, honey! And your face is flushed as all get out. Maybe I ought to run and get Mayoma since Ivy isn’t—”
“No!” My emphatic reaction startled her.
“I just thought she might have some—”
“All I need is sleep, Mama. I just spent too much time hanging over pots of boiling vinegar and peeled too many onions. I just need to go to bed.” We said goodnight, and as I climbed the stairs, I felt as though I weighed twice as much as I did; each step made me feel heavier than the last. I had the weight of the world on my shoulders, and I couldn’t think of any way to lift it off me.
I walked into my empty bedroom and noticed that Ivy’s bed was made. I wondered if she’d come home that night and whether I wanted her to or not. I untied my soiled apron, tossed it over the back of a chair in the corner, and walked over to the window to look out at the moonlit yard below as I worked at the buttons on the front of my dress. A large opossum walked across the sandy driveway; then, spotting something in the magnolia tree that interested him, he rapidly climbed up the trunk and was quickly hidden by the dark waxy leaves. Finally, I pulled the dress over my head, threw it on top of my apron, and crawled into bed. I hadn’t been lying when I’d said I had a headache. My temples throbbed like a thousand bass drums manically keeping rhythm to some nameless tune. Sleep wasn’t going to come easily, even though I was exhausted.
The image of Ivy and Moses entwined kept playing over and over again in my head. And my list of questions grew and grew, along with my anger. How many times had she told me she’d been somewhere, doing something with someone else, when she’d actually been with Moses? How long had their affair been going on, and how did it come to be? Did they actually think they could plan a future together, and if so, where? Surely not here in the South! And with that realization came the bone-chilling fear that if they were ever found out, they’d both pay dearly for their liaison.
Moses would be beaten or
lashed thoroughly, at best, and perhaps even killed. It wasn’t too far-fetched to imagine that some of the men in the area would torture him and then string him up. Just the year before, at Moss Bluff, a young colored man, had been caught stealing some money from his employer at a feed store and the poor man had been flogged and then put on trial. Of course, he was found guilty, then pulled out of the courthouse, and viciously flogged again. There wasn’t much left of his back other than shredded muscle and bone. Afterward, they threw him in the Ocklawaha, and that was the last anyone saw of him. No one knew if he’d made it out alive and run off somewhere. The odds were high he’d never reached the far bank but had drowned at the bottom of the slow-moving river instead.
As to what would happen to Ivy, that would depend on how tolerant and forgiving the people in the area were. On one hand, my father was a respected member of the community. Actually, our entire family was, and because we were white, chances were that Ivy wouldn’t be driven out of town. She might go unscathed physically, but psychologically, she’d be severely punished. Without question, she’d be ostracized by everyone and, in all likelihood, our entire family would, too. And then what? Would I ever become the journ—
Suddenly, I remembered my letter from the Florida Times-Union! It was still in the pocket of my apron.
I hurried across the room and dug into the apron’s front pocket; then I lit the lamp on my nightstand. In the letterhead, the name of the newspaper was printed in bold block lettering. Looking down at the salutation to see whom it was from, I was shocked to see that it was not written by a department head, but the editor in charge, Charles H. Jones. Quickly, I began to read:
April 2, 1884
Dear Miss Stewart;
Let me begin by telling you how much I have enjoyed your colorful essays on life in the wilds of central Florida. I have read each one of them, and, I must confess, I have eagerly awaited each new adventure and experience that you so skillfully describe for your readers.
