Cranberry Winter

by Ruth P. Watson

  Teardrops beat against my pillow. I cried for the injured and mostly for me. I prayed Adam would make it home safely.

  Chapter 21

  School was my refuge. I stayed at school two weeks straight without even considering coming home. When I finally decided it was time to go home, I caught the midday train. I was glad to see the tall, handsome, dark man on the train. It was as if he was there to give me a message. Immediately, I thought about how much he looked like my papa, and just maybe papa was saying, “I am watching over you.” The man was kind and when he smiled, it was the same way my papa had smiled before he died.

  For those two weeks, while I had been in Petersburg, I had avoided Adam. I had too much on my mind. I didn’t want to confuse my feeling for him with the ones I still had for Simon. I couldn’t do such a thing to him. He deserved much more. I had to clear my head of all the garbage, including the night at the club, and make a decision as to where I was going in my life.

  Simon was home when I opened the door. He was sitting in the kitchen sipping on a cup of coffee, gazing out of the window as if he was waiting for someone. He saw me and jumped up. “I was wondering if you were going to come home. You hungry?” he asked.

  “No,” I replied. I had expected him to be gone.

  “I know you don’t want to talk to me,” he said, reaching for my suitcase.

  I smacked my lips, and sighed. “Simon, you left, not me.”

  “You put my clothes at the door.”

  I walked out of the kitchen.

  “Are you coming back?!” he yelled.

  “Maybe,” I said and went into the bathroom. When I came out, he was sitting on the davenport with the coffee in his hand.

  I sat in the high-back chair across from him.

  He appeared nervous, scratched his head and said, “I’ve messed up, haven’t I?”

  I could feel the tension rising inside me. “Simon, you have a family living right across the street. I guess I’m supposed to be all right with that?”

  “Naw, it wasn’t ’posed to be like it look,” he said, running his fingers through his hair.

  “Well, what do I need to know?” I said and waited.

  “The children came when I was just a little boy myself.”

  I bit my bottom lip, and tried to think about what he’d just said. Papa used to say, it is best to keep quiet and listen. Now I was trying to force myself to listen to a story I didn’t want to hear.

  “Are you going to talk?” he asked me, so humble I had to look away from him. I had to gather myself; my emotions were surfacing. Teardrops were creeping out the corners of my eyes, even though I did all I could to keep them from dripping down my cheeks. I wiped the corners of my eyes with my finger.

  I coughed, and cleared my throat. “Simon, I don’t know what to say.”

  “I want you to know, I don’t care about Nadine,” he blurted out.

  “Nadine has been in our lives ever since I’ve been in Richmond. She uses whatever means she can to get a glimpse of you. She’s taken my milk, butter and sugar, just to get into your house. She didn’t need any of it, because you’ve been taking care of her. I’ve even caught her in my apartment with you. Tell the truth, Simon, the truth…”

  He shook his head. “It isn’t what you think. I don’t want Nadine.”

  “She is the mother of your children. She’s in your life no matter what now.”

  He stood up. I could see the frustration on his face. His face was tight and frown lines were around his lips and across his forehead. “I just want you to hear me, Carrie,” he said, swinging his arms like he needed to get my attention.

  “Are you serious?” I asked, “This is crazy. Nadine and your two children live directly across the street from your wife and her son. Is that how things should be?”

  He sat back down. “Now listen, I only agreed for them to be across the street because I wanted to make sure the children were all right. Nadine can sometimes forget to care for them.”

  “She seems to do all right to me.”

  He had every excuse imaginable concerning the matter. Looking after the children made plenty of sense to me, but who in their right mind did things that way. I know he thought I was country, naïve and young, but all things considered, I was not a fool. He must have thought I was too stupid to find out the truth. Papa always preached that the truth would eventually come out. I just didn’t figure it was living across the street.

  “Were you going to say anything?”

  “I guess at some point,” he said, with his head lowered.

  “Simon, you and Nadine have been out of town together.”

  “Now, folks are lying on me. I ain’t been nowhere with Nadine.”

  I wanted to put my hands over my ears. I had heard from more than one person he’d been riding around Petersburg with a woman in the car. He had denied ever being in Petersburg, had proclaimed he was playing ball. Now he was telling me people were lying on him. Simon was a convincing man. I had believed him for a long time, but now I could tell he was lying.

  “More than one person has seen you with her. I even saw you myself.”

  His eyes appeared to recede into his head, and all of a sudden they were slits. He was out of balance and I could see his uneasiness. He adjusted himself in the chair. “When did you see me?”

  “I saw you drop her off the other day. You had her and the children in the car.”

  “I gave them a ride from downtown.”

  “I thought I knew you, Simon. I thought you were honest and just a plain country boy with big dreams. I really don’t know you anymore. You are in the club when you are supposed to be traveling with the Colored League, chasing after Mr. Pete Hill. Instead, you are with family, the one I didn’t know about. I am as confused as you are, Simon. I thought you loved me.”

  He stood back up and began pacing the floor.

  “Why can’t you understand me?” I asked.

  “I have never said anything about Robert to you.”

  All of a sudden my tone changed, and I started to shake. “When you married me, you knew the entire story. I have never lied to you about him. You never said anything about a family in Richmond. Does your sister, Mary, know about your other life?”

  He paced the floor. “No, she don’t know about it. Nadine didn’t tell me until my daughter was born that she was mine.”

  “So what, you’ve made a mistake. What about your son?” I could feel the steam rising up in me.

  He sat down. “We got back together before I met you, and she got pregnant again. I wasn’t trying to have more children with Nadine.”

  “Nadine has been disrespecting me since day one. If I had known about the children, I think it wouldn’t have hurt as bad.”

  “Look now, Nadine told me she saw you with Adam just the other night.”

  “Where were you, Simon…at her house peeping out the window?” I got up. “He walked me home, since my husband was nowhere to be found.”

  He didn’t comment.

  “I’m tired of talking about it. I’m going to bed,” I said.

  I left him sitting there. I went into the bedroom and locked the door. It was a sad night for me. I couldn’t blame the children; they didn’t ask to be in the middle of confusion. I blamed Simon for being able to lie as easily as the blink of an eye.

  Chapter 22

  The colored newspaper confirmed Kindred Camm was dead. I couldn’t believe he had died before I found out the true identity of the Camm twin. Everybody in town and all over Jefferson County was gossiping, so Hester said. I had escaped most of the chatter after the crime by those two weeks I had remained in Petersburg. Everyone was curious about Kindred. The owner of the corner store said, “Did you hear about that boy that got killed down at the club?”

  Another man in the store replied, “Yeah, I heard. They say the boy was dirty.” Nobody understood or knew why he was murdered. He was the mystery man. No one really knew anything about him, and now everyone wanted to know
about the mysterious twin. I especially wanted to know.

  The Halls, Robert and I climbed into Simon’s car. We were close, like sardines in a can. Curiosity had everybody wanting to see if Kindred Camm was really a twin. Folks were saying the white man called him a phony Negro, but with all the noise in the club, how could anyone really know. The night they’d had words, he’d called him Herman, folks said. Several people claimed to have overheard it, and now everyone desired to know the truth. People from Jackson Heights were traveling to Jefferson in droves to see the funeral of a man nobody really knew.

  We arrived in Jefferson County exactly an hour before the funeral. Momma was in her room getting dressed when we got there. An attractive and distinctive, caramel-colored, middle-aged lady stood in Momma’s parlor. She was a stranger to us. When she opened the door to welcome us, everyone appeared to be surprised. Momma never allowed strangers to answer her door.

  “Mae Lou is in the other room getting dressed. Y’all come on in,” she said in a sophisticated Southern drawl.

  I reached my hand out to her. She shook my hand and smiled. We all greeted her and took a seat. When we had taken a seat, she told us who she was.

  “I’m Elizabeth Camm. I am Kindred’s wife.”

  Mrs. Hall hastily said, “So sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you,” she replied.

  Our eyes moved from one to another. “Is something wrong?” she asked.

  “No, we just didn’t know Kindred was married.”

  “Yeah, we’ve been together for over twenty years. We met in secondary school. We didn’t have any children, though.”

  Nobody commented. Everybody just sat there and waited for Momma to finish getting dressed. It was a warm day for a homegoing. The aroma of ham and biscuits tantalized our senses.

  “I’m hungry,” Simon commented and went into the kitchen.

  It wasn’t long before Momma came into the room all dressed up in her black funeral dress and the hat the church members admired, which she’d sewn herself. Her eyes were bloodshot, as if she’d been drinking liquor. Surely she had been crying, which was more than she’d done for my papa. She looked as fine as Mrs. Elizabeth did who was as sharp a dresser as Ms. Maggie Walker. I couldn’t imagine the conversation they might have had the night before about the Camm men.

  “Hi, everybody. Before we leave for the church, anybody want something to eat?”

  “Simon was looking for something,” I said.

  “Anybody else?”

  She turned around and went back into the kitchen. It was not long before Simon came back in the parlor with a ham biscuit wrapped in paper. He said he’d eat it on the drive to the church, which was right up the road.

  We couldn’t all fit in the car, so Momma and Mrs. Hall road in the buggy. Mrs. Hall was fascinated with the country, and riding to the church in the buggy was a treat.

  “The undertaker came and picked up Kindred and took him to the church last night,” Momma said.

  When my papa had passed on, his body had sat in the parlor for over a week. It wasn’t until he’d started to smell that we’d had the service. The deacons came for his body the day of the funeral. Kindred probably had never been inside a church.

  The rest of us, including Mrs. Camm, piled into the car and headed toward the church. It was a short ride. And I could remember walking there many times.

  The church was full of people. Ginny was the first person I saw. She stood on the church steps and waited for me. I couldn’t wait to give her a hug and let Robert get to know his aunt. Ginny knew everybody except Mrs. Elizabeth.

  “Hi, I’m Carrie’s aunt,” Ginny said and examined Mrs. Elizabeth from top to bottom. Her piercing green eyes were intimidating to most. Mrs. Elizabeth partially shook Ginny’s hand as if she had a disease and walked up the steps and into the church.

  “I need to come in with the family. I need to take a look at my husband and say goodbye. I haven’t seen him in over two years,” she said with tears in her eyes.

  We all took a seat close to the front of the church. Ms. Pearl was sitting up front alongside the bartender from the club. Everybody came to the funeral except for my brothers, who hated both Camms. The church was packed.

  Mrs. Elizabeth stood at the casket for a long time. She was studying the body like a doctor would. She bent down to take a look at his chin. She appeared to be examining his hairline. She had to slide to the side twice to allow two other people to get a view of the body. As soon as the preacher stood up in the pulpit, she screamed, “Lawd have mercy!” Simon and several other men ran toward her.

  “Lawd, Lawd, Lawd!” Mrs. Elizabeth sang out.

  “Ma’am, what is wrong?” one of the men asked. Simon was holding her up, afraid she was going to tumble over into the coffin.

  “This is not my Kindred!” she cried out.

  Chatter broke out in the church. Ms. Pearl got up and walked up to the coffin. She stood staring down at the corpse.

  “What is going on?” Pearl asked.

  “This is not my husband.” The preacher grabbed one of her arms and Simon held onto the other.

  You could hear echoes all over the church. “Who is it then?”

  Ms. Pearl mumbled, “It looks like Kindred to me.” Some of the men in the church smiled. Their wives cut an evil eye toward them and the smile disappeared.

  She yelled, “This is Herman! Where is my Kindred?” Folks got up from their seats and moved closer to get a good look. The churchgoers were talking so loudly, it sounded like a party.

  The preacher cleared his throat. “Now y’all calm down; this is the Lawd’s house!”

  The chatter started to diminish. The sounds were fading until Mrs. Elizabeth fainted, and fell to the floor. Folks came running; some tried to revive her and others stood looking in the casket to see if they recognized the corpse. Momma had her head hung low. Ginny nudged me in the side. “Yo momma doesn’t look surprised.”

  The preacher clapped and finally got the folks’ attention. Simon and Mr. Earl took Mrs. Elizabeth out after someone put some ammonia under her nose to sniff, and her eyes swung open.

  “We gonna give this man a proper burial,” the preacher said.

  He began to preach. The entire church added an “amen” and “aha,” and then one of the sisters in the church choir sang a hymn. It was a quick service. Momma sat still, like she was hypnotized, staring at the casket. Around us, folks were whispering. A woman glanced over at Momma and shook her head. Momma shielded her face and looked in the opposite direction.

  On the way home from the cemetery, no one said a word. Mrs. Elizabeth stared out the window at the cows in the field, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  Aunt Bessie had prepared a mini feast when we made it back to the house. She had fried chicken, potatoes, green beans, fried corn and a cake for dessert. Simon glanced over at me with a strange smirk on his face. Mrs. Hall didn’t say one word, and Mrs. Elizabeth just sat in the chair wiping tears.

  Ginny had ridden back with Momma. After the table was blessed and we started to prepare the plates, she just said it. “Mae Lou, did you know that man was Herman?”

  “I don’t think this is a good time to talk about it,” Momma said.

  “When is a good time?” Mrs. Elizabeth fired back, wiping her eyes.

  Ginny said, “I think you knew it was Herman. So, the one who was killed over a year ago was Kindred. How in hell did this happen?”

  Mrs. Elizabeth stood up. “I’ll tell you.”

  “Gw’on and tell us,” Ginny coaxed.

  “My Kindred was always taking up for his low-down, dirty brother, Herman. Herman would always get hisself mixed up in things and then come running to my Kindred to help him fight his battles. You knew, Mae Lou; you knew.”

  “I didn’t make Kindred do nothing.”

  “Mae Lou, I never thought you’d love a man so much, you’d forsake the whole entire fam’ly,” Ginny commented.

  Momma said, “I ain’t have nothing
to do with all of this.”’

  “Y’all leave her alone. She is probably going through something too,” Aunt Bessie said, defending her sister.

  “My Kindred died because people mistake him for Herman. They looked too much alike.”

  “Ms. Elizabeth, how could you tell the difference?” I asked.

  “Herman didn’t have a mole on his right hand. Kindred had a big ole mole there. That man didn’t have one and his hairline was a little thinner than my Kindred. Now which one of y’all killed my husband?”

  “Now, Ma’am, we didn’t kill your husband,” Simon said. “He got his own self killed. Folks thought he was Herman.”

  “I’ve got to get out of here. I don’t trust none of y’all,” she said, walking toward the bedroom.

  Ginny glanced over at Momma. “See, Mae Lou, what you done? You got the entire family messed up. Why couldn’t you just leave that bastard alone?”

  Momma stood up. “Ginny, you need to finish that plate you are eating and get out of my house. You have always been meddling in my business. Find something to do. Make a quilt or something, but leave me the hell alone.”

  Ginny pointed her cane. “I will go up beside yo’ head, Woman. Simon, I need you to take me home.”

  “We all might as well go on back home,” Mr. Hall commented.

  Mrs. Elizabeth came out of the room with her bags. “You mind if I squeeze in the car? I can catch the train back to D.C. I want to stop and see Pearl Brown.”

  I couldn’t believe what had happened. I knew it was Herman from the beginning, yet no one believed me. We all got ready to leave. Momma was sitting in the kitchen. Aunt Bessie was with her. I whispered in Aunt Bessie’s ear. “Please take care of her. She is hurting.”

  “I will,” she said.

  I handed Robert to Momma, who had been quiet the entire time. She kissed him on the cheek and for the first time, I saw her shed tears.

  “I’ll see you soon,” I said.

  “Don’t stay away too long. Carrie, I’m sorry,” she said.