Harlem Redux

by Persia Walker

  Rachel’s heart thumped painfully. “But why?” she pleaded. “Just tell me where he is.”

  “No.”

  Rachel’s small hands balled into fists. She willed back the tears she feared were about to spring to her eyes.

  Lilian’s pale pink lips pressed together firmly. “Rachel, you’re to blame for the trouble you’re in. No decent woman would’ve let a man go as far as you did.”

  Rachel cringed inwardly but she forced herself to speak up. “It’s not like I got this way by myself. David was there, too. I didn’t force him to love me.”

  “My brother was only reacting like a healthy man. It’s always the woman’s place to keep matters within proper limits.” Lilian’s control snapped. “You should’ve known better.”

  “We were together only once.”

  “And this had to happen?!”

  “You think I did this on purpose to make him marry me?”

  Lilian gritted her teeth. “I have nothing against my brother marrying you, but I won’t let you use him. I don’t believe he loves you. If he did, he would’ve come back.”

  Rachel wailed, “He’d come back if he knew—”

  “I’m doing you a favor, Rachel. You don’t believe it, but I am.”

  “It wouldn’t be the way it was between your parents—”

  “How dare you!”

  Rachel saw that she’d said the wrong thing. What could she do? Finally, she begged. “If you won’t tell me where he is, will you at least tell him about me, about... ?”

  Lilian’s eyes narrowed. A little smile appeared on her lips. “Yes,” she said. “Of course I will.”

  “But I knew she was lying,” Rachel said. “I knew it before the words even left her mouth.” Rachel’s eyes moved over David’s face. “I mean, she did lie, didn’t she? You never knew, did you?

  “No,” he said. “I never knew.”

  His eyes burned in his head. He had left Rachel to face this alone. As for Lilian—he struggled to understand—how could she have done this?

  “Didn’t she do anything to help you?”

  “She offered me money, in your name. To finance a new start, she said. Elsewhere.”

  Of all Lilian’s secrets, this was the worst. That she had known where he was, known that Rachel and his child needed him, but failed to tell him.

  “She only wrote me that you’d left town.”

  “I didn’t take Lilian’s money. Mama bought me a bus ticket—a one-way ticket—to Chicago. She thought it’d be better for me if I went away. She was afraid the gossip would hurt me. But nothing could cut deeper than knowing you were gone. After that, nothing mattered. But I couldn’t stay. I had to think of Mama, too. She gave me all her savings. I went to the station by myself. But I didn’t go to Chicago. I went to D.C. Somehow, I had a notion you were there. But you weren’t. At least, I couldn’t find you. I bought a cheap ring. Found a rooming house. And said I was a widow.”

  “And the baby?”

  The expression in Rachel’s eyes softened. “A little girl. I named her Isabella.”

  Pain blossomed inside David like a blood-red flower. “And did you put ... Isabella ... in a home?”

  Rachel smiled dreamily. “She was so pretty. Sometimes I can still feel her soft little cheek against mine.”

  He had a sinking feeling. “Rachel, where’s the baby?”

  Rachel’s smile abruptly faded. “Dead. Caught pneumonia. Died right before Christmas.” Rachel’s eyes became wet. She blinked and swallowed hard. “Maybe it’s better she’s gone. She wouldn’t have had much of a life. But I loved her. God, I ache for her. Mama said Isabella suffered for my sins, but I wonder what kind of God would punish an innocent baby. Sweet Jesus, she was five months old.”

  Rachel clenched her teeth and shut her eyes. Her small fists flexed and curled in her lap.

  “I was afraid to ... I didn’t have the money to ... bring her back here. I had to bury her there. To leave her down there with nobody to visit her. Sometimes I dream about getting the money together to go back. Just once. Just to put some flowers …” She bit her lip. “I left the same day as the funeral. Came back here. Mama fell ill three months later. She was gone within a week.”

  “My God, Rachel ...”

  He moved to put his arms around her, but she drew back. She was stiff with renewed anger. Her pretty face was bitter.

  “Lilian came to see me. My mama was dead. My baby was dead. And now, she wanted to know if there was anything she could do. I told her, no. No, thank you.”

  Rachel swallowed. She drew a deep breath, raised her head a notch and forced a smile. “But you know something?” She swiped away a tear. “I am not bitter. I’m not gonna let myself be bitter. I’m gonna stay glad, so glad that I had Isabella. Given my life, I just have to be grateful that I had her at all.”

  And then she did let him hold her. She let him rock her gently back and forth, but she refused to shed any more tears.

  He convinced Rachel to lend him her sole picture of Isabella. She relinquished it only after he promised to return it. Later, ensconced in his armchair before the parlor fireplace, David fingered the small rectangle, studying it. His fingers trembled. His little girl had had his eyes, almond-shaped, dark and liquid. Her small lips were pert and soft like the leaves of cherry blossoms. She was a beautiful child who stared into the camera with a sense of expectation and curiosity about what life would bring. The magnitude of his loss hit him. He felt gutted. So much had happened while he was away. How could he have ever thought his disappearance wouldn’t matter?

  “You want another cup of coffee, Mr. David?”

  Annie’s gentle voice brought him back. She stood next to him, pointing at his still half-full cup on the nearby side table. “It’s sat a long time. Probably done gotten cold. You want a fresh cup?”

  Yes. He needed warmth, to drink it and hold it, to stave off the cold that was creeping around inside him.

  “Thank you,” he said, then asked: “Why didn’t Lilian tell me that Rachel needed me?”

  “The first of the Seven Sins,” she said promptly.

  Pride, he thought. Puritan pride. They were friends. Like sisters, for years. But when it came down to it, Lilian didn’t think Rachel was good enough. And it didn’t matter that Rachel was carrying my child. She didn’t just turn her back on her friend—but on her own flesh and blood ... because of pride.

  He fingered the small photograph, still thinking of Lilian.

  Just one more sign that I didn’t really know her. No more than I know Gem.

  His thoughts slowed.

  Gem .. .

  Who was he to judge her? After what he’d done? After what Lilian had done? Gem was his one remaining blood relative. They’d never made much effort to get along, but now—he wanted to. Suddenly, he was determined to.

  But first, he had something else to do. A plan fully formed had presented itself to him. And to his tired mind, the plan made sense. He’d failed his father, his sister, and his child. What was done was done and they were gone. He hadn’t done right by them, but he could still do right by Rachel, do what he should have done to begin with.

  Marry her.

  Yes ... that’s what he had to do. A sense of relief, as well as of inevitability, swept over him. He saw with startling clarity that he was not in love with Rachel. He felt at most a deep affection for her. She could certainly make him desire to touch her more than any other woman he had ever known, but lust had nothing to do with love. He saw that while part of his decision to marry her grew from a sense of guilt, another part stemmed from his awareness that she was a tie to his roots. They were bonded by a common history, one of shared pain as well as pleasure. After living for four years as a stranger in a strange land, he was desperately lonely and needed someone with whom he could be himself.

  His plan required him to give up his life in Philadelphia, but he knew with sudden, brilliant clarity that he would not miss it. What he desired most was a new start. He could
do that with Rachel. When he left town this time, he would take her with him.

  The idea of marrying someone he was not in love with seemed familiar. Why? Then he thought of his mother and Lilian. Inaccessible husbands, neglected wives. One-sided marriages were the McKay way.

  He’d long ago stopped trying to understand his parents’ relationship. Or rather, he thought he had understood it and because that understanding brought him no comfort, he’d finally left the matter alone.

  Lila had suffered under Augustus. She was lithe, pretty, and accomplished. But her skin likened to chocolate, not honey; her hair to wool, not silk—and those were the deciding factors. She adored her tall, light-skinned husband. There was no sign, however, that he loved her. Quite the contrary: His eyes filled with resentment when she entered the room. He dismissed her love but demanded her loyalty. Any respect he showed her was due to her station as his wife, not her worth as an individual. And any need on his part to love or be loved was satisfied in the arms of the high-toned mistresses he took on with a vengeance.

  “Why do you have to humiliate me?” David had once overheard his mother cry. He’d been walking past his father’s office door. It was shut, and normally, you couldn’t hear a thing through it. But his parents must’ve been standing just on the other side. Augustus was trying to get Lila to leave. She’d broken into his inner sanctum and he wanted her out. She had no intention of going, not without saying her peace. David listened with a sense of shame.

  “I can’t take it much longer—”

  “You’ll take whatever I give you. You wanted me. You got me. Now, leave.”

  “Augustus, please—”

  “Leave!”

  David hurried away, ducking into the parlor just in time. He peeked out. His mother stepped outside his father’s office. She turned to look at Augustus and he shut the door in her face. As David watched, she bent her head and wept. She muffled her cries with a handkerchief.

  His blood pounded in his head. He was filled with hate and shame—hate for his father and shame that he couldn’t protect his mother.

  Why did Daddy marry her? If that’s the way he’s going to treat her?

  She straightened up and held her small head erect.

  That’s right, Mama. Don’t let him get you down.

  Was there ever a time when it had been good between them? When his father had treated her with love and respect? David searched his memory for instances and found precious few.

  His mother went toward the kitchen, then paused on the threshold and turned back. Her face had a peculiar look when she did that. He’d noticed that she never entered the kitchen when Annie was in there. She and Annie rarely spoke to one another, exchanging words only when it was necessary.

  She started back toward the front of the house. David withdrew into the parlor and went behind the door. He didn’t want her to see him standing there, spying on her. Through the crack between the door and its frame, he watched as she passed and went up the steps.

  He’d once heard his father mutter that marriage to a “high yella” would’ve helped him businesswise, would’ve brought him good social contacts. No doubt Augustus believed that and the wisdom of the times backed him, for it dictated that everyone in the race “marry up.” But if that was the case, then one had to wonder, why had he married Lila?

  David had heard rumors and he’d done simple arithmetic. It took a woman nine months after marriage to bear a child. Why had she needed only six with him?

  So what if he married you because he had to, he wanted to say, as he watched her climb the stairs. That doesn’t give him the right to treat you this way.

  That was the message he wanted to give—and one day would. But he had to find the right words. The wrong words would hurt her, would make her feel cheap, and God knows that’s not what he wanted to do. He wanted, if anything, to relieve her of the burden of keeping a secret. A secret he already knew. Mama, it’s okay. I understand, he wanted to say. Someday, Daddy’s going to know what he had in you. Someday, he’ll be sorry.

  He’d stood there with clenched fists, thinking that yes, in time he’d find the right words … the words and the courage. But time ran out before he found either one.

  Lila died under the wheels of a trolley car on Thanksgiving Day in November 1920, eight months after they’d moved to Strivers’ Row, one week after he’d overheard the scene in his father’s office.

  On the eve of her funeral, David watched as his father approached Lila’s casket in the parlor. Augustus broke down. His tears ran freely. In his remaining months, he wandered through the house, a tired, insignificant-looking old man. Without Lila’s love and adoration to inflate him, he seemed to shrink. He withdrew, disapproving of any “outsider” who stepped through the door, and filled the house with his mournful spirit. He held his children to him with a dark magnetism that silenced all thoughts of resistance. By June, he was gone, too.

  David now resolved that his marriage would be different. He would give his wife attention and affection. He would do his best to be a good husband. His past neglect of Rachel would ensure his future care of her.

  His mind made up, he decided that the marriage would take place as soon as possible, but his plan for a fresh beginning would have to wait. Even if he did manage to accept the idea of Lilian’s death as a suicide, he still wanted Sweet out of the house. Once Sweet was gone, a decision would have to be made about the place. Glancing around the room, David knew he would never sell the house, but he couldn’t live there either. He hadn’t lived in it long before going south, but in that short time, it had accumulated too many memories. And goodness only knows how long he could stave off questions about his past if he remained in town. He would retire Annie—she would hate that, but he had no choice—rent the house (with Annie in it, if necessary), and he and Rachel would start anew.

  Later that day, he went to Annie in the laundry room and told her: “I just thought you should know. I plan to ask Miss Rachel to marry me.”

  Annie was folding towels. She was quiet at first, getting used to the idea, he supposed. Then she looked at him. “Do you love her?”

  He was quiet for a moment. “I care for her.”

  She took a deep breath and went back to folding. “So, it’s really ‘cause of the baby?”

  “Sort of.” He folded his arms across his chest. “And because I need someone. I can’t stay in Harlem—don’t ask me why—and when I leave, I’m going to take her with me.” He touched her elbow. “Don’t you like her? I thought you’d be ... well, happy, to hear that I’m going to do right by her.”

  “Two wrongs don’t make a right,” she said and went back to folding a bath towel, taking extra care to match the corners. “I’d like to see you marry somebody you love. I know that girl’s been crazy about you since she first laid eyes on you. She so fulla love for you, she cain’t see straight. And right now, it prob’ly won’t much matter to her that your feelings ain’t the same. I mean—you ain’t lied to her or nothing, has you, saying something you don’t mean?”

  “No, I’ve been honest.”

  “Well, I guess she don’t know it yet—or she don’t care—but she’ll find out. It can be awful hard on a woman living with a man that don’t love her. All them feelings going out and nothing coming in ... it’s kinda like starving.”

  He thought again of Lila and Augustus, of Lilian and Sweet. “I’ll take good care of her. It doesn’t have to turn out badly. Maybe the love’ll come later.”

  “Maybe ... But maybe, it won’t.” She looked at him. “You really think it’s gonna come with you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, you best be thinking long and hard about it, Mr. David, ‘cause when you say them words ‘I do,’ you cain’t never take them back.”

  She picked up another towel and spread it out flat on the countertop. “And what you gonna do about the house?”

  He licked his lips. “I wanted to talk to you about that. Annie, like I said, I can’t
stay here—but I’m going to make sure Mr. Jameson’s out of the house.”

  “He ain’t going nowhere if he finds out you ain’t gonna stay here.”

  “He’ll leave. One way or another, he’ll go. What I want to talk to you about is what happens after he’s gone.”

  She blinked, her eyes wide with sudden understanding. “Don’t tell me you gonna sell this place—”

  “No ... No, I’m not. But I am going to have to rent it out.”

  Panic flashed across her face. “Oh my God, you gonna put me out?”

  “No, of course not.”

  Stunned and hurt, she put a hand to her mouth. A little sound escaped. She blinked and turned away. He put an arm around her shoulder.

  “Don’t worry, please. No matter what, you’re going to be able to stay here.”

  She just shook her head, soundlessly.

  “I am not going to put you out,” he repeated. “And I’m not going to let anyone else do it either.”

  She put a trembling hand on the counter to steady herself. “Oh, Mr. David, you don’t understand. You just don’t understand.” She turned her wrinkled face toward him. Tears shimmered in her eyes. “This house,” she whispered. “This house—I done spent more’n halfa my life taking care of you and your fam’ly. I don’t wanna work for nobody else. I won’t work for nobody else.”

  “Annie, calm down.”

  “You just don’t understand.”

  “I do understand—”

  “No, you don’t. You don’t understand nothing—not nothing.”

  She turned away. He let his hands drop and sighed.

  The problem was, he did understand. He understood oh, so well.

  25. The Proposal

  The sun hung low in the sky with a dull, metallic gleam. The air was cool and damp and looked like it would stay that way forever. It was that time of year when it’s hard to believe there ever was or ever will be another summer.

  David began his day with another visit to Lilian’s grave. He stood there for a long, long time. A tidal wave of grief and despair surged inside him. He tried to contain his pain, his hands clasped tightly before him, but as the emotional pressure in his chest swelled and expanded, he felt as though he might explode. Closing his eyes, he let the pain wash over him. He rolled with it, like a man tossed and tumbled by the sea. His chest constricted; he couldn’t breathe. And like a man adrift, he wondered if he would ever reach shore again. Finally, the pain subsided. Numbness set in. He sank down on his haunches by the grave.