All the Days Past, All the Days to Come

by Mildred D. Taylor

  “And that’s all gratis too, right, Brad?” Dr. Skurnik clarified.

  Brad Buchanan nodded. “Yes. I’d like to get to the bottom of this myself and find out why they refused you.”

  I studied these two white men sitting opposite me, awaiting my decision, and said, “All right, Mr. Buchanan, thank you. Go ahead. Write the letter.”

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  It was more than two weeks before I heard back from Brad Buchanan. He met with me in Dr. Skurnik’s office and showed us the letter he had written to the medical center. He had met with the director of the center, along with the center’s lawyer, who said that the center was under no obligation to include me as a client and also was under no obligation to tell me why. They would not render an apology. The center’s lawyer had written a letter to that effect. Brad Buchanan told me, “You’ll be receiving a letter directly from the center concerning all this. I am truly sorry, Miss Logan, that this matter has not turned out as we all had hoped, but after you receive the letter, you let me know what you want my office to do.”

  I looked at Dr. Skurnik for advice, but he offered none. I then looked back to Brad Buchanan. “What else could you do?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know, Miss Logan, but new ground is being broken every day. Maybe nothing can be done, but who knows? Possibly you could sue on the grounds of discrimination, but that costs money and you most likely wouldn’t win. Just let me know.”

  I nodded and we left it at that. When the final letter came from the medical center, it said what had been said before, “In review, we stand by all former decisions. You will not be allowed the services of this medical center.”

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  Short. Curt. As painful as before. I read the letter over and over again, thought about it, was infuriated by it, frustrated by it, insulted by it, despondent about it, but in the end I decided to let it be. For now. For now, I couldn’t deal with it. Too much devastation was in my life right now to deal with it. I had to get on with my life, whatever it was to be, and it was clear to me it was not to be in Colorado, what I had seen as a promised golden land. For all its grandeur, all its promise, the people of Colorado were treating me the same as those in Wyoming, in California, in Iowa, in Ohio, in Mississippi, and in all the states up and down the Dixie Highway. Colorado, which in the short time I had been here I had grown to love, had put another dagger in my heart, which was already wounded from the loss of Flynn and our baby. Whatever had been revitalized by my being here, by some of the good people I had met here, was dissipated by the medical center’s actions toward me. It seemed I couldn’t win. I had long ago come to the realization that being colored was a full-time job in America, and I knew now it was a full-time fight, one I couldn’t win alone.

  I stayed into the fall, but I enrolled in no more classes. In October I said good-bye to Dr. Skurnik, to my fellow workers in the political science office, and to this land that had filled me with such hope. I took a bus from Boulder to Denver. In Denver, I continued on my way east, back to Toledo, back to my family. They were waiting for me.

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  The house on Dorr Street was crowded, even more than before, but no matter what Dee or Stacey said about there being no more room for even one more person, they seemed always to find room. This time, I was the one more person. I slept on the Sunday room sofa. I could not sleep in the room with Rie and ’lois since that room was being temporarily occupied by two of Dee’s cousins, Verlene and Mayetta, visiting from Mississippi, and the girls were sleeping on a mattress on the floor in the dining room. Sleeping on the sofa bed in the living room were Clayton Chester and his bride, Rachel. They were waiting for a room on the second floor. I didn’t figure for Clayton Chester and Rachel to sleep in the living room long. There was no privacy for them, not the way the house was laid out.

  There was no privacy in any of the common rooms, which flowed into each other. The Sunday room opened into the living room through a large archway, large enough for two doors, but there were no doors. The living room, with a door leading into Rie and ’lois’s room on one side, opened into the dining room through double sliding doors that were never closed. A door to one side of the dining room led into Stacey and Dee’s bedroom. Another door, following the flow of traffic through the common rooms, led into the kitchen at the back of the house. Along the farthest wall of the kitchen, overlooking the backyard, was a door off to the right. That door opened to the bathroom. Initially, after their marriage in the spring, Clayton Chester and Rachel had roomed at the apartment hotel down the street but, hoping a family from upstairs would be moving soon, they had recently moved into the house to save money. The three of us added to the congestion of the house.

  We were not the only ones.

  In the basement were the Davises. They were now here in full force. There were seven of them—Dee’s brother Zell and six of the long-legged cousins I had met when visiting with Dee’s family. They had come, one by one, hitching rides with other family members or friends headed this way. Zell and one of the cousins had actually come back with Stacey and Dee after one of their trips south. As more of the cousins arrived, there were no rooms for them and the sofas used as beds were already taken. Stacey and Dee told them they would have to find another place to live. But then the Davises discovered the basement, which comprised a large washroom where Dee and the other women of the house washed their clothes and hung their laundry in winter, and a coal room that was no longer used since the house had been converted to gas heating. The coal room, now empty of coal, was perfect for them, they said. Dee and Stacey said it wasn’t suitable, but the Davises pleaded that it was. They said they would paint it, get furniture for it, make it livable, and finally Stacey and Dee gave in, and so the Davises stayed.

  As it turned out, the Davises hardly were in that basement room except to sleep. Mostly they stayed on the first floor with Stacey, Dee, and the girls, and Dee took charge of them as if she were their mother. She cooked for them, washed for them, ironed their clothes, packed their lunches, and treated them as her own. Although they all found jobs and paid weekly rent, I saw how much Dee did for them and knew that the money she received hardly compensated for all her work or what both she and Stacey had sacrificed for them to stay in the house. The way the house was configured, the interior basement stairs were accessible only from Stacey and Dee’s bedroom, so to get to their coal room in the basement, all the young men had to go through Stacey and Dee’s bedroom. But Stacey and Dee put up with that for a while because they were family. We all were family—three families, really—melding into one.

  Although the married couples on the second floor took care of their own cooking and had their own living space, at any given time they joined all the family on the first floor. We saw them daily. At dinnertime there were at least thirteen folks sitting at the kitchen and the dining room tables, along with any travelers coming through from down home or folks coming over from Detroit or Chicago, Peoria or Muncie. My staying at the house increased the number to fourteen. After dinner the living room was full as well, and there was usually some form of entertainment going on. Some evenings one of “the boys,” as Dee and Stacey referred to the Davises, plucked at his guitar or the radio was on and we all listened to one of the mystery dramas. In addition to the music and the radio, there was now the television Dee and Stacey had bought last Christmas. It was the only television in the house.

  Encased in a mahogany console, which was a grand piece of furniture that also included a radio and phonograph and doors that hid them all when closed, the television was the focal point of the Sunday room. Christopher-John and Becka, with the baby, often joined everybody downstairs in watching it. So did the other folks from upstairs. They would stand in the sun parlor doorway opening into the Sunday room to watch favorite programs like I Love Lucy, The Ed Sullivan Show, and Amos ’n’ Andy. On the night
s national fighting bouts were broadcast, the men of the house totally took over the Sunday room. Fortunately, television programming was limited to a few hours a day, with a break of several hours following the afternoon programs, so Stacey and Dee did not have everyone crowding the downstairs throughout the day and night.

  Most evenings Dee set up her ironing board along with her new electric iron in the living room so that she could join in listening to the radio or the music or watching the television. After the ironing and the programs were over and most of the family had retired for the night, she returned to her kitchen to make lunches for the next day. I helped her. “Don’t you get tired of all these people?” I asked as I wrapped two of the chicken salad sandwiches Dee had prepared, and put them in a paper sack along with an apple and a thick slice of pound cake Dee had baked. “And that includes me,” I added.

  Dee shrugged. “Everybody’s family.”

  “Well, still . . .”

  Dee spread mayonnaise over several slices of bread she had placed on the table. “I’ve got to admit sometimes I don’t know how I can get through another day with everything that has to be done, but it’s okay for now. At least I don’t have to cook breakfast every day, just Saturdays and Sundays, and those are late morning, so I don’t have to get up at the crack of dawn. The boys get their own cereal or whatever in the mornings and even Robert gets his own breakfast. You know, they all leave here by six thirty, so that gives me a little time before I have to get up to take care of Rie and ’lois.”

  “Yeah, well, still a lot of work.”

  “Oh, don’t tell me. I know it,” Dee said. “But things at least are not like before you all left for California, when we didn’t know how we were going to make the next mortgage payment. Now, with the jobs back and everybody working, the rent money is more than enough to pay the mortgage each month, and Rob and I can actually save for another house—one that will be a single-family house.”

  “One for just you two and Rie and ’lois.”

  She nodded. “I dream of that, for one day. But for now, I can deal with this one. It’s a blessing.”

  “Even with all these people traipsing in and out of your bedroom to go down to wash or get to their room?”

  Dee laughed. “Well, I’ve got to admit Robert is getting pretty tired of that. Me too. But Robert is about to take care of that. He’s going to rebuild that broken set of stairs that leads from the basement washroom to the backyard. He and Christopher-John and Clayton already put in a sink and toilet and a small shower down there, so the boys don’t have to come through our room to use the bathroom.”

  “I don’t know how you’ve stood it this long,” I said. “I know Flynn and I certainly wouldn’t have put up with all this traffic.”

  Dee scooped up another big spoonful of chicken salad to spread, then paused to look at me. “You know, Cassie, that’s the first time you’ve mentioned Flynn since the day you arrived.”

  I hesitated. “I don’t talk about him . . . because I can’t.”

  Dee sighed. “Well, maybe I’d feel that way too if something happened to Rob. But like we all told you that first night, you can always talk to us, to me, your brothers.”

  “I know.”

  Dee stopped with the sandwiches and looked at me. “Robert’s really worried about you.” I was silent. “They all are.”

  I took up the next sandwich. “I know. But, Dee, I still can’t talk about him.”

  Dee nodded in understanding and spread the chicken salad across another slice of bread.

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  When Moe first saw me after my return, he expressed words of sympathy. “I know you said you don’t want to talk about it, Cassie, about what happened to your husband, but if you ever want to, I’ll always listen.” Later, as the weeks passed, he said, “I know it’s probably too soon, but when you’re ready, Cassie . . . I want you to know I’m here . . . waiting.”

  “Waiting? For what, Moe?”

  “For you to be my wife.”

  I looked at Moe, unbelieving, and shook my head. “Don’t. Don’t wait, Moe, not for me. You find yourself somebody else to love.” Moe started to speak, but before he could, I held up my hands and repeated, “I mean it, Moe. I don’t want to talk about this. Don’t wait for me. I don’t plan to marry again.” Then I turned and walked away. There was no point in trying to tell him, to tell any of them, that there could never be another man like Flynn in my life. There could never be, and I didn’t want any other.

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  “Have you decided what you’re going to do?” Stacey asked. It was a Saturday afternoon and we were the only two seated at the kitchen table. Clayton and Rachel were out, the Davis boys too. Dee’s cousins, Verlene and Mayetta, had moved on to Chicago, and Dee had taken the girls shopping downtown. The house was quiet.

  “Decided about what?”

  “Your life.”

  I smiled. “Oh, that. No.”

  “Don’t you think it’s time you did? If you’re going to stay here in Toledo, you can get a teaching job. Your certificate should still be good. Maybe you ought to go ahead and apply.”

  “Stacey, you know how I feel about teaching.”

  “Then what do you want to do?”

  “That’s just it. I really don’t know. A year ago when I left here I had my life pretty much figured out. I was pregnant. I was going back to Flynn. I was going to have our baby and make a life with him. I wrapped my whole head around that. Now there’s nothing.” I glanced over at Stacey, who just looked at me. “I suppose I’ll have to get a teaching job. I’ll have to support myself some way.”

  “When are you planning on going home?”

  “I’m not ready yet.”

  “You need to go, you know. They’re worried about you too.” Stacey paused. “I never met Flynn, just talked to him a couple times on the phone, but from what you told me about him, I think he’d want you to go. Cassie, I know you miss him. If I was in your place, I know I’d be going crazy if something happened to Dee.” He studied me, and his voice was full of caring. “I think going home will help you with your healing.”

  I sighed. “Mama and Papa and Big Ma will be asking me the same questions you’re asking and, Stacey, I don’t have answers for them.”

  “Maybe they can help you figure some things out. They’re pretty good at that.”

  “I guess, but they might want me to stay there.”

  “And that’s not what you want either?”

  “What? Move back to Mississippi?” I laughed. “You crazy? I don’t think so!”

  Stacey rose from the table. “Well, whenever you make up your mind to go, let me know. I’ll drive you down.” He headed for the dining room, then turned back. “Oh, by the way, I ran into Lawyer Tate today at the barbershop. He asked about you. Asked what you were doing. Told me to tell you to come by his office. He’d like to see you.”

  “He did? Why?”

  “Don’t know. Just told me he wanted to talk to you. He knows a lot of people, Cassie. Maybe he can give you a lead on a job.”

  “Maybe,” I agreed. “I’ll go see him next week.”

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  “How have you been doing, Cassie?” asked Lawyer Tate as he ushered me to a chair. He did not sit at his desk, but in a chair opposite me. “I was sorry to hear about your husband.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Tate. I’m doing all right.”

  “Well, so you’re back in Toledo. Does that mean you’re here to stay?”

  “I’m back here because my family is here. Whether or not I’m going to stay, I don’t know yet.”

  “Why not stay in California? It’s a mighty pretty place, state of opportunity, so they say.”

  My voice went low as I replied. “I couldn’t stay there.”

 
“He was never here in Toledo, was he? Your husband?”

  “No, he wasn’t.” I lowered my eyes, then looked directly at Lawyer Tate. “Mr. Tate, was that why you wanted to see me? To talk about my husband? I’ll tell you right now, I don’t want to talk about him.”

  “Just in part, Cassie, I wanted to ask about him. I wanted to know how you’re dealing with your loss. I know it’s a difficult time.”

  “I’m managing.”

  “But you don’t know where you’re going.” I was silent. “Robert told me that on your way to Toledo, you spent time in Colorado. Said you had even enrolled in some summer courses and had a part-time job for a while. How’d you like it?”

  “It was all right. I loved the mountains.”

  “What kind of courses were you taking?”

  “Political science,” I answered, now wondering about his interest. “But why are you asking me about them?”

  “I assume you did well in those courses. Did you like them?”

  “Yes, I did, but—”

  “So, why didn’t you stay in Colorado? Not many colored folks there, but it’s beautiful country, so I hear. A job. Coursework you like. Was there a possibility you could have stayed there?”

  “There was . . . at first.”

  “But you didn’t stay. You plan on going back?”

  “I don’t think so. There’s no reason to go back. My family’s here.”

  “And what do you plan on doing here?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “So, you’re drifting.” I stared at Lawyer Tate, then looked away without answering. He allowed the silence before he spoke again. “I know you’re probably thinking the kind of questions I’m asking are none of my business, but if you’ll bear with me, I’ll explain my interest. Now, Robert told me that you ran into a bit of a legal problem while you were in Colorado and that is one of the reasons you left—”