by Carter, Noni
“Rose, Rosa, I made a mistake. I wasn’t as careful as you told me”—he coughed, then continued—“as you told me to be. Why is it that we don’t listen to the best advice a soul could give?” He tried to muster a smile as he brought his right hand up to her face and stroked her cheek with his finger.
“Caldwell, don’t you worry about that now. The doctor—” She paused, and sniffed. “You’re still with us. You’re awake!”
His attempted smile fell away. “What did the doctor say, Rose?”
Mrs. Rosa only looked at him, her mouth slightly open. A few tears slipped out, and she squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. Mr. Caldwell coughed again and brought a finger to his lips.
“Don’t do that, Rose. We all come here and we all go at some point.”
“No, no, Caldwell, it doesn’t matter at all what the doctor says.”
“Rose, please, it’s all right.”
She nodded, wiping her eyes.
“Tell Anna to … to be careful, to think carefully about what she … what she chooses to do. This work can be dangerous,” he managed to say through his coughs.
“She’s right here, Caldwell. You tell her yourself.”
I walked over and stood next to where Mrs. Rosa knelt.
“Anna!” He paused, and I saw his swollen eyes creep up to Mrs. Rosa’s face. He was trying so hard to be his own, funny self. “Anna, we deserve justice and peace. Don’t give up the fight for those things.”
“Caldwell!” Mrs. Rosa scolded his fickleness, though a tender smile softened her face.
He coughed again, and Mrs. Rosa laid a hand on his chest. After a minute, he continued.
“We all fight in different ways. I heard you are educating youth, Anna. That’s … that’s a fight. Not so dangerous as my work, but …” He paused to catch his breath. I saw the veins in Mrs. Rosa’s neck thicken.
“Caldwell, rest now, she understands.”
“But,” he continued, “important nonetheless. That’s a wonderful thing, Anna. But be careful if you choose to do other things with … with your education. I don’t want you to end up …” His words trailed off and he turned to Mrs. Rosa.
“Rose, you keep this one here nurtured with strong support. And Anna.” He slowly raised his hand toward me. He was too exhausted to turn again and look my way.
“Yes, sir?” I asked loudly enough for him to hear me. My mouth was dry.
Hearing me, he dropped his hand and said, “You take care of my Rose and Sue, you and Miss Anita, there. I … I heard she’s good with the little one. And for my little girl—Rose, Rose please let her grow up like we talked about. Whisper in her small ear each night how much I love her. Let her know her father—its through her that I’ll stay alive.”
Mrs. Rosa whimpered, her free hand quickly rising to her mouth. “Caldwell, please! You’re a strong person. Stay here, please, I know you can. I know it!”
“Strong … ah, well.” Though he struggled to speak, he still tried to keep his tone light and good-humored. He closed his eyes for a moment. I saw Mrs. Rosa’s hand tighten around his.
“Sometimes strength is letting go. They’re … they’re angered by the truths that I put out there, but at least I put them out, and that’s … that’s strength, Rose,” Mr. Caldwell mumbled with his eyes still closed.
“Who’s angry, Caldwell?” Mrs. Rosa asked, wiping away the blood that had trickled past his lips.
“No matter. They try to strike fear within us, but it doesn’t work that way. We cannot fall into the hands of fear that easily.”
“They’re good for nothing, all of them!” Mrs. Rosa said angrily as she ran her hand across his forehead. Silence drifted in and sat for a while before Mrs. Rosa chased it away.
“You’re wrong for this, you know, Caldwell, for writing the book, and putting yourself in this position. But in all your wrongness, there’s nothing you could’ve done that would’ve been more right. I’d never sit here and condemn you for what you have done. But Caldwell”—she was crying now—“Caldwell we need you here….”
“Rose.” He struggled even with this simple word. She touched her lips to his and told him to hush. His eyes opened once more, and he drew on his last stores of strength and spoke.
“Rose, they don’t know about you or Little Sue. You will be … just fine.”
“Caldwell … Caldwell, don’t, please don’t leave us.”
He brought his finger slowly to her lips. “Shh. You’ve always been so strong, Rose. Stay that way.”
“Caldwell …”
“Let me … let me rest, Rose. My work won’t die with me, I promise you. My love for you won’t … won’t …”
Mrs. Rosa’s breathing was rough and quick. She grasped his hand with both of hers and brought her face close to his as his eyes fell shut. She kneeled, leaned her head against his, and whispered to her husband through her sobs.
“Caldwell, do you remember the fields of flowers? The starry nights? Do you remember …” She climbed up to lie next to him and kissed his check.
“Caldwell.” Her tears soaked into the blood on his shirt as her whimpers grew louder, and her whispers softer.
Anita took me by the arm, and we left the room.
Mrs. Rosa didn’t tutor for the first few weeks after Mr. Caldwell died. Not many people knew Mr. Caldwell—or Mrs. Rosa, for that matter—but word passed quickly through the town, and the incident, however vaguely understood, sat heavily in the hearts of many people. It was another injustice done—another injustice to talk about, to sweat over in midnight meetings, and to tempt the impulse to strike back.
A week after Mr. Caldwell passed, I made my way to Mrs. Rosa’s house. I found her trying very hard to hold on to her reserved, strong nature. Even through her tears that she told me were always necessary in times of grief, she maintained her focus. There was food to cook and a baby to care for, and she had books to read if the loss weighed too heavily on her soul. Anita and I agreed to tend Little Sue when we could as a way of helping Mrs. Rosa. She opposed strongly at first, holding tight to her child as if she had nothing else left in the world, but Anita knew just how to pluck the child away. And, on her own, Little Sue began calling me Auntie Anna.
This assistance gave Mrs. Rosa the time she needed to gather herself. She started speaking of work, although she and Mr. Caldwell had saved a good amount of money. She’d speak of working as a nanny, or as a housekeeper in the city, but she pursued neither.
Without the structured schedule of tutoring at Mrs. Rosa’s, I was not always certain how to proceed with my day. But my lessons continued informally. When Mrs. Rosa felt up to it, on the days I went to see her, she’d greet me at the door and would pull me over to the table. During those visits, we’d pour through lessons like we had before Mr. Caldwell’s death. I also continued to run my own school in the yard, or in Mama Bessie’s kitchen on cold or rainy days.
In this manner, three trying months slid by.
CHAPTER
46
SOMEHING ABOUT THE DAY DID NOT SEEM RIGHT. IT WAS ONE of those days when I could look up at the winter sky and feel something odd in my bones. I thought that maybe it was a touch of the sadness I still felt over the death of Mr. Caldwell. Or that I was fearful, given that injustice had struck so violently and so close to home. Whatever it was, I tried to dismiss the feeling.
Daniel had picked up a job with a local lumber company, but he continued transporting ice to the cities for extra money. He decided that morning, because his deliveries were light, that he’d take me with him to the city.
At one of the few stops he had all day, Daniel asked me to watch the wagon while he went inside. The streets were not busy, almost empty in fact, so I decided to walk around near the wagon, just to stay warm.
I don’t know what possessed me to turn, pick up the discarded newspaper, and look at the half-soiled page. Perhaps it was my excitement in finding a newspaper I didn’t have to pay for. But whatever the reason, one minute I was sitting id
ly, thinking of the nice school I would have one day, and the next, I was staring at the words that screamed at me from the page. I felt something unseen pulling the breath from my lungs like a ribbon from my hair. It read:
I couldn’t find my breath. I was only vaguely aware of Daniel saying my name over and over and of him steering me back into the wagon without calling attention to us. Then I passed out. I don’t remember doing so, and when Daniel recounted it to me later, I denied the whole event. I didn’t believe it; I couldn’t believe it. Daniel spoke to me about the ad, later, and Florence came up behind him, trying to explain to me that John was dead, but I merely laughed in her face. She didn’t know what she was saying, how could she know? She didn’t even know John. It wasn’t her that he promised he’d see again.
I told her this. “You’re wrong. That can’t be right, can’t you see?”
I couldn’t understand their blank faces.
“Daniel?” I questioned my brother. He knew for sure. But my brother simply told me that Florence was right. John was dead; it was the truth.
“But Daniel, how could you say this? You? You were there, Daniel, you should understand!”
“Anna, listen,” he started.
“How can I listen when you won’t tell the truth!” I shouted out at him, tears watering my eyes. Then Mama Bessie’s hand touched my shoulder, and she handed me that paper, those false newspaper words, that thing straight from hell. And again, the words came, the truth, the comforting sighs, and this time—this time I listened … the veil lifted.
They’re right.
I raced off into the starless night. The cold, shooting through my body like the white man’s bullet, was a blessing. Maybe, just maybe, it would steal me away to death, too.
If Daniel hadn’t found me out by the lake, teardrops frozen on my face, I think my soul would have disappeared before daylight. But he did: Daniel found me. I didn’t want to see him—not at first, at least. I didn’t want to see anyone, and I think he knew that. But he was there, nonetheless. Back at Mama Bessie’s he sat with me late into the night. I didn’t want anyone else there.
It was nighttime, or very early morning, when I picked up my writing tool. I should have been sleep, but sleep just wouldn’t come, not then. I felt broken. Fate had pointed its long finger at my name. So I sat by candlelight and pulled out a small journal Mrs. Rosa had given me.
One more year. One more year, I’d say, if yesterday was today. One more year I’d hold this hope, so sure, this love, still pure. I’d ask my mind, “How long do memories stay?” And I’d ask my heart, “Can you hold on just one more day?” But today, I sit silently. Tears won’t even come. I sit and I wait and I listen. If he is dead, his spirit will come. It must come!
But alas! I heard nothing, I saw nothing, I felt nothing. A tear finally did come, followed by a symphony of rain down my cheeks.
Why can’t I feel his death? And why does hate come so easily? I hate them for drowning my soul and taking a life needed here in the world. But Mama’s words burn like hellfire in my ears. “Love beats it every time. Love kills hate every single time. Love lives on till the end.”
Well, I ask, Mother, is this the end?
CHAPTER
47
AFTER HEARING OF JOHN’S DEATH, I WANTED TO GIVE UP ON all I did, all I had. John was gone, and in his memory lived a part of me that was now gone too.
But I realized I had to go on, for Daniel, for Florence, for the children who now depended so much on me and my words of encouragement. I had to move on for the part of myself that was still present, conscious, and alive. The part still proclaiming, this is not the end.
December rolled by, and I found myself in the year 1824: another year in this freedom land. January and February flew past me without my recognition. I made it my purpose to come closer to God and to myself. I had always gone to church, every single week, but this was different. I sank far down into myself, listening closely to what was inside. Beyond the sadness, beyond the fear of what lay ahead of me, I sought out a place within where God sat. I prayed blindly to God and to that peace I knew was in my spirit. I devoted my time to teaching, finding joy in the students’ smiles and determined faces. And somewhere in all of this, I found a small hope, hovering somewhere in me. What was it that I was hoping for? I didn’t know.
I tried in every manner at first, after John died, to avoid Mrs. Rosa. Something about sharing pity didn’t strike me well, and I felt it would be best if I kept my distance. But soon enough, I couldn’t escape the pull of Mrs. Rosa. She was like a mother to me, and I found myself eventually scurrying back to her house, back into the world I felt so comfortable in. When I went back the first time, after many months, she welcomed me with open arms and dried my tears even before they fell.
Mrs. Rosa helped me, more than anyone, with my growth. I was able to set a piece of my heart in her hands for healing.
“These books have been sitting, waiting for you, Anna.” I nodded. “I can see your heart crying riverbeds of tears, but things will be all right. Sometimes, I’ve got to remind myself of that, but deep down, I know it to be the truth.”
“How’d you know what happened, Mrs. Rosa?” I looked at her tired eyes and thought she had gained some years in just the few months since Mr. Caldwell’s death. She still had the same patient, dignified composure, however, and I was easily enfolded into her wings.
“Your friend—Florence, I believe—she stopped by to speak with me. She figured you hadn’t been by in a while and wanted to explain things to me.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Rosa. I just haven’t felt quite like myself.”
She drew her arms around me and held me close for a long while. My tears spilled on her shoulder and she wiped them away.
“Anna, they are seasons, that’s all,” she said. “Life is littered with them. The springs and summers—they’re so hot, so safe, so beautiful. But then …” She stopped as Little Sue, who had been sleeping on a pillow in the corner, clutching her bean baby doll, lifted her sleepy head to her mother and blinked twice.
“See daddy?” the little girl asked, lifting her arms, so Mrs. Rosa could pick her up. Mrs. Rosa walked over and lifted her up, then sat back down with the child on her lap.
“Daddy?” the child asked again, but it seemed more habit than a real question, as if her dreams were filled with images of a person who had been stolen from her reality. Little Sue laid her head on Mrs. Rosa’s shoulder with a whimper and closed her eyes again as her mother stroked her hair.
“Shh, Little Sue,” Mrs. Rosa said softly. Then she turned back to me. “But then the falls with their chills, and the winters with their bareness and freezing condemnations must come and go as well. But it’s all meant to cycle onward. That’s what life’s about, Anna.”
In the days that followed, I let Mrs. Rosa’s words sit in my mind so I could consider them.
Florence’s reaction differed from Mrs. Rosa’s. She worried about me the most. At first, she just couldn’t understand, despite my painful attempts to explain. She felt it was her duty to bring me back across the separation I had created. But her attempts only frustrated her, pushing me farther into my corner. She confronted Daniel about me when she thought I wasn’t paying attention, and labored over the “right words to say.”
“Give her a little bit of time,” I’d hear my brother say. “Anna will find her way back. You’ll see.”
Daniel was right. After I swam in my grief for a while, I finally chose to come up for air, for good. Then, Florence settled back down.
“You seem different, Anna,” she said to me one day in early March. “It’s almost like you left for a long time an’ came back as someone new, or just … just a little different from before.”
I shrugged and smiled. “What’s so different? I still look like me, I still act like me,” I said calmly, knowing that all those physical things made no difference. I knew that my feelings had changed me.
Florence looked at me closely. “You’re
, well, I don’t have no words for it,” she said, throwing her hands up.
But I wasn’t the only aspect of her life that had changed. She and Daniel were growing very close. She’d taken well to Daniel’s proposal that she accompany him to the Hadson community meetings, even though she’d always swear it was a waste of time. She’d try to persuade me to accompany them every week, but I preferred my solitude and went with them to the meetings only once in a while. Later on, I’d look up and see Florence strolling back through Mama Bessie’s door, exhausted, exclaiming that she would never go to one of the Hadson meetings again. But she did go, and I found out that her complaints about the meetings really were only an act.
“Florence? Don’t mind what she say to you, Anna, she loves them meetins! She found herself a voice she ain’t neva had befo’, an’ oh what a loud, strong voice she got. Don’t let her fool you,” Daniel told me.
I laughed. “You’re not fooling anybody either, Daniel. That glow in your eyes shows me that there are other things running through your mind about that lovely friend of mine.”
Daniel shrugged but smiled warmly. “Life gonna bring what’s it’s got to bring. Guess at some time, you gotta learn to accept that good that do come round.”
I heard him well and wondered why he hadn’t already put his words to use and asked for her hand.
CHAPTER
48
IT WAS MARCH 20, 1824, A BEAUTIFUL SATURDAY AFTERNOON. The trees and flowers were blooming and the birds sang sweet melodies to the cool breeze. But I wasn’t outside.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIS ANNA
When I awoke that morning, I found these words carved into a wooden food tray in Mama Bessie’s kitchen. I smiled to myself and looked up to see small, mischievous faces peeking out from around the walls.
“What is this?” I called out with a laugh. The faces suddenly popped out, and twenty small children gathered around me, excited.
“Sebastian says it’s your birthday today.”
