by Maxine Clair
Vergie sat with Gene on the sofa in front of the window, Aunt Frances and Aunt Maude sat in their stuffed chairs on either side of the console, and October perched on the edge of the rocking chair, holding baby David against her in her lap. Trying to make him sit up too soon, Vergie thought.
To Vergie, her sister looked the same as she did when she was seventeen. Face wide open, pretty but marked, which made her look gullible. Hair in that wild-looking way October always mistook for beautiful. Eyes batting in terror or excitement—didn’t matter which, the expression was the same. Ever-new skirt and blouse, wearing good stockings around the house, trying to be more, always trying to be more.
As Vergie watched her sister, she remembered the day, years before, when October had changed her name. That had been a surprise. Vergie hadn’t believed that October had it in her. It could be, now, that October would leave and take the baby with her. And the thought took Vergie’s breath away. She reached for Gene’s hand.
“I have to do something about my situation,” October began. She looked off in the distance. Nobody said anything.
“I mean, I knew I had to get a job or something,” she said. “I can’t just go on living here like I don’t eat and sleep on you-all’s money.”
“Now, honey,” Aunt Maude said softly, “you know nobody’s keeping account of what you eat. We’re your people. If we’ve got, you’ve got.”
“I know that, Auntie,” October said. “But I’m grown now.”
“Don’t make no difference to us,” Aunt Maude said, and Aunt Frances cut in with “Let her finish, Maudie.”
Vergie didn’t like the sound of this. October thinking about some other food and some other shelter.
“I’ve been talking to Cora Haskins—you know, my friend Cora.”
“Yes ...” Aunt Frances took over, for the moment.
October looked at Aunt Frances now, and Vergie had seen that look before. Like she might as well come clean.
“I’ve got a job if I want it. It’s in Missouri—Kansas City. Substitute teaching.” Vergie squeezed Gene’s hand. He would know what she was feeling.
“Why can’t you teach here?” Vergie asked. “Isn’t that the place you left? Why would you go back there?”
October fidgeted in the chair and shifted David to her cradling arm, held him closer to her. Claiming him, Vergie thought.
“This is in Missouri. Wyandotte County was in Kansas. I can make more money there, and besides, there’s only one Negro school here. I’ll never get a job at Bryant.”
It was probably true, but how could she know that? Vergie had never seen her sister lift the phone or lick a stamp to find out about teaching in Chillicothe.
“And so you want to move there, is that it?” Aunt Frances asked, taking charge again.
“Well, yes,” October answered, but Vergie could see that there was more.
“What about the baby?” Thank God Aunt Frances had gotten to the point.
“That’s ... He’s ... I don’t know yet. That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
She fidgeted with baby David again, and Vergie could see she just didn’t know how to hold him. October looked again at Aunt Frances.
“It’ll take me all summer to get situated out there. I can stay with Cora at first but not for the whole time. I’ll need to work and find myself a place. Save money until the fall, when I start teaching.”
“Who’ll keep the baby?” Aunt Maude asked.
Vergie relaxed her hold on Gene’s hand. She could see where it was going.
“I was wondering ... I was thinking maybe you-all ... Well, mostly you, Vergie—you and Gene—what would you-all think about me leaving him here for a while?”
Gene, the quintessential quiet man, spoke up immediately. “How long?”
Vergie couldn’t believe that he would make a to-do without discussing it with her privately.
“I’m not sure, but maybe until the end of the summer.”
Vergie counted. Five or six months. A long time in a baby’s life. And she knew that Gene was counting, and that he wasn’t likely to be inclined to let it happen. Thinking he was protecting her.
Aunt Frances spoke. “This house is home to all of us. Me and Maude got jobs to attend, and we’re not spring chickens anymore.”
October began, “That’s why I’m asking you, Vergie....”
Aunt Frances continued. “Vergie, you and Gene—this isn’t the time to say what you will or what you won’t do. You have to think about it together.”
Vergie nodded and looked into Gene’s face full of doubt “We will,” she said. “We’ll talk.”
There was no question. Vergie would take baby David on any terms for any length of time. It was just a matter of convincing Gene. She had prayed for a baby, and maybe this was the answer.
Over the next few days, what disturbed Vergie most was the rock-and-hard-place in what had seemed like heaven. In a single conversation, Gene made her see the precipice where they stood, and the pit with no bottom where they—especially Vergie—could fall. After six months, when October came back for baby David, Vergie would die dead. He didn’t think they should take that chance.
But in six more months wouldn’t baby David be able to at least hold his own head up and crawl? Wouldn’t he be able to eat solid food by then? Six months would be a gift for his aunt Vergie, and when he left she would just have to get over it. How could they say no? They couldn’t.
In another conversation, Vergie asked Gene what if October let them keep the baby for a whole year? Okay, then—two years. Three?
And when Gene first wondered aloud if Vergie thought October might give the baby to them, her comeback had been sheer disbelief. “Just give him to us? Why would she do that?”
“Just askin,” Gene said.
Plant a seed, grow an idea that roots and riots like wildflowers on a generous hill. Hadn’t she prayed for a baby? Her own? Was this to be the answer—baby David for a few months here and there? What is right? Surely God is able.
Vergie couldn’t sleep for dreaming mother-dreams. But shook herself awake with the reality that it was October’s decision. And hadn’t they ought to sound out Aunt Frances about the temporary and permanent possibilities?
In another few days, when levelheaded Aunt Frances called them all together again, Vergie felt calm: the time had come.
Vergie couldn’t imagine what made her sister want to put on her best clothes around the house. October had dressed up like she was going somewhere, like she didn’t know babies can spit up. Aunt Frances had to ask October to put David to sleep in his crib this time. Serious business.
Vergie herself hadn’t been able to eat anything all day, not to mention give a thought to clothes and fingernail polish. One thing was for sure—with Aunt Frances handling things, there would be no more tipping around. Something would be decided.
Vergie sat with Gene on the sofa; Aunt Maude sat in her easy chair; Aunt Frances took the rocking chair and left her chair for October.
Without warning as Aunt Frances rocked herself slowly in the rocking chair, she said, “Vergie and Gene have something they want to say,” and she looked at Vergie.
She hadn’t expected that. She didn’t know how to begin. She looked at Gene. He looked right back.
“Well, I guess what we came to,” she said, “was that we really do understand you can’t take baby David out to Missouri. I mean ...” and she looked to Aunt Frances for help.
Aunt Frances said, “Just tell her what you want to say.”
Vergie began again. “Me and Gene thought it might not be such a good idea if we got used to having him, and then you come back and take him.”
She looked to see how it had registered but couldn’t read good or bad in the clench of fingers in her sister’s lap.
> “There’s something me and Gene want you to think about,” Vergie told her. “You don’t have to answer right away—just think about it.”
Vergie looked at Gene. He took her hand. “We want to make baby David ours,” Vergie said.
The surprise in October’s eyes made Vergie hurry to repeat, “You don’t have to answer. Just think about it is all.”
Aunt Frances leaped over the suggestion that October should take her time and went right to her own point “It’s not what we hoped would happen,” she said to October. “But the baby needs more than you seem to be able to give him. So think about it hard.”
To Vergie, October looked stunned. Her eyes welled up. Aunt Maude must have seen the tears forming too, because she said, “You don’t have to do this at all if you don’t want to, honey. Nobody is saying you have to. Think hard.”
It never ceased to amaze Vergie that Gene could be stubborn. “He would be our son,” he said. “We would keep him, raise him. Wouldn’t be no giving him back.”
October was looking down at her hands by then. “I don’t know ...” she said.
Gene pushed. “Wouldn’t be no giving him back. Wouldn’t be no telling him, either. He never can know the difference. Period, or it’s no go.”
“I think she understands, Gene,” Aunt Frances said.
Then Aunt Frances said, “You take your time. Think about it a few days. We’ll talk again. Now I think I’ll make me a cup of tea.” She got up to go.
Later, October would try to tell Vergie what she had felt at the time. Later she would say that she had thought she couldn’t love him because she hadn’t felt connected to him those sad times when she held him. That she had shied away from holding him because of those damning feelings.
Later she would say that she hadn’t understood all of what happened, the opening she had seen—one of those times that come only once. Later Vergie would hear the story of how, in that moment, October had been afraid to wait, afraid that she would drift forever. And that this plan had seemed like a good thing for everybody.
Later Vergie would try her best to understand how being a mother could have made October feel lost for a whole year of her life, and Vergie would understand that October had thought baby David deserved a better chance. A mother and a father. Them.
In that moment, however, when October said to them all, “Wait,” and Vergie saw the answer in her sister’s eyes, and Aunt Maude murmured that she hoped none of them would live to regret that day, and Vergie took October’s hands in hers—what disturbed Vergie most was the ease of it. Like a cat finding a bird’s nest on the ground.
As much as I might have wished otherwise, my girls’ lives were not mine to change. Their lives belonged to them alone to do what they would do and to live out what they chose. And so I held for them.
chapter 9
Easy and simple were two different things. For October, letting Vergie adopt the baby had seemed scary but not devastating. After all, everybody must be right—she didn’t have what it took to be a mother. Vergie and Gene had been desperate for him. The baby would be better off with a normal life. That was all true.
And there was more truth to be told. October had looked at herself twice in the mirror, seen her old shape coming back, seen her new look, seen the woman James Wilson had fallen in love with. Weighed that. Maybe she had been fooling herself thinking she didn’t still care about him. Added to it she had saved in her head the picture of their last night together, when he had flung open the apartment door, hoping it would be her, had cooked for her, made love to her like she was the next best thing to divine. He had thought they wouldn’t be having a baby.
Until the day she left Chillicothe to take the subbing job, October had gone to Missouri with one thing making her heart pump with purpose: getting back the life she had lost getting back together with James. She hadn’t let herself realize it until she was in Cora’s apartment, sitting on the sofa bed dreaming up ways. Get herself into the classroom teaching again. Get her own place. Let him see her all over again—let him know that bygones could be bygones after all—that all along he had been right about loving her.
Nobody had ever told her to be wary of missions when it comes to men. October arrived at Cora’s in March. It took only a month of sniffing around the edges of James’s life for her to discover the scalding truth. James Wilson had got back the life he had almost lost, too. He had had another child with his wife—a baby boy born in January, one month after baby David had made his way out of October’s body and into the world. To her, the arithmetic was simple. Two women and one man. October figured that she had been the spare. She felt sure now that, baby or not, he had never loved her.
When she found out, she went—halfheartedly—to Cora’s medicine chest and swallowed what was left of the tin of Bayer that she found there. Halfheartedly, because the other half of her was busy asking. Damn fool woman—what did you think?
For two days, she went to sleep and woke up with indigestion and diarrhea. A mess.
Cora was straight with her. You should have. You could have. I would have. Couldn’t believe October had still been after that man. Couldn’t believe October had actually given the baby to her sister. Was sure nobody in Ohio meant for it to be permanent. Said Just wait. Said You’ll be sorry. Said You don’t need to be moping around here—you need a full-time job, so take all the subbing you can get. Make them hire you. Go ahead, girl, show them your stuff.
She showed them, all right: she needed no lesson plans, had no authority, no responsibility, really, outside of showing up and keeping the children busy, no one praised or condemned her. What was there to show?
Five days a week she woke up with a stiff neck on Cora’s sofa bed, not knowing where she would be working that day. Morning and night, she and Cora tripped over each other, tipped over each other’s things, stretched politeness until it snapped and stung. October couldn’t stand the lovey-dovey silliness that Ed seemed to bring with him whenever he came home for the weekend.
After the roof caved in on a life with James Wilson, October had planned to just grit her teeth and get through the summer, make a go of subbing again in the fall. Even though subs merely kept order, no one could quibble with her college degree. She was qualified and available. Once she got her foot firmly in the door, they would have to give her a permanent job.
To get through the summer, she took herself down to Macy’s department store and applied for a job in the alterations department. Though she hoped that “pickup girl” meant that she would step in and do the odds-and-ends sewing jobs that cropped up, she found that the description was literal. She would be picking up remnants of cloth that could be salvaged; bolts of fabric left on the tables; flowers, bows, belt buckles, and all other extraneous ornaments that mysteriously fell to the floor. They all had to go back to the stockroom, into proper bins and shelves. Inventory had to be kept straight. That was easy.
Sweeping up straight pins, fabric dust and snippets of thread, wiping up the forbidden soda pop the “girls” spilled, fetching lunch for the head seamstress from Watkins Drug Store, where she had to stand back two feet from the whites-only counter to wait, that was harder.
But to be surrounded by exquisite fabrics, quality bindings, one-of-a-kind buttons, and clever designs in the barn of a room with its yellow walls, bare wood floor, and fluorescent ceiling lights—that was hardest. But so what if for the entire summer she never touched a single garment with a sewing hand? She was getting back on her feet.
Come fall, Macy’s offered her part-time, Thursday evenings and Saturdays. They even hinted that they might allow her to let down a hem or a cuff or put in a zipper when they needed extra help. The extra money from Macy’s meant that she could get on with her life that much sooner. Though they graduated her only to altering an occasional hemline, she resigned herself to the fact that money was money. She could buy herse
lf decent fabric for one or two new winter things, or decent stockings every now and then. Once a month she could splurge and buy steaks for her and Cora. On weekday evenings when she wasn’t working at Macy’s or trying to decipher handwriting in some other teacher’s lesson plans, she pulled her sewing machine out of Cora’s closet and got busy. Christmas was coming.
Subbing was steady. By November her rounds at the schools had become so familiar that she felt more like an itinerant teacher than a substitute. For Thanksgiving Cora invited her to come with her to St. Louis. Instead of going with Cora, October used the time to make headway with the new suit she was sewing for Christmas. She did send a Thanksgiving card home to Ohio, and a few weeks later she sent a pop-up card for David’s birthday. She jotted a note telling them that Cora had invited her for Thanksgiving, but she didn’t mention that she’d spent the day sewing. She didn’t mention work, either. The subject of work would come up when they saw her again, but she wouldn’t say much to her aunties about it until she could tell them that she had a permanent teaching job. She wanted to pump up Aunt Frances’s chest, make her proud again. Hadn’t she already fixed things for the baby, cleaned up part of the mess she had made? It had been almost nine months since she had seen him. Baby David was probably well and happy with Vergie and Gene. And that would have to be that.
Then she went home for Christmas.
The train arrived in Columbus on the snowy afternoon of Christmas Eve. As she climbed down the steps of the coach onto the concrete platform. Gene stood snow-laden, as if he’d been there all day.
“Good to see you,” he said, with what passed for a hug. And then, taking her suitcases, he told her, “Everybody’s waitin.”
When Gene spoke, he usually pronounced the bottom line. She knew that and wondered if they’d all be standing on the porch to see what they could see of this person she was supposed to be by now. She hadn’t really kept in touch. Aunt Frances had been the one to call all the time, and Aunt Frances had sent notes and one little snapshot of “the gang.” As Gene drove the thirty miles to Chillicothe, she tried to forget the last image she had of the family: three women crowded in the open doorway, arms folded to hold in any capricious word or wave, watching her leave like a flimsy page torn out of the sacred family Bible.
