An Unlikely Friendship

by Ann Rinaldi

  "I know you're moving. To your fancy new house on Main Street. With all the big new rooms and the red damask curtains and the Belgian carpets. It's all you talk about. All you care about."

  She turned on me. "Don't you think, Mary Todd, that I deserve a big new house? Don't you ever think how difficult it's been here with all these children in such close quarters? Don't you ever think of anybody but yourself?"

  I turned to run and bumped into Pa.

  "What's this?" He put his hands on my shoulders to stop me.

  "She threw out Ma's clothes. The ones you said I could have. She gave them away!"

  "Don't call your stepmother 'she,' Mary. Show some respect."

  Respect! I glared up at him. "Don't you care? I wanted to save those clothes. They were all I had left of Ma."

  "You have the desk," Betsy put in.

  "Yes, and I aim to keep it away from you," I told her.

  "Enough, Mary," Pa said.

  I ran. As I ran up the stairs to my room I heard Pa asking, "What is wrong with that child?"

  "I don't know, Robert, but you'd better rush right out and buy her ten yards of yellow muslin or a new bonnet or some new kid gloves. It's the only way she'll come 'round," Betsy said sarcastically.

  THERE IS A HOLE inside me because of the loss of Mama's clothing, a hole I have never been able to fill. I dream, at night, of crossing that attic room and opening the blanket to find nothing. And searching and searching all over the room, with panic inside me, hoping to find it in some deserted corner.

  I see her blue taffeta dress, her lace collars, her black shawl, her tea-colored lace blouse. I hold them up in my dreams at night and they disappear in my hands.

  THAT SUMMER, as well as the cholera and the confusion of moving, we had the seventeen-year locusts visiting, singing their monotonous song in the background, no matter what was going on.

  They were especially loud the day Liz and I brought our things to the new house. It was brick, and Pa had had the whole thing redone so that, except for the large rooms, it no longer resembled Palmentier's Inn.

  Those large meeting rooms had been made into parlors. It had six large bedrooms and a two-room nursery and a new piano in one parlor.

  All the furniture was new. There was nothing here that had been my mother's, except for the silverware stored in the pantry.

  There was a bathtub in the back hall, and in Pa's study at least two hundred books.

  I knew, in an instant, that I could not call this place home. I brought my few things upstairs to the room I was sharing with Liz.

  "Which bed do you want?" she asked. She was holding Pierre in her arms, deciding where to put him down.

  "I don't care. I won't be here that much," I said dismally. "This is your room, not mine. I'm the guest this time."

  "You can have the bed near the window," she said generously. "And I wish you were going to be here all the time. I'm going to miss you, Mary."

  I nodded and lowered my head. Tears came to my eyes. And then she gave the conversation a new turn.

  "Did you know your brother George refuses to come here?"

  My head shot up quickly. "What do you mean?"

  "He told me so. He said he's not going to leave the old house. He says it's lonely now, and he doesn't want to leave the place where his mother lived."

  Oh sweet Lord, I thought. Now were going to have trouble.

  AMID ALL THE confusion downstairs, Pa stood, directing the servants where to put things and announcing to all of us that we were having a special supper of turkey and hickory-cured ham and cake from Monsieur Giron's tonight at six, and he wanted us all present to celebrate our first dinner in the new house.

  "That includes George," he said. "Mary, go upstairs, find him, and tell him so."

  "He's not here," Levi volunteered.

  "Where is he?" Pa asked.

  "In the old house," Levi said. "He doesn't want to leave."

  Pa sighed and looked at me. "Mary, go and talk to him. Tell him what I said."

  "Yes, Pa." I walked out the front door slowly.

  "Good luck," Levi whispered. And he grinned at me as I went out.

  GEORGE WAS SEATED on the stairway when I went in, surrounded by empty space. Why is it that a house looks so sad when it is empty? He looked up at me. "Hey," he said.

  "Hey."

  Afternoon sun streamed in the windows. Dust motes floated. "You got any food?" George asked.

  "For that you have to come to the new house. Pa wants you there. He said we're having a special supper tonight and he wants everyone there. He sent me for you."

  In the silence that followed the locusts droned and bounced their sound off the walls. It was eerie.

  "You can't stay here, George," I pushed.

  "And I'd like to know why not."

  "Because Pa will soon sell it, if he hasn't already. New people will move in."

  "I can stay until they do."

  I sat down next to him. "I know it's hard, leaving. I miss it already, too. This was Ma's house. It remembers her."

  He nodded. "That damned Betsy," he said quietly. "If it wasn't for her, Pa would never have moved. Now she wants me in her house, at her table." He shook his head, sighed, and rested his forehead on his drawn-up knees. "Maybe we should run away. Just you and me, Mary. We could join one of those groups of traveling strollers."

  It was a tantalizing thought, but I recognized it for the childish dream that it was. So I did not answer him. We sat there like that, together on the stairs, surrounded by empty rooms, for I don't know how long. I calculate it was over an hour. We talked in low tones, about things we'd done in the house. We recalled memories. I was willing to stay like that all night with him if need be.

  The light began to change. Still the insects droned. I grew sleepy and hungry and wondered if it was anywhere near six o'clock.

  I knew I was in a bind. But I also knew I would never leave George here alone. No matter what happened. I thought to myself, Pa will come soon. And then we'll leave here. I'm about starved.

  And sure enough, then I heard the crunching of wagon wheels on our front drive. I looked at George. "It's Pa," I said.

  I went to the front door and opened it. But it wasn't Pa. It was Grandmother Parker.

  SHE STEPPED DOWN from her carriage with a flourish, stood there for a moment looking up at the house as if it were an old friend, then, with the help of her footman, came up the steps and into the foyer.

  "What is this?" she asked, holding out her arms. "Are you two camping out here?"

  "Grandma, how did you know?" I asked.

  She enfolded us in those arms, one at a time. "Because your father sent word to me. And asked me to talk to my two stubborn grandchildren. Mary, you were sent to fetch George, not to encourage him," she scolded gently.

  I just sat down again with my brother. "Grandma, he won't leave. And I can't leave him here alone. But I'm beholden to you for coming. I know how hard it is for you to come into this house anymore," I told her.

  She nodded and looked around. "This place is haunted," she agreed. "But in a nice way. Yes, it was difficult for me to come here, but I came for you both. I love you and wanted to tell you something."

  We both looked at her, expectantly.

  "George, your mother is wherever you are, if you want her there. She is always with you. You carry her wherever you go."

  George gave her an unwavering stare.

  "She's in your eyes," Grandma went on. "You have eyes just like her. Whenever you look at your pa, he sees her. And she's there, in your heart. You couldn't lose her if you tried."

  "Is she with me, Grandma?" I asked.

  "Yes, child. You have her laugh. Every time I hear you laugh, I hear her. And she is in your mannerisms, even in the way you hold your head."

  I had never thought that way before. I got up and hugged her again, burying my face against her dress. "Suppose we didn't have you, Grandma, to tell us these things?"

  "Well, you have me.
And now I'm asking you to both skedaddle out of here and go to your new home. The time you spend there will be brief enough. Remember, this place could burn down tomorrow and you'd still always have your mother with you. Nobody can take her away from you, no matter how they try."

  We skedaddled out of there shortly after that. Grandma got back in her carriage and we headed over to Main Street.

  "Imagine her coming to the house to fetch us, George," I said. "Do you know what an event that is on its own?"

  "Yes," he said.

  "She's stayed away, except for Elizabeth's wedding, ever since Betsy moved in," I reminded him. "It took a lot for her to come for us like that."

  "Pa sent her, Mary."

  "Nobody sends Grandma anywhere. She wouldn't have come, Pa or no Pa, if she didn't want to. She did it for us."

  We continued in silence to the new big house on Main Street. Lights were in all the windows. When we walked in, they were at the table. There were two places empty, one for me and one for George.

  George looked at me and I at him. We both saw Pa looking at us from the head of the table. "Come and eat," he said.

  Again George looked at me, and I knew what he was thinking. His place was to the right of Pa's and whenever Pa looked at him, he'd see our mother looking back.

  We both walked into the dining room and took our places at the table. George never again ate alone in the kitchen.

  I KNEW WHAT HAD to be done next before Mammy Sally mentioned it to me. And, as the August light turned mellow at the end of the day, I walked around thinking about it. But I never said anything.

  I waited for the right moment to bring the subject up. But Mammy Sally was so busy making the house right after our move that the right time did not present itself.

  I was going away to school in little more than a week. The matter not only had to be discussed, it had to be acted upon.

  Liz, who knew too much for her own good these days, thought it should be done in the open, with permission from Betsy.

  "Just tell her you want to paint some flowers on the fence."

  I thought it should be done in secret, that Betsy would never give permission. After all, it was her house now, and she had taken great pains to have the best picket fence installed around the front lawn. She was inordinately proud of it.

  "She'll never let me paint flowers on it," I told Liz.

  "But you paint so beautifully. I even heard her say so."

  I did pride myself on my artwork. At Ward's I had won numerous prizes for it. But my artwork was not the subject here. More was at stake. We'd been in the new house for a week already. What had happened to the runaways that came to our back door on Short Street? How would they know to come to our new house unless given a sign?

  Why hadn't Mammy Sally said something to me? Had she given up helping runaways? Had something happened that made her fearful of being caught?

  I was determined to ask her that evening. And so, when Frances was at the pianoforte and Pa's new astral lamps were burning in the parlor, I sneaked out into the kitchen where Mammy was kneading dough for tomorrow morning's bread.

  "You have nuthin' to do?" She eyed me suspiciously.

  "Mammy, I need to talk with you about something."

  "Talk away then."

  I sat down on the bench next to the table. "Don't you think it's time for me to paint some flowers on the front fence?"

  Slap, slap, slap. She patted the dough vigorously, turned it around in her hands, even tossed it into the air, in movements that were at once graceful and mesmerizing.

  "Sure is. But jus' 'cause it's time, doan mean it'll be easy. We in her house now," and she gestured with her turbaned head to the parlor where I'd left Betsy at her embroidery.

  "I can paint really pretty flowers," I reminded her. "You know how much Pa liked the job I did on the old fence."

  "Got nuthin' to do with pretty or not," she said. "What it gots to do with is that she may not want flowers on her white fence. What it gots to do with is, if'n you ask her, she'll say no, jus' 'cause it's you who ask."

  "Then I won't ask," I said.

  "Oh, what you got planned then? You jus' gonna sneak out there some night and paint? And what you gonna do when she asks who did it? Say it was the debil who painted flowers on the fence with his long green tail?"

  "What's happening to the runaways who are coming to our old house," I asked her, "all hungry and tired and lost?"

  She lowered her eyes. "I dunno," she admitted sadly. "But it ain't like there's nobody else in town to feed them."

  It came to me then. Mammy was afraid. Afraid of being found out, of being sold downriver. It came to me then that it was up to me to paint the flowers on the fence and to take the consequences for my own actions.

  "I'll do it," I said bravely. "I'll wait until Wednesday afternoon when she makes her calls. She's gone all Wednesday afternoon. I can do it then."

  "You gonna ask your pa first?"

  "No. That will only get him involved. He has enough on his mind."

  "And when she sees the fence? Then what? You be punished for sure."

  I got up from the bench. "I go to school in a week, Mammy. And I come home only weekends. I won't be here anymore." My voice cracked with emotion. "So what can she do to me?"

  Was I doing this for the runaway slaves, I wondered, or because I wanted to get back at Betsy for keeping me away from home once school started? And then I had another question. If you were doing a good deed to help someone out, did it matter why you were doing it, just as long as it got done?

  But I had no answers for that any more than I had answers for all the other things that plagued me at the moment.

  EVERY WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON Nelson brought the carriage, drawn by two of Pa's handsome horses, to the front door where Betsy was waiting for it. Then, all gussied up in his best livery, Nelson would bow in a most formal manner and hand Betsy up into the carriage so he could take her on her afternoon calls.

  Sometimes Frances went with her. At such times the silk and satin skirts swished delightfully as they settled themselves in. Then Betsy would give some last-minute order to Mammy, who was still standing on the front steps seeing her off. "We'll have those fresh strawberries for dessert," or "Don't forget, George doesn't leave the house until his sums and penmanship are finished." Then they would be off. And we would have at least three or four hours' time to breathe free.

  THERE WAS A HINT of September in the mild August afternoon. Already the sun, though glowing fiercely, did not have the force of summer with it. Stillness sat all up and down our part of Main Street and the leafy green maples and pin oaks kept their watch.

  I painted my flowers. Sunflowers this time, with long stalks and faces bursting with mirth. The wooden fence absorbed the paint and it soon dried. I painted a gathering of sunflowers on either side of the pristine white gate. And by the time I could hear the grandfather clock in the center hall ring three, I was finished.

  I stepped back and admired my work. It was pretty in and of itself. It needed no other reason for being than its own loveliness. But the reason for its being declared itself. I'm glad I painted sunflowers, I told myself as I wiped my hands on my old apron. Yellow is an easy color to see at night.

  THE AFTERNOON SETTLED into a fearful stillness. I cleaned up my mess and went to the backyard to seek out Nelson for something to take the paint off my hands.

  He obliged me without asking any questions. Slaves know how to survive, I thought. They know when to speak and when to stay silent. If only I could learn that, I'd stay out of trouble. But we white people never do learn it.

  I went up to the room I shared with Liz. She was asleep on her bed, curled up with Pierre next to her. He snored gently. The windows were open and the organdy curtains flapped in a sudden breeze. Outside, on the horizon, dark clouds were gathering. Would there be a storm? I hoped the paint on the fence would dry before there was any rain.

  I took my shoes and old apron off and lay down on my bed. Pie
rre's snores lulled me until I was near asleep.

  I lay there, overcome with the enormity of what I'd done.

  I'd painted my fool flowers on Betsy's new fence without anybody's permission. It wasn't only that; the flowers had meaning. They were a signal to runaways that this was a safe house.

  Should Betsy or Pa find that out, it might result in Mammy Sally being sold downriver. What to do?

  There was only one way out. I must behave like one of the servants. I must learn to be quiet. Or when I did speak, I must learn to play the game as they played it. I must outwit them like Brer Rabbit outwitted Brer Fox.

  It all came back to me as I lay there. Mammy Sally had taught all of us about Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox.

  Brer Rabbit's life was lived in a steady state of war with Brer Fox, who was bigger and stronger, and always out to eat him. I'd grown up on those stories of Mammy's.

  "Be polite to Fox as he is to you," Mammy's story went. "Even though you suspect he is plotting to eat you. When he says, 'I'm gonna ketch you,' tempt him with something better. Tell him you know of a man who has a pen full of pretty little pigs, all ready to be eaten. Even though you know that when he goes to that man's house, all he will find is a pen filled with hounds who will chase and kill him."

  In other words, she meant, be a trickster. Don't cry and take on. Be smarter than Mr. Fox and you will survive.

  I fell asleep, plotting how to be smarter than Betsy. And when I awoke I had the answer.

  THANK HEAVENS Pa came home before Betsy. Thank heavens he was there to receive the first of her onslaught when she came into the house.

  "Who painted the flowers on my fence?"

  She knew, of course, or she would not have been so irate. She stood there in the front hallway, while people crowded around her. "Who did this?"

  Frances was with her. So were Ann and Liz.

  She called out for Mammy Sally, who came running. She repeated the question, then while not even waiting for an answer, she looked at me.