All the Days Past, All the Days to Come

by Mildred D. Taylor

  Then the scream came.

  We both quickly turned.

  “Oh, my God!” cried J.D. “She’s gone overboard! Justine’s gone overboard!”

  I felt the pressure of Flynn’s hand leave mine as he let go of the rod and ran over to the side of the boat. Without hesitation, he tossed off his shoes and jumped into the water after Justine. The rod, now belonging to whatever was towing it, was torn from my grasp, and as the rain pounded down, I stood frozen, waiting for Flynn to come back over the side of the boat. Señor Peña and Jorge were already at the side, tow lines in hand, peering over. J.D. was as useless as I was, muttering over and over again, incoherent words.

  I managed to move. The boat was rocking.

  “Get back, Cassie!” ordered Señor Peña.

  I ignored him and hurried to the side of the boat and looked over. I could see Flynn in the rush of foamy waters swimming with one arm over his sister’s chest, towing her back to the boat, the other treading the waves. Jorge, with a line tied around his waist, climbed over the side, rope in hand, splashed into the water, and looped the rope around Justine. Jorge pushed Justine upward from underneath. Señor Peña pulled from the deck. “J.D., help me!” yelled Señor Peña. But J.D. remained useless. I ran over, caught the line, and together we managed to get Justine’s heaving and water-weighted body back onto the deck of the boat, knocking both Señor Peña and me down. As Justine lay on the deck she coughed up water and blurted out, “My brother! My brother! Where’s my brother?”

  I jumped up and looked over the side. I didn’t see Flynn. “Where is he?” I screamed. Jorge, wild-eyed and still on the boat’s lifeline, looked around in dismay. “Where is he?”

  Jorge dove back into the water.

  “Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” I found myself screaming, crying, as Jorge dove repeatedly and each time came up alone.

  Then, from some distant place, I heard Señor Peña order his son back onto the boat, and I heard someone whose voice was mine cry out, “No!” And a body that was mine leapt over the side of the boat into the freezing water.

  I had to find Flynn. I had to find my husband.

  This man.

  GOING HOME

  (1951–1952)

  I was in Colorado.

  I had come in the spring through the Colorado Rockies on a bus from L.A. I had witnessed the majestic peaks of the Rockies still capped with snow, the emerald plush grasses of the mountain meadows dotted with bluebells and yellow lilies, and even a late spring snowstorm that coated the pines and brought even more splendor to the land. After three years of sunshine or occasional rain in Los Angeles, with no hope of snow, and, before that, two years in the flatland of Toledo, the high peaks of the Rockies, the crisp air, the altitude, and the prospect of snow were welcome to me. When the bus pulled into Denver for a rest stop, I got off, and although I had a ticket all the way to Toledo, with a change of buses in Chicago, I did not get back on.

  I had not made any plans to stop in Colorado, but I didn’t think twice about my decision. I saw a colored woman cleaning the station restroom and asked her if she knew a good place I could stay. “You got the money, the Rossonian Hotel. It’s a colored hotel over in Five Points, that’s where I live, most other colored folks too. Lots of famous colored folks stayed at that hotel—Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Duke Ellington. Couldn’t get rooms at the white hotels downtown. Could play there, but couldn’t stay there.” She laughed. “You know how it is.”

  I thanked the woman and took a taxi to the Rossonian. That evening I studied the brochures about Colorado I had picked up at the bus station, and the next morning I walked the Five Points neighborhood, then took a bus to downtown Denver and walked it too. I passed the bus station, walked to the train station, then back toward Civic Park and the gold-domed capitol. I took in the mountains west of Denver that I had come through the day before. I wanted to be nearer to them. The following morning I boarded a bus and headed to the university town of Boulder, nestled at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. The bus rolled through the countryside of the plains dotted with ranch houses, horses and cattle roaming freely. As the snowcapped mountain range spreading from north to south as far as the eye could see drew nearer, the bus driver announced that we were approaching the scenic overview of Boulder Valley. The bus was on an incline and only the mountains were in view, not the town. Then the bus reached the peak of the hill and began to descend. The town of Boulder lay below. The bold red-tiled roofs of the University of Colorado at the immediate entry of the town were striking in the distance.

  It was all spectacular.

  The bus driver pointed toward the mountains known as the Flatirons, which were now so close it seemed as if I could reach out and touch them. Above, the sky was cloudless, a cobalt blue. As I stared out at the beauty before me, at the pristine town, the cobalt sky, the rugged Flatirons, the infinite mountain range, for a few moments, I forgot my sorrow.

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  After the boating trip, Uncle Hammer and Aunt Loretta had been called, and they had come to Los Angeles. I hardly spoke during the days following. Uncle Hammer took charge of things. It was Uncle Hammer who called all the family to let them know what had happened. It was Uncle Hammer who claimed Flynn’s body when it was recovered after Señor Peña and Jorge had pulled me, crazed and delirious, from the water. Another boat had approached, and divers, along with Jorge, had assisted in bringing Flynn from the water. At the time I knew nothing of this. Flynn had been taken to the other boat.

  I had been taken to Flynn’s and my house, the house that was supposed to be our home for years to come. Mrs. Hendersen had come with all her ladies, and they had sat with me through the night. The next day Uncle Hammer and Aunt Loretta had arrived. I moved in a daze. Uncle Hammer, along with Señor and Señora Peña and Mrs. Hendersen, arranged the services. Neither Justine nor I was in any condition to do it. I attended the services, but I never looked on Flynn again. My beautiful husband, gone. His body, dragged down by the sea.

  I just couldn’t bear it.

  With the services over, Uncle Hammer and Aunt Loretta tried to get me to return to Oakland with them, but I refused. Mama and Papa called from Jackson and told me to come on back home, back home to Mississippi, and Big Ma said, “Come on, baby, come back home to the land,” and calls came from Stacey and Dee, and they said, “Come on home to Toledo, be with us,” and calls and letters too came from Christopher-John and Man, who said, “Come on home, back to us.” But I couldn’t go home, not yet. Not back to Toledo, not back to the land, not back to the family. I was too empty, too filled with grief. I knew everyone who loved me wanted to wrap their love around me, but I was not ready for that, not yet. I wanted to grieve on my own. The love I wanted was gone.

  And, in the end, Uncle Hammer let me be alone. He looked at me and said, “You’re my blood, and I know you’re strong, Cassie. You always were. You have to do this thing the way you figure you have to do it. You going to hurt like hell for a long time, but in the end you’ll be stronger because of it. You deal with this the way you figure you’ve got to. You need me, you let me know. I won’t be far away.”

  I assured him I would. After that, Uncle Hammer and Aunt Loretta left. Aunt Loretta wanted to stay longer to help me heal but Uncle Hammer said no. He understood me. He understood I did not want anyone to help me heal. I just wanted to be alone.

  And I was.

  There was no describing the loneliness, no way to expel it. It was a shroud that enwrapped me and cast doubt of living over my whole being, but somehow deep inside me I knew I had to go on. Less than a month after the boat trip, I packed up my few belongings and left Los Angeles, leaving the household items to Justine and the leased house to its owners. I boarded a bus and headed home to those I loved, but not really wanting to see them yet. I knew I wasn’t ready, and when I arrived in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado I felt that I ha
d been given a haven for my grief, at least for a while.

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  I stayed in Colorado through the summer. I got a room in a boarding house near the university campus and enrolled in two political science courses. I registered under my maiden name of Logan. I did not want to talk about Flynn or explain to anyone about him or think about his drowning. I spoke to no one at all about my husband. I figured to keep my mind busy. With my political science professor’s help, I was able to get a part-time job at the university doing clerical work. It didn’t pay much, but it helped with my expenses and occupied my time. It also helped keep my mind off Flynn.

  When I wasn’t in class or at work, I often walked to Chautauqua Park situated right at the foot of the Flatirons. Sometimes I would take a sandwich and eat there alone and envision Flynn and the dream of his land. Sometimes I would hike partway up the trail that led to the top of the Flatirons or the road close to the trail leading up Flagstaff Mountain, but I never walked all the way up. I promised myself I would do it someday, go all the way up to the top of Flagstaff and the Flatirons, but I wasn’t ready for that yet, not without Flynn. In fact, I wasn’t ready for much of anything without Flynn, but I knew I had to go on, so, as much as I could, I blocked out thoughts of him. To think of Flynn, to dwell on him, was too painful. When thoughts of Flynn came rushing in, I pushed them out again. I tried to concentrate on what was now.

  In the evenings I turned to my studies, reading the assigned books and articles, and writing papers. While writing one of those papers, I felt a sharp pain in my wrist. At first, I paid no attention to it, but then felt the pain again and rubbed my wrist. Right beneath the skin was a lump. I didn’t think much of it, but a few days later when I awoke, my wrist was throbbing and the bump was no longer concealed beneath the skin, but clearly visible. It made writing difficult. It also made typing difficult, and a couple of days after it protruded, another clerk in the office noticed it.

  “You ought to get that checked, Cassie,” she said.

  I glanced at the lump and shrugged it off. “It’s okay. It doesn’t hurt that much.”

  “I’m serious. You can go over to the medical center. It’s right off campus. They shouldn’t charge that much.”

  Initially, I didn’t take her advice, but when the lump seemed to expand and the pain in my wrist intensified, I went to the clinic. The doctor looked at my wrist and felt the lump, which rotated almost like a ball underneath my skin as he probed it. “It seems to be a ganglion,” he said. “Nothing serious, just some fatty tissue that’s popped up, but it could become awkward and more painful to your wrist if it continues to grow.”

  “So what should I do about it?”

  “Well,” the doctor said, releasing my arm and leaning back in his chair, “we could just slam a book on it to flatten it out.” He smiled. “People have done that. Unfortunately, though, the lump usually grows back, so I don’t recommend that option. What I suggest is that we remove it surgically. There is little chance that it will regrow. However, it if it’s not removed, it could keep growing and be quite painful.”

  The following week I had the ganglion removed. I stayed overnight at the hospital, but was out the next day. Although my wrist was bandaged and my fingers were swollen, within a few days my hand began to return to normal and the pain in my wrist subsided. After a few days the doctor removed the bandage and said everything looked fine, but he wanted to see me again in a few weeks. When I received the bill for medical services thus far, I paid it in full, but when I returned to the center for the follow-up appointment, a secretary checked my name in the files, then, looking uneasy, told me that the doctor I wished to see was no longer at the center. When I asked to see another doctor, she told me that wouldn’t be possible.

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “Why can’t I see another doctor?”

  The secretary shoved my name card back into the file. “It’s just not possible. You’ll be receiving a letter.” Then, dismissing me, she swiveled in her chair and turned her back on me. The next day I received the letter from the medical center administrator stating that the medical center’s services were no longer available to me. No reason was given why.

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  I again went to the medical center. I demanded to see the director, the man who had written the letter. A different secretary told me he was not available. I asked when the director would be available. I was told I would have to call and make an appointment, that she couldn’t make one for me until she checked with him. Each day after that I called the medical center, and each day the director was not available. I was told his appointment schedule was full. I was getting nowhere. Finally, I stopped calling, but this thing really bothered me. It was not only the exclusion that bothered me, but even more the fact that they had given me no reason. It was more a matter of “because we said so.” Of course, in the back of my mind, I suspected what that reason was. I needed for them to say it to my face. I wrote a letter to the medical center, outlined all that had happened, and requested an explanation. Within the week I received a letter in reply and was told that they had reviewed my file and their decision to exclude me was final. They stood firm on their decision. I could no longer be treated at the center. Again, they offered no explanation why.

  I decided on a different approach to get the answers I needed. I went to see my political science professor. Dr. Skurnik was somewhat of an intimidating man and demanded full concentration from every student in his seminars. He was from Germany and had immigrated to the United States before the war. I was put off by his gruff manner at first, by his German accent, but for some reason, maybe because I was the only colored person in the class, he extended his hand to me. After Rowland Tomlinson, I was wary concerning older men who took a seemingly helpful interest in me, but Dr. Skurnik had never asked or even suggested in his actions that he wanted anything in return, except that I be a good student.

  “So, this is all of it?” Dr. Skurnik asked after reading the letters from the medical center. “And what do you want now, Miss Logan? What do you want to happen?”

  “I want to know why they will no longer give me medical care.”

  “Do you believe you know why?”

  “Yes, I believe it’s because of my race. Everyone there had always been pleasant to me before. They did the operation on my wrist and they were fine then too. There was no reason for them not to see me. I’d paid my bill. I don’t know where all this other nonsense came from. I mean, it was out of the blue. I hadn’t felt this way in Colorado before. It’s an insult in a place I thought maybe was different. . . .”

  “Colorado, with all its clean air and brilliant blue skies and all its mountain beauty?” There was mocking in Dr. Skurnik’s tone. I didn’t respond, and he went on. “So, what else do you want besides knowing why you are no longer welcome there? Do you want them to include you again, for you to be able to get medical treatment there at the center?”

  “I think more than that, Dr. Skurnik, I want an apology.”

  “An apology,” Dr. Skurnik repeated. “Maybe that’s what the world wants too.” He was silent for several moments, then suddenly stood. “Please, you stay here, Miss Logan.” He picked up the letters. “I need to see an acquaintance down the hall. I’ll bring these back to you.” He waved the letters as he went out the door.

  While I waited for Dr. Skurnik to return I went to the window and gazed out at the grandeur of the mountains. I reflected on the hope they brought me when I first came through them, how I felt when I had seen them from the plains of Denver. I wanted to believe there was a promise of hope in them still. There was such splendor in this place, and a fairness in people like Dr. Skurnik, or so I thought; I also reminded myself that here I was, totally enmeshed in a white world. All around me, the people I had met in Boulder were white. There were Negroes in Denver, but I was in Boulder, a truly white town,
where I wasn’t sure if there was even a handful of colored people, and I had reached out to a person from former Nazi Germany. I reminded myself that I had come to Dr. Skurnik for help, just as Mama and Papa and Big Ma had done with Mr. Wade Jamison. It was a matter of trust, and I had to trust someone in this matter.

  When Dr. Skurnik returned, he was not alone. With him was a gray-haired gentleman whom Dr. Skurnik introduced as his colleague, Brad Buchanan. He invited us both to sit, then continued. “Don’t think badly of him, but he’s a lawyer.”

  I smiled at that, and as we all sat, Dr. Skurnik behind his desk, and Brad Buchanan and I in chairs in front of it, Brad Buchanan turned to me and said, “I’ve looked at the correspondence—”

  “I took the liberty,” Dr. Skurnik interrupted. “I thought maybe we needed a legal mind to advise about this matter.”

  I looked from Dr. Skurnik to Brad Buchanon. “I didn’t say I wanted a lawyer.”

  “I know, but whatever advice he offers will be gratis. He knows you’re a student.”

  “Unfortunately,” Brad Buchanan went on, “the medical center is a private professional corporation and they can contend that they have a right to exclude or accept as patients anyone they choose.”

  “So, there’s nothing I can do to find out why they excluded me or get an apology from them?”

  “An apology is important to you?” asked the lawyer.

  “Yes. And the reason why I was excluded. I can guess, but I want them to say it.”

  “And what do you think that reason was?”

  “I’m a Negro.”

  Brad Buchanan rubbed his chin and took a moment before speaking again. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Miss Logan. I’ll write a letter to the center, to this director, and if he’ll see me, I’ll meet with him. Maybe they’ll tell me, but don’t get your hopes up about anything. I don’t know how far we can get with this, but I’ll surely do my best to represent you and your sentiments. All I need is your okay to proceed.”