An Elderberry Fall

by Ruth P. Watson

  I knew he’d be going away soon, and perhaps it was the reason I didn’t get up early the next morning. Instead I sank myself comfortably into Simon’s warm arms until Robert let out a desperate cry. After Robert was fed, he played on the pallet I’d made for him on the floor. When Simon started putting his things together in a duffle bag, I knew he was about to leave.

  “It is time, isn’t it?” I asked him, watching him neatly pack his shirts and pants into the bag he’d gotten downtown.

  He glanced over at me. “Why, Carrie, do you say this every time?”

  “I just hate it when you leave.”

  “One day it won’t be like this. I’m a country boy chasing a dream.”

  His comment got to me. I felt the heat on my scalp, so I locked my lips to prevent from lashing out at him. It had been three months since Simon had spent more than a few days with us.

  “I’m a country girl in the city trying to raise a baby all by myself.”

  “Come on now—you are not alone.”

  “You are not here, Simon. The folks around here don’t know me. They just help out because they feel sorry for Robert and me.”

  He kept folding his clothes, but with the tightening of his face, I could see he was getting annoyed, so much so that he didn’t look my way.

  I continued, “I want you to stop with the Colored League. Don’t anybody care about a league of colored boys traveling from place to place. White people will not come to see colored boys play.”

  “I care! And, so should you.”

  I had struck a nerve. Simon and I never argued about anything, but time after time, I’d pushed back tears and held my tongue when he was walking out of the door. Afterward, I felt hurt and sorry because I had not let him know my feelings. Things were about to change.

  “I care. I just don’t want to be here in a strange city alone.”

  “All of us colored boys are gone from home. I miss you too, but you know how much I love the game. I am going to play with Pete Hill one day and some of them other colored greats.”

  When the Independent Team came to Richmond, the whole Jackson Heights community went over to the park to see them play. Simon performed that day. He hit a ball over everybody’s head and straight out of the field. The ball came close to hitting one of the white people standing in the road watching. I recall a man sitting behind me saying, “Now that colored boy can play some ball. He might be as good as Pete one day.” Some of the other men agreed. I stuck my chest out and an uncontrollable smile rippled across my face. Now I couldn’t help myself. I wanted him home more than I wanted to see his dreams fulfilled.

  “Okay,” I mumbled.

  “Is that all you can say, Carrie?”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “I was hoping you’d say you support me and understand.”

  “I do.”

  He stood gazing at me in disappointment, his magnetic smile completely absent from his face, and our little Robert staring at us from the pallet on the floor as if he knew something was going wrong.

  “I really do understand,” I assured him. It was the same yearning I had to become a teacher. I’d wanted to teach from the very first time I stepped foot into the one-room schoolhouse in Jefferson County. I admired how Mrs. Miller stood in front of the classroom demanding we grasp the proper English language and applauding us when we learned. I so much wanted to be like her. She cared about people. Everyone in her family had been educated. If Papa had lived, I would have had a different life. I was convinced of it.

  Simon read my scorched heart, and came over to me. He put his arms around me, but I couldn’t do the same. I couldn’t give in to his notion. “Carrie, it will get easier with time. Pretty soon you are not going to miss me this way.”

  After a moment, filled with emotion, I gazed into his eyes and softened. I loosened up, and slid my arm around his waist.

  “I’ll be all right. I guess I have a lot to learn about being married.”

  “You already know about it. It is hard for me too.”

  As he reached down to pick up Robert, I couldn’t help wondering if he meant it was hard because he had more responsibility with me and Robert, or that getting the leagues attention was tough. Whatever the case, I was going to be the one left alone to raise Robert. Seemed to me I was growing up too fast.

  Simon always held Robert in his arms and played with him before he left. Perhaps he felt embarrassed about leaving him. Robert cooed and held tight to his shirt. At times, Simon appeared to want to say something to Robert; however, he was too young to understand. He’d stare at him—straight in the eyes. Robert would just smile. It was a stressful day for me. Two days home and Simon was back on the road.

  When he and Robert went into the bedroom, I knew exactly what he was doing. As usual, he was stuffing a wad of money under my bed pillow. It was always enough to pay the rent, buy food and a little extra, which I put away in a cigar box underneath the bed for a rainy day.

  When Simon was done packing and stashing money like he’d done every trip, he put Robert back on the floor and took my hand. We sat down on the soft davenport.

  “Everything I do is for us.”

  “I know,” I said, “just don’t like to see you leave.”

  “Carrie, you know I love you. So why is this so hard to deal with?”

  “Because I don’t want to raise Robert alone.”

  “I’m with you, girl; just can’t be home all the time.”

  “I know, Simon,” was my only response.

  Simon got up from the davenport, and again grabbed my hand. He pulled me so close my chest heaved for air. He placed his lips over mine and kissed me so deep, I could feel the moisture.

  “I’ll be back in a week, Carrie. Be strong. Remember we didn’t come to Richmond to fail.”

  He picked up his duffle bag, and moved toward the door. I walked alongside him, keeping pace with his long strides. The closer we got to the door, the harder it was to hold back the tears welling up in the corners of my eyes. After he kissed me goodbye, I stood in the doorway and watched him walk down the stairs into the street. Tearfully, I sat in my large bedroom-window seat and my eyes followed his car all the way up the street and into the brush of trees and out of sight.

  Chapter 6

  Simon had been away for more than a week when an unexpected visitor knocked on my door. Momma came wearing a new hat and a smile as wide as the James River. Seeing her smile was something abnormal for me. Her serious demeanor had been how people related to her. But after six months, she had changed drastically. And, it was possibly for the good. When she wrote me letting me know she’d be paying me a visit, I didn’t think it would be a week later. Ironically, she showed up the same day I received Simon’s disturbing letter. It said he would be traveling to Baltimore, to play the Black Sox, and then on to Kansas City before returning home. He said they wanted to go to Chicago, but after the race war of 1919, the league was afraid to go in that direction. People were being lynched for crossing the invisible territorial race lines. Old Rube Foster was still pushing though for the Major League to recognize the colored teams.

  Momma’s smile was inviting, yet her comments were still negative. After she put her bag in my room and placed her new black hat neatly on my vanity, she came into the kitchen. She sat down at the kitchen table. With Robert in one arm, and a cup of coffee in the other, she said, “You know Jefferson County ain’t changed much since you left.”

  “Oh yeah…,” I commented, and the intensity of her gaze stayed the same.

  I could sense she was expecting to gain knowledge of something from me. She’d pause, waiting for a reaction from me, but I had nothing to say. The news about Jefferson was not surprising. I continued sipping on my steaming hot coffee, blowing it occasionally.

  Finally, she said, “White folks still don’t like coloreds. They’re still talking about lynching us and killing us.”

  I couldn’t understand why all of a sudden, the social environmen
t of Jefferson was something of interest. “Momma, I really don’t care much about Jefferson. I am in Richmond now. I’ve got to run my life from where I am. Besides, white people run this country. Colored folk are going to be second class until we get us an education.”

  Her brows heightened and her eyes grew concerned. “You should care.”

  “I don’t understand what you mean,” I said, raising my voice and shaking my head.

  “Now listen here!” Her voice grew stronger. “You don’t have no reason to sass me,” she said, her eyes pouring into me like an arrow. “I am letting you know that white people are the same everywhere, even here in Richmond.”

  Her comments got to me and I struggled to keep from disrespecting her. “I don’t have anything to do with no white people in Jefferson. They been treating people bad all their lives; they ain’t going to change in a few months.”

  “Hush yo mouth, chile!”

  “What are you talking about, Momma? Just tell me.”

  The room was quiet. Even little Robert didn’t make a sound. He looked at her, his bright eyes fixated on the grimace that was taking over her face.

  “Why are you allowing a white woman to look after your child?” she boldly asked.

  I thought about what she’d said for a moment. “Why is everybody so scared of the white man?”

  She rested her hand on her fist. “You need to make sure you understand what they will do to you before you let that lady take care of your child.”

  I didn’t want to talk about Mrs. Hall.

  “Momma, I want to know how Ginny is doing. She is somebody that matters. I wrote her a letter, and haven’t heard back from her yet,” I said, changing the subject.

  “Ginny is doing good. I saw her at church last Sunday. She asked about you and Robert as she always does. Lord knows she claims she don’t get around much, but she is always at church.”

  “I miss her,” I said.

  “I know she misses you. Nobody goes around there to see her much. Minnie’s children visit, but they don’t have the kind of relationship you had with her.”

  The transition of our conversation from white folks to Ginny was something we both could speak about, and we needed it as much as an autumn breeze. Besides, Ginny had been on my mind, had been in my dreams and thoughts for over a week. I couldn’t forget the coffee and buttered biscuits she’d offered me right before filling my head with the kind of wisdom I never got from Momma, but longed for as any teenager would.

  Momma began by giving me a rundown of all the people in the county. She started with Ginny and how her arthritis had kept her down for two months until she took a dose of turmeric, and then on to Pearl, who had moved and making most of the women in Jefferson happy, since she was never a settled woman—rather one who moved from man to man. It was more information than I’d ever expected from her. When I lived with Momma, she was tight-lipped and so guarded that she made me feel distant. She never revealed much to anyone, including my papa who shared his heart with everybody around. This was not expected. She even said the preacher had been coming over to her house to see about her. She said he’d been helping Carl with some of the outside work. Maybe he was the one responsible for the smile she had on her face when I opened the front door. I remember her having that same smile after Papa died.

  “Carrie, do Nadine come over here much to see you?”

  Momma remembered Nadine from the letter I’d written her the second week I was in Richmond. I’d described all of my neighbors to her. I wanted her to know how they looked and smiled. My excitement was written on each line of all the letters I’d written to her. So, it was no surprise she recognized my neighbors even though she had not officially met them.

  “No, ma’am, she don’t.”

  “She is close to your age.”

  “We are different, though.”

  “What on earth does that mean, chile?”

  “She is just not my type of friend.”

  Before Momma could comment, there was a knock on the door. I sighed when I peeped out of the door, and it was Nadine.

  “Come in,” I said.

  “The children say you got a visitor over here. Simon must be in town.”

  Momma sipped on her coffee and listened to the conversation before she said anything.

  “Well, hello, Nadine,” she said. “Most peoples come in the house usually know to speak.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. I just came in the door talking,” Nadine assured her, smiling.

  She then walked over to Momma, and reached to shake her hand. Momma stood up and shook her hand.

  Afterward, Nadine said, “I have never seen you before. You related to Carrie?”

  “Yes, she’s my child.”

  “Oh, okay. You live in Jefferson?”

  “I do,” Momma answered.

  “Well, my little boy said somebody was over here, so I stopped by to see. I thought Simon was back in town.”

  Momma didn’t wait for me to say anything. She quickly commented, “You married, Nadine?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “It seems mighty strange for a married woman to be asking about somebody else’s husband.”

  “My husband works on the railroad,” she said, shying away from Momma’s comment.

  Momma glanced over at me. I didn’t open my mouth, sort of enjoying the way Momma had addressed Nadine.

  “Nadine, when will your husband be home?” Momma asked.

  “I don’t know no more. He comes whenever he wants to. I never know anything.”

  “You had best to stay ready in case he come home soon.”

  “I guess,” Nadine commented. “I guess I ought to get on across the road now…nice meeting you, ma’am,” she said as she walked toward the door.

  “You, too!” Momma replied.

  After Nadine was out of the door, Momma looked at me. “You got yourself a Pearl Brown right across the road. You keep your eyes open. That chile is bold. She seems to be trouble.”

  Nadine didn’t have me fooled. I could tell what she was up to the day she borrowed the eggs.

  Having Momma with me in Richmond for two weeks was good for me and Robert. Momma rose early. She enjoyed seeing the breaking of dawn, since she felt God was able to speak to her best in total solitude. It was the time to talk to the Lord, she’d say. It was good for me because it was obvious Robert felt the same way. He always woke early, and after a changing of his diaper and a bottle of milk, he’d go back to sleep until the sun was at its fullest. It was the first time since he’d been in the world I was able to get a full night’s sleep.

  Simon’s absence made me nervous. I had never lived alone. I was surrounded by families I barely knew. However, Momma’s presence relieved me of the anxiety of being totally responsible for the care of my son. Momma did everything for him. She watched him while I sashayed to the store free as a bird. And, because she was watching him, I took my time. I’d go up and down every aisle in the store. I knew which aisle the pickled beets were on and how the shortening was stuck between the flour and sugar. On the way home, I held my head back and let the autumn breeze kiss my face. It was like I was new. Momma fed Robert, played with him and lay down beside him until he fell off to sleep. She smiled at everything Robert did. She even grinned when she took off his diaper, and he squirted pee in her face and on her glasses. She gave him all the attention she had not given my brothers and me. We never understood why she was so cold, and detached from us, but now she was different. She treated Robert as if he mattered. And when I caught her kissing him on the cheek, I was at a loss for words.

  “We are getting used to you being here with us,” I told her after unloading the sack I brought home with sugar, flour and butter for the cake she’d been promising to bake before she went home.

  “I am going home in two days. I’ve been here long enough. My house is left unattended to. Carl has been too busy with his own land. He got to finish that other room they are building for the children.
”

  “What children, Momma? Is Mary expecting?”

  “No, not yet, but they are young. I told ’em they had plenty of time, but Mary wanted to get a room ready, just in case.”

  “Carl is a good husband. He will do anything to please Mary.”

  “Simon’s good too! He took you and Robert in without any questions. A man like that is hard to find. Lord knows he reminds me of my Robert. That man worked hisself to death. Now, he was a good man. Lawd, if I only knew.”

  Momma was profound with her statement. My papa was a great man, yet she only smiled for a snake walking on legs. That was strange to me, since he treated her like shit.

  Chapter 7

  I left Robert sleeping beside Momma soon after the rooster crowed and I got a peek at daybreak. I couldn’t let her catch the train back to Jefferson before I handled some business of my own. I got dressed and took some coins for the trolley out of the household cash that Simon always left behind. It was a brisk morning; the trees in the yard were swaying with the breeze. The sun was a deep bronze, transforming the landscape and growing brighter with each step I took. The cobblestone walkway was hard on the dress shoes I was wearing. It was quiet outside, totally peaceful. As I absorbed the beauty of downtown Broad Street, I couldn’t help daydreaming about teaching in the schoolhouse I passed by on the way downtown. Just the thought cast a smile on my face.