Without thinking and without a word, I slipped from the grasp of my two best friends in the world and walked away from that place toward the noise of the thunder, almost as if I could escape into the clouds and never come back. The singing continued without me, and every few steps I would increase my pace in hopes of outrunning the melody of those words. “We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise . . .” Who could praise when death had wounded the soul?
By the time I reached the woods, all I could hear was the trickle of the brook that ran through the trees. I slipped my shoes and stockings off and walked in, letting the cool water run across my feet. I didn’t flinch when Luke walked up to the water’s edge.
“Jessie?” He didn’t even bother to take his shoes off, just splashed on in after me. “Jessie, what can I do to help you?”
“What can you do?” I turned to face him, all those hours of lost sleep suddenly clinging to me like the wet summer heat. “What can anyone do? He’s gone, Luke. He ain’t comin’ back.”
He dropped his head and stared at his feet, his hands on his hips. When he lifted his head again, his eyes were wet with the tears I wished I could cry. “I know he ain’t.”
“Then what do you want me to ask you to do? You want me to ask you to say it’s all goin’ to be okay? Because I already know the answer to that. It ain’t!”
“Not for a while, maybe. We’ve got mournin’ to do, sure enough. But someday we’ll have to find some way to get back where we were.”
“And how’re we goin’ to do that? Stand by and watch the Klan burn this town and take it all to hell with them? Let Delmar Custis and them boys run roughshod over colored folk in Calloway while Sheriff Clancy does nothin’? Are we supposed to just stand by till every tree hereabouts has a colored boy hangin’ from it like decorations on a Christmas tree?”
My words made him cringe, and he took two steps closer to me. A bolt of lightning lit up the sky, and it occurred to me fleetingly that both of us might just get electrocuted in the brook and that would take care of everything in one fell swoop.
“I’m not sayin’ we’re supposed to not do anything, Jessie. But I can see what it is you want to do, and I can tell you right now that it ain’t the answer.”
“I didn’t say what I think we should do.”
“I know you. I know what you’re thinkin’. You’re the same girl that marched on over to a barnful of Klan that night the colored church burnt down.” He took a step toward me so we were face-to-face. “You’re the same girl who shot at Klan when you were only thirteen, and you’re the same girl that’s had hate growin’ in her heart toward those men ever since. Don’t you tell me no different.”
“I ain’t about to.”
He tipped my chin up so I had to look at him. “Jessie, this ain’t the answer. I don’t know just yet what is, but what you’re doin’, what you want to do . . . this ain’t it.”
I slipped away from his touch and watched a school of tadpoles swim past my feet. “Well, singin’ praises to God ain’t no answer neither.” I figured I knew the look I’d see on Luke’s face, so I didn’t seek it out. It was bound to be the kind of look that made my heart hurt, and I wasn’t inclined to gaze on it just then.
He didn’t say anything for a few minutes, and we stood there alone in that brook with a foot separating our bodies but miles separating our hearts. “I don’t know,” he finally said, his words coming out like he’d just run a marathon. “I don’t know about much of anythin’ no more, least of all about you. Or about us.”
I don’t know what I was thinking then. For all I know, maybe I’d lost all ability to think sense at all. But when I opened my mouth next, all that came out was “Well, maybe you got some thinkin’ to do.”
Standing there in those woods with the heat of anger and sorrow suffocating us, those words came out sounding like the death of all we’d thought we’d be together. My next breath caught in my throat, and as he turned away from me and walked off alone, I wondered if I’d ever see him again.
* * *
Once someone becomes a part of your life like Luke had in mine, that person’s absence steals part of you, and for the next hour as I made my way home, I felt like more and more of me drained away. Momma, Daddy, and Gemma had gone to the reception at Noah’s aunt’s house, so no one saw me when I stumbled up the stairs into bed. The lack of sleep took me over the second my head hit the pillow, a sweet relief from the wreck and ruin my life had tumbled into. I slept for sixteen hours straight, but when I woke up, it took me only sixteen seconds to remember the sort of mess I’d left behind. My body felt numb as I dressed, but my mind was anything but, and I wished I could stop the endless stream of horrible memories that ran through my brain.
When I finally managed to steady myself and stumble downstairs, Momma broke into tears at the sight of me. She held out her arms to me like she had so many times when I was a child. “Baby, come here.”
I ran to her just as I had back then and clung to her while we wet each other’s shoulders with our tears. The sleep had cleared my head in such a way as to make the whole of the past week seem too crystal clear to manage, and I spilled out all my sadness onto her. By the time I stopped bawling in her ear about how I couldn’t live with the pain, how I was so angry inside it hurt, and how I’d let it all ruin everything between me and Luke, she was almost smiling at me.
“At least I got my baby back,” she murmured. “You can still talk the hind leg off a horse.”
“Momma, this ain’t no time for jokes.”
“No, it ain’t.” She shoved me down into a kitchen chair and went about getting me a plate of food. “But it also ain’t time to give up on life and happiness, either.” She slid the plate full of chicken salad and diced tomatoes in front of me. “This ain’t much for gettin’-out-of-bed food, but you need somethin’ right away, and this is all I’ve got ready. You’re pale as a ghost and five pounds lighter.”
I was hungry enough to eat lard, so I obeyed her without a fight. She sat across from me and watched me so closely I thought at any second she’d pick up my fork and start feeding me. When I was finished, she reached a hand across the table to grab my own. “Baby, you got to tell me what’s goin’ on with you, you hear? Why’s this got you so eaten up inside?”
“That ain’t no mystery.”
“But we’ve seen bad things before in our time, and I ain’t seen you this bad off. Even after Mr. Poe left us—God rest his soul—you weren’t like this.”
I lowered my eyes to the table and shook my head slowly. “Nothin’s ever been like this. Nothin’.” I fingered my skirt nervously with my free hand for a minute, then looked up at her. “There’s one thing to lose somebody you love. There’s another to see them hangin’ dead from a tree, all beaten and bruised. That don’t leave you the same.”
“Oh, Jessilyn. Baby, think of what you just said.”
I narrowed my eyes at her quizzically.
“You’re right, there ain’t nothin’ like seein’ a man hangin’ dead from a tree, all beaten and bruised. You’re right, that don’t leave you the same. That’s what I’ve been tellin’ you for all these years. The day I realized that’s just what my sin did to Jesus Christ didn’t leave me the same, neither.”
“Momma . . .”
“Jessie, you think on that. That’s all I ask is that you think on what I’m sayin’. Right now you’re feelin’ like you’ll never heal. Right now you’re all full of anger and sadness. And right now’s when you need to think more and more about what I’m sayin’ because there ain’t nothin’ none of us can do to help you. Not even you can help you. You need help from somewhere that you refuse to turn to.” She slid my plate out of the way and leaned toward me as close as she could across the table. “But whenever you’re tempted to think of Noah hangin’ from that tree, you think of Jesus there. You think of that because He did all that willingly and He did all that for you. Noah Jarvis knew that, and if you want to make his death worth somethin’, then you d
o what I’m tellin’ you.”
She let go of my hand, sat back in her chair, and changed the subject so fast I got whiplash. “Now, let me ask you one more thing. Do you want to see Luke?”
“I want to see him so bad it hurts, but he won’t want to see me.”
“Funny, then, that he’s pacin’ out in the front lawn.”
I hopped up and peered out the window, and there he was, wearing a circle in the brown grass.
“But, Momma—”
“Jessie, love ain’t so weak as you seem to think it is. He came over lookin’ for you last night and asked if I’d call him the minute you woke up. So I did as soon as I heard your floorboards creak.”
I could have jumped out the window for all I felt inside. I ran past Momma, out the door, and into his arms.
I wanted to stay there forever.
Chapter 17
I watched Gemma in the mirror as she pinned the last piece of hair in place, and then I helped her fasten the veil on just so. Gemma’s dress was simple, one that could be cut down later and worn to church, but that veil was a work of art. Momma had made it with more love and care than anyone else could have, sewing each bead on perfectly. I lifted the gauzy material over her head and let it flutter down across her face, and the second I did, all those pent-up tears started to flood my eyes. I looked away to keep her from seeing, but it was useless trying to hide anything from her.
She flipped the veil from her face and stood quickly, pulling me to her.
“Don’t,” I said. “I’ll cry on your dress.”
“Ain’t no tears that ever stained anything.” She pulled me in so tight, I could barely breathe. “Besides, I got my own tears on here already.”
We were a tangle of brown and white, she and I, bonded together by love if not by blood, and the agony of losing her spilled out of the little box in my mind I’d put it in and dripped down over my heart.
As if she could read my mind, Gemma whispered, “I ain’t never really leavin’ you, Jessilyn. You know that.”
I nodded, but that was all I could do.
“I’ll be just down the road, and anytime you need me—and I mean anytime—you just come on over, you hear? Or you call. Tal’s havin’ a phone put in at the new house. After all, a doctor’s got to have some way of hearin’ from people.”
I smiled over her shoulder. “You’re ramblin’.”
“So what if I am.” She pulled away and swiped at the tears on her cheeks. “A girl’s allowed to do whatever she wants on her weddin’ day, ain’t she?”
Momma came in and characteristically burst into tears the second she saw us standing there together, Gemma all in white, both of us tear-streaked.
“Don’t you start too!” Gemma planted her hands on her hips. “I already done told her it ain’t like I’m leavin’ town or nothin’.”
“It ain’t only that.” Momma walked over and grabbed Gemma’s hands, holding them out so she could get a good look at her. “Just look at my girl. All grown-up and gettin’ married. I never thought I’d see the day.”
“Why?” I gave Gemma a playful nudge. “You think she wouldn’t never find someone that’d have her?”
“Jessilyn, I didn’t mean any such thing.”
“Oh, she’s only teasin’,” Gemma said. “You ought to know her well enough for that.” She left us and went digging around in the chest of drawers she and I had shared up to this day. Then she turned and handed us both small packages. “These are for you.”
Momma shook her head. “It’s the bride supposed to get gifts on her weddin’ day, not the momma.”
“But I wouldn’t have had no momma if it weren’t for you.”
Gemma’s words cut through the heavy atmosphere like a knife, and I thought my poor momma would burst out in a daylong cry any second. But she bolstered herself up stronger than I’d thought her capable, took a deep breath, and untied the bow. Inside was the prettiest little prayer book anybody’d ever seen. Each page was pressed with dried flowers and had a psalm written in Gemma’s best handwriting. Momma turned the pages so carefully, you would have thought she was holding a baby in her palm, and by the time she got to the last page, all that valiant work she’d put in to keep from crying just a minute earlier went to waste.
Daddy heard her sob from the hallway and came into the room with a roll of his eyes. “Here she goes!” He put his arm around her like she was a mental patient. “Come on, Sadie, honey. Let’s go get you some ice water.”
It didn’t help much that he’d taken her away, though. Gemma and I were still left there together in a room that was permeated with sadness on a day that was supposed to be nothing but joyful. I fingered the bow on my package, and Gemma gave me a nudge.
“May as well get it over with,” she said with a sniff. “Let’s get the cryin’ all out before your daddy gives me away.”
“Don’t say it like that.”
“That’s the way they always say it.”
“We ain’t never givin’ you away, Gemma Teague.”
She crossed her arms and shook her head at me. “Then what exactly should we call it?”
“I don’t know.” My knees were suddenly too shaky to hold me straight, and I slid down to my bed in a heap, sure to put a wrinkle in the dress Momma had finished making me only last night. “I mean, it ain’t like we’re givin’ you up at all. It’s more like we’re loanin’ you out.”
She stared at me for a second and then tipped her head back to laugh at me. “Okay, Jessie, I’ll let the preacher know he’s to ask, ‘Who loans this woman to be his wife?’” She must have found herself pretty funny then because she slid down next to me and laughed like she’d never be able to stop, and I couldn’t help but join in. When Daddy came in a minute later, he stood at the doorway looking at us with wide eyes.
“You girls done lost your minds?”
I stopped giggling long enough to say, “Maybe.”
There’s no way of keeping a straight face when you’re around laughter like we were having just then, and Daddy was no exception to that rule. A smile raised one side of his mouth, making his dimple stand out. “Well, the preacher’s here and guests are all spillin’ in, so you best try and get yourselves ready so’s you don’t laugh yourselves down that aisle.”
“Yes’r.”
I lay back on the bed with the sort of long sigh that follows a good laugh and reached out to take Gemma’s hand in my own, holding it up in the air. “Brown and white. We’re two of the oddest sisters a body’s ever seen.” I brought her hand down and rested it on my cheek. “Two of the best kind there ever was.”
She stared at me for a second with all kinds of emotions running through her eyes in ways that said everything words couldn’t; then she stood and hauled me to my feet. “Just look at us. We’re a mess. Your momma’s gonna have a fit.”
“Oh, we’re fine.” I gave the back of her dress a few swats with my hand to beat out the wrinkles and then straightened her veil. “You make a beautiful bride, Miss Gemma Teague.”
Gemma nodded at the bed, where her gift to me lay still untouched. “You didn’t open yours.”
Momma stuck her head in, recovered from her crying jag. “Gemma, honey, I think we’re about ready for you.”
“I’ll open it later, okay?”
She nodded, then took one long look around our bedroom. “I spent a lot of good years here, Jessilyn.”
I swallowed hard, hoping those tears would stop tickling the back of my throat. “I know.”
“I sure have been blessed.”
“What God in all the world wouldn’t bless someone like you, Gemma? There ain’t nothin’ about you ain’t worth blessin’. Tal Pritchett’s a lucky man.”
She waved me off with one hand. “Ain’t nobody on this earth that’s perfect. Sure enough, you ain’t always felt like blessin’ me. Maybe more like blessin’ me out!”
“Well . . . you do snore like a band saw. I reckon maybe I should warn Tal about that.”
&nbs
p; Gemma glared at me and tossed my pillow into my face.
“Momma’s gonna get at you for messin’ up my hair.”
“Oh no, she ain’t. It’s my weddin’ day, after all.” She hooked her arm through mine and looked at our reflection in the mirror.
There had been a time not so long ago when our reflection would have shown two girls in pigtails and braids. I remembered the day we’d first moved her into my room, that day I’d given up my bed to her and slept next to hers, waking up every hour to check on my best friend, who had just lost her momma and daddy. And now here we were, grown women, facing a whole new life ahead. I wondered where it would take us.
She must have been thinking the same thing because she shook her head with a sigh. “Jessilyn, where’d the time go?”
I had nothing to say in response. I only turned to smile at her and squeezed her arm tight. “Guess we’d better get goin’.” After all, I figured if we didn’t, we’d be a soggy mess before Gemma Teague ever had the chance to become Gemma Pritchett.
The second we walked outside and Tal caught sight of Gemma, his eyes lit up so bright, it was like his very soul was shining out through them, and I was glad to see it.
Gemma deserved to be loved that way.
As I stood in the front yard at Gemma’s side, listening to her preacher talk about marriage and how God sees the vows two people make to each other, I looked around at those gathered at our home to witness the occasion.
Most of the people that stood on the front lawn of this white folks’ home were much darker than those who lived here. Outside of us Lassiters, the only white people were Luke, Miss Cleta, Buddy and Dolly, Mrs. Tinker and her children, Mr. Poppleberry from the pharmacy, and Mr. Hanley, the grocer, with his wife.
Fact was, we hadn’t made too many friends in this town by taking Gemma in. Oh, some folks didn’t mind so much as others, but then it takes a strong constitution to actually admit it to other white folks, so most of them never did. Plenty of the colored folk kept away too. It was no secret we had our detractors on both sides of the rainbow, but just now I didn’t care so much. We had those nearest and dearest on hand to watch Gemma wed, and that was all we’d ever needed.
Catching Moondrops Page 19
