“See this here?” Zeke said, pointing toward a valve on one of the many pipes jutting from the boiler.
“Let me do it.” Henry moved past him, taking off his tweed coat and handing it to him. “Don’t want to mess up your Sunday clothes.”
Zeke stepped aside and Henry fiddled with the valve while I hung back. I was beginning to perspire inside my own coat while they talked about the type of bolt they needed and a few other boiler-related topics that went over my head. There was a familiar ease between the two of them, and Zeke said something I couldn’t hear but that made Henry laugh out loud. I thought it was the first time I’d heard Henry truly laugh.
When the two of them had finished their conversation, Henry opened the door to the boiler to reveal a cauldron of yellow flame. He looked over at me. “This old boiler heats the entire building,” he said. “Impressive, isn’t it?”
I nodded, though I realized I’d taken two steps back, away from the heat and flames.
Henry closed the boiler door, then smiled at me. “You look like you’re melting,” he said. “Come on. Let’s see the rest of the factory.”
We left Zeke in the boiler room and headed back down the corridor. We stopped in many of the large workrooms along the way, Henry switching on the overhead lights to show me the worktables and machinery. The factory was eerily silent, but nothing could mask the smells of chemicals and wood, and sawdust seemed to be everywhere. By the time we were back in front of Henry’s office, my lungs and eyes were burning and I had to brush the sawdust from my coat.
“Just want to let Zeke know we’re going and he can lock up,” he said, knocking on Zeke’s door near the top of the stairs. He went into the room without waiting for a response. I stood in front of Henry’s office door, waiting for his return. I heard the quiet rumble of their conversation, and then I heard Zeke say, in a voice almost too low to make out, “I don’t understand. You had it all planned perfect. Why are you doing this?”
I couldn’t hear Henry’s response at all, but I had the feeling that whatever they were talking about had to do with me.
* * *
“Zeke seems very close to you,” I said, once we were back in the car. What I really wanted to ask him was what Zeke had meant about Henry’s perfect plans. I knew better than to question him though. If there was one thing I’d learned about Henry, it was that he didn’t like me to probe.
“Remember I told you he used to live with his mother, Adora, in the cottage where Hattie lives now?”
“Yes, I know. When you were kids.”
“We palled around together till high school, when…” He shrugged. “We had to be in different worlds,” he said.
“I don’t think he likes me,” I said.
“You don’t think anyone likes you.” He sounded annoyed and I decided to drop the subject. I wondered if he was right. Was I misinterpreting the way people behaved toward me? Whatever Zeke had been talking about, maybe it had nothing to do with me at all.
30
It was too cold to walk into town the following day, so I took a cab to the fabric store, where I spent over an hour picking out an abundance of beads and ribbons and lace and buttons that we could use to decorate our boxes for the box supper. Then I bought a pattern for a baby sweater and some yellow yarn. I hadn’t knitted a thing since I was a teenager and Mimi taught me how, but with my baby coming, it seemed like the perfect time to dust off that skill.
Then, almost without thinking, I walked across the street to the bus stop, and I waited in the cold with an old man and his wife for the bus to Ridgeview.
* * *
Reverend Sam smiled broadly when he found me shivering on his front porch.
“Come in,” he said in greeting. “I’ve been expecting you.”
I didn’t bother to ask him how he knew I was coming when I hadn’t known it myself until half an hour ago. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that I was there with him, the person who seemed interested in the real me when no one else in Hickory cared to find out who I was deep inside.
Wordlessly, I followed him down the dark hall to the anteroom. Despite the fact that I knew the skeleton was there, my heart still threw an extra beat when I saw it. Those hollow bony eyes seemed to follow me as I crossed the room to Reverend Sam’s inner office.
I sat down across from him and he immediately reached for my hands. I put my chilled fingers in his warm ones. After a moment, he let go of me and sat back.
“Did you finish the book?” he asked.
I had to smile because that was exactly the subject on my mind. I nodded.
“How did it end?”
I thought about how to answer the question. “The character, Francie, grows up during the story. Many things happen to her and she’s strong and tough and ultimately changes for the better.”
“How does the tree fit in?”
“The tree is … well, it’s sort of like her. Like Francie. It gets chopped down and battered and bruised, but it keeps on growing.”
“The tree is a metaphor,” Reverend Sam said.
“Exactly.”
“Would your mother have liked that ending?”
I thought about my mother. I had no idea how she would have felt about the ending as far as Francie was concerned, but I knew she would have loved that the tree remained standing. “My mother loved trees,” I said. “There was a park not far from our house and she would go there sometimes just to look up at the tall trees. Our yard was very tiny and had only a few scrubby old trees in it. So…” I had a sudden idea.
“Your face just lit up,” Reverend Sam said.
“My husband is building a house for us,” I said. “There are a lot of trees on the property already, but maybe we could plant another. A special one. For my mother.”
He smiled. “Lovely,” he said.
I thought of the property, trying to remember it well enough to figure out the best place to plant a tree.
“Your marriage is good?” Reverend Sam interrupted my thoughts.
I looked him in the eye. “No,” I said. “It’s not good, actually. It’s not good at all.”
And then, in the safety of that quiet little office, the skeleton standing guard outside the door, I told him everything. How I’d been engaged to the man I loved and foolishly cheated on him with Henry. I told him about the pregnancy and how Henry had asked me to marry him. How no one in Hickory seemed to like me. And although he didn’t conjure up my mother on this visit, or offer advice, or say much of anything other than murmurs of sympathy and understanding, I left feeling far stronger and freer than when I’d arrived.
31
When I arrived home from seeing Reverend Sam, I found the mail scattered on the floor beneath the slot in the front door. In the scattering of envelopes, I spotted the one I’d been waiting for: a response from the North Carolina State Board of Nurse Examiners. I tore it open and grinned to myself. Your application to sit for the North Carolina state board examination for graduate nurses has been accepted. The letter suggested some hotels near the exam site for the three days in March when I would need to be in Winston-Salem, and my heart began to skitter with excitement. I’d be five months along by then. Would it be all right for me to take a train at five months? I thought so. I knew my pregnancy wouldn’t be the biggest obstacle to my taking the exam, but I was going to take that exam, by hook or crook.
That evening, Ruth, Lucy, and I sat at the dining room table to decorate the shoebox-sized boxes Henry had brought us from the factory. He’d also brought a much larger box, this one sealed and seemingly heavy, which he’d carried upstairs to Lucy’s room.
“Just some things for Lucy,” he’d said when I expressed curiosity about the box, and Lucy had given me a look that told me whatever was inside it was none of my business.
The next hour or so had to be the most congenial I’d spent with my new in-laws since my arrival and I wondered how much of it was due to the sense of calm I’d carried with me since seeing Reverend Sam th
at afternoon, as well as my happiness over the upcoming nursing exam. Ruth, Lucy, and I complimented one another’s designs as we glued the lace and beads to the cardboard boxes and we chatted endlessly about what we’d cook to put inside.
“We should all make fried chicken,” Ruth suggested, “and deviled eggs. That would make it easy on us rather than coming up with three different dishes.”
“Everyone’s going to be making fried chicken, Mama,” Lucy complained. “I’m terrible at it, anyway. I think we should each do our own individual specialty.” She patted a ribbon into place on the lid of her box. “I can make meat loaf, though I guess I’d have to really stretch the meat because of rationing. And I can make my famous red velvet cake for dessert.”
“Well, darling daughter,” Ruth said, “where will you find the sugar and food coloring for your famous red velvet cake?”
Lucy shook her head in annoyance. “Rationing gets in the way of everything!” she said.
My specialty had always been chicken parmesan, but I thought I’d best stay away from Italian food for this event … and every other event as well. “I can make stuffed ham,” I said. I knew we could get a ham from one of the local farmers.
“Stuffed ham?” Lucy scoffed. “How on earth do you stuff a ham?”
“Everyone in Baltimore makes stuffed ham,” I said. “They don’t make it here?”
“Never heard of such a thing.” Ruth cut a length of lace to fit the sides of her box. “How is it done?”
“Well,” I said mysteriously, “first I need an old pillowcase. Do we have one?”
They laughed. “You’re pulling our legs,” Lucy said.
“Not at all. You cut the bone from a ham and make deep slits through the meat, then stuff the slits with greens and tie the whole thing up tight in a pillowcase. You boil it for about half an hour in water that’s been seasoned with loads of spices, and then chill it. It has to be served cold or it won’t look pretty.”
“All the food has to be cold,” Lucy said. “Or it will be anyway, by the time the bidding is over on the boxes.”
“When you cut the slices, each one has streaks of stuffing in it,” I added.
“Oh, that must be delicious,” Ruth said when I’d finished reciting the recipe. She actually sounded sincere, but I was beginning to learn that Ruth could sound like she adored you at the same time she was slipping a knife between your ribs. “And yes, certainly we can find you an old pillowcase or perhaps a sheet you can cut up. That should do the job.”
We worked for a few minutes in silence, until Ruth said, out of the blue, “So, tell me, Tess, dear”—her fingers sifted through the small pile of beads on the table in front of her—“exactly how far along are you?”
My hands froze on my box. I was taken aback, though I probably shouldn’t have been. I wasn’t wearing my girdle this evening. I’d taken it off when I got home from Reverend Sam’s and I simply couldn’t bear to put it on again before coming downstairs. I knew I was showing without it. I didn’t think it was noticeable unless someone was truly examining my figure, but I guessed Ruth was doing exactly that. She knew I hadn’t gotten pregnant on our wedding night. I’d told Reverend Sam about the baby, of course, but here in Ruth Kraft’s kitchen, saying out loud that I was four months pregnant seemed so … obscene, somehow. I stared down at my fingers, white and stiff against the blue ribbons and lace on the box. The silence in the room felt electric and I had to break it.
“Four months,” I admitted. “I’m due in late July.”
“Well,” she said, avoiding my eyes as steadfastly as I was avoiding hers, “I suppose we’ll have to do some creative fudging when the baby’s born then. We’ll say it came quite early. And we’ll keep visitors at bay for a while. We don’t want anyone to think the worst, do we?”
“People aren’t idiots, Mother,” Lucy said.
“Well, Lucille,” Ruth said to her daughter, “let’s not help them jump to the wrong conclusion, all right?”
“They already know. Everyone’s talking about it.”
“And who is everyone?” Ruth’s voice was tight.
“Violet and her friends, to begin with.”
“Well, yes. But who can blame her? She adores him.”
I bristled as they talked about me as if I weren’t there.
“Oh,” Ruth said suddenly. “Late July? I just realized you and Henry may be in the new house by then.” She furrowed her brow. “I’ll come over in the beginning to turn any visitors away,” she said, “and we’ll have to instruct the nanny to do the same. I’ll begin asking around for nanny referrals. You don’t want to wait too long to pin someone down.”
“I’d really rather not have a nanny,” I said. I couldn’t wait to take care of my own child. I wanted so badly to hold my baby in my arms.
“You’ll feel differently once that baby is actually here,” Ruth said. She tipped her head to the side in an attempt to look at my stomach, hidden behind the table. “We need to find some clothing that masks … you know. Your condition,” she said. “I’ll get one of those Lane Bryant catalogs for you to shop from. And it’s time we set up an appointment for you with Dr. Poole.”
“An obstetrician?” I asked.
“He’s our longtime family doctor and he delivers the babies of everyone in Hickory,” she said. “All the white babies, anyway. And he knows when to keep his lips sealed. As soon as you start to show a bit more,” she added, “you mustn’t leave the house.”
I didn’t respond. I knew women of Ruth’s generation hid themselves away during their pregnancy, but this was 1944 and I hoped to have at least another couple of months of freedom. The thought of being trapped in this house was overwhelming. Plus, I wanted to be able to visit Reverend Sam whenever I chose.
“Maybe church this Sunday should be your last outing,” Ruth said.
That would be one bonus of not leaving the house, I thought. The fewer church services I needed to attend, the better. “Maybe,” I said, hoping that answer would be enough to satisfy her for now.
We fell quiet again, and I wondered if all three of us were thinking about how we would get through the next few months. I wished it was already July. I wanted to meet this little person nestled inside me. The one person in Hickory I knew I would love. The one person in Hickory who was going to love me back.
* * *
In bed that night, I asked Henry if we could plant a tree for my mother at our new house. At first he laughed. “There are more than forty trees on that land already,” he said.
“This one would be special,” I said. “It would have meaning for me.”
He looked at me across the empty space between our beds then, the humor leaving his face. “Sure, Tess,” he said. “You can do whatever you want with the house and the land. It will be yours. All right?”
I thanked him, thinking as I always did how many girls would love that invitation. If only a big house and beautiful land was what I wanted.
32
My ham came out perfectly that Friday evening, the best I’d ever made. It had been almost like a dream come true, cooking with my sister- and mother-in-law. We even laughed a bit. We put my ham, Lucy’s meat loaf, and Ruth’s fried chicken in the refrigerator to chill for Saturday’s box supper. Lucy had scraped together enough sugar to bake her red velvet cake, and Hattie had shown her how to create its vibrant color using beets instead of food coloring.
“We can take the leftovers to Adora and Honor and the kids,” Lucy said to her mother as we straightened the kitchen after our cooking project. “Adora’s birthday is Sunday, remember?”
“Oh yes,” Ruth said. “Taking them the leftovers is an excellent idea.”
All three of us turned at the sound of Henry’s car in the driveway.
“Maybe Henry can drive us to Adora’s on the way to church Sunday morning so we don’t have to take one of those blasted stinky old cabs,” Lucy said.
“Watch your language,” Ruth scolded as she took off her apron.
/> Henry walked in the back door and I knew right away he was in a sour mood. It emanated from him like something tangible. I stood awkwardly by the table, never knowing how to greet him when we were in front of his family. Certainly there would be no welcome-home kiss. We didn’t even kiss in private.
“What’s the matter with you?” Lucy asked.
He took off his coat and tossed it over the back of one of the kitchen chairs, then stood in front of us, hands crammed into his pants pockets. “Gaston’s trial ended,” he said. “He lost.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. I still hadn’t met Gaston Joyner, although I’d seen a picture of him and his wife, Loretta, in the paper that morning. They stood side by side outside the courtroom and I felt a stab of sympathy for them. The wife, Loretta, had a hand to her cheek as though wiping a tear away, and Gaston was speaking to someone outside the photograph, exhaustion in his face. I knew Henry had been hoping—unrealistically so—that the state would recognize their interracial marriage as valid and his friend could stay out of prison.
“Well, of course he lost.” Ruth set her dirty apron on the table near the back door where Hattie would be sure to see it. “He was a fool to think he could come back here with a colored so-called wife and get away with it. It’s the law, pure and simple.”
“A backward law,” Henry muttered. He sounded like an angry little boy who hadn’t gotten his way.
“Oh, you’re just being obstinate,” Ruth said.
“It may be backward, Hank,” Lucy said, “but it’s the reality. Even if the law went away, Gaston and Loretta couldn’t live here in peace. People are already up in arms about them. You know that. It’s just the way it is.”
“Frankly, it makes me sick to think of them married.” Ruth shuddered. “Just horrible. And Gaston was such a nice young man.”
“He’s still a nice young man,” Henry countered his mother. “Only now he’ll be a nice young man in prison unless they can get out of Hickory right quick. The judge will suspend the sentence if they leave the state.” He turned toward the door that led to the hallway. “I’m going up to my room,” he said.