To my surprise, she leaned against me, her little head resting on my arm. “I’ll see him again someday,” she said, “but not till I’m a old lady.”
“That’s right.” I freed my arm and put it around her shoulders. At that very moment, Honor walked through the foyer carrying a tray of pimento-cheese-stuffed celery. She did a double take when she saw me sitting next to her daughter.
“Jilly!” She stood in the middle of the foyer, the tray balanced in her hands. “Go in the kitchen with Nana ’Dora. You shouldn’t be out here.”
“Oh, she’s fine,” I said.
Honor didn’t seem to hear me. “Go on now,” she said to her daughter. “Git!”
Jilly got to her feet and, without looking back at me, took off at a run for the kitchen.
“Sorry if she disturbed you, Miss Tess,” Honor said.
“She was fine,” I repeated, getting to my feet. I dusted off the back of my skirt. “She’s very sweet.”
Honor didn’t respond, but she looked away from me toward the rear of the foyer. I’d only seen her up close once before, that day in February when she and Lucy were talking with Hattie at the clothesline. I was mesmerized by her green eyes. There was so much sadness in them today.
“I was so sorry about Butchie,” I said. “And I hope your hus—your son’s father—Del? I hope he can come home soon, safe and sound.”
She looked back at me, at first mutely as though she didn’t understand what I’d said. Then she smiled. There was pain in that smile. She was apart from the man she loved. I knew exactly how that felt.
“I hope so too,” she said. “I miss him.” She hiked the tray a little higher. “Can I get you anything, Miss Tess?” she asked. “Would you like one of these celery sticks?”
“No, thank you,” I said. “I was just about to go upstairs when Jilly—” I stopped speaking as my eyes lit on Jilly’s doll. She’d set it on the step and forgotten it when she ran to the kitchen. “She forgot her doll,” I said, picking it up.
“Just leave it there. I’ll come get it when I put this tray down.”
“I’ll take it to her,” I said. The last few minutes of civil conversation with Jilly and Honor had given me courage, and I left the foyer and walked with my head held high through the dining room, ignoring everyone I passed.
In the kitchen I found Adora and Jilly sitting at the table, eating ham biscuits, while Hattie arranged more of them on a tray. All three of them looked up at me.
“What you need, Miss Tess?” Hattie asked.
I’d been holding the doll behind my back, but now I produced it and Jilly sucked in her breath.
“My dolly!” she said, hopping off her chair and running over to me. I handed the doll to her and she cuddled it before carrying it back to the table.
I thought Hattie looked overwhelmed, surrounded by half a dozen plates of hors d’oeuvres. She’d been kind to me since the accident. It weren’t your fault, honey, she’d said to me that horrible first night. That girl could make anybody do what she want. You was just tryin’ to please her.
I moved deeper into the big kitchen. “How can I help?” I asked. “How about I take that tray out for you?” I pointed to the tray of ham biscuits. It would give me something to do. A reason to approach the unwelcoming circles of people. I reached for the tray, but Hattie gave my hand a little swat.
“No, Miss Tess,” she said, “that ain’t your job.”
“Honor’ll pass it ’round,” Adora said.
“Let me,” I said to Hattie. “Please.”
Hattie shook her head like I was the stupidest woman in the world, but she raised her hands in the air in surrender. I carried the tray to the swinging door that led to the dining room, feeling Hattie’s and Adora’s eyes on me.
In the dining room, I carried the tray from person to person, relieved to have something concrete to do other than struggle to make conversation. People treated me as if I were invisible, which was fine with me.
“Tess!”
I turned to see Ruth hurrying toward me, pushing her way through the crowd that had congregated around the table. Avoid my mother, Henry had warned me. I wasn’t going to be able to avoid her now.
“Ruth, I—”
“Come with me,” she said, walking past me until she’d reached the corner of the dining room. She stood next to the buffet, away from the people gathered near the table. I followed her, tray in my hands, and she turned to face me.
“You don’t want to do this,” she said quietly, motioning to the tray. Her cheeks were pale and drawn as though she hadn’t eaten or slept in days. “Set the tray down and come into the living room with the guests.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Really. I’d like to help. And I wanted to tell you—”
“No.” Her smile was tight and I was aware that some of the people in the room were glancing in our direction. “You need to set it down, dear,” she said quietly. “Let Honor or Hattie pass the hors d’oeuvres. That’s their job, not yours.”
I didn’t want to let go of the tray. It felt like a lifeline, the only way I’d found to be comfortable in the room.
“I wanted to be useful,” I said.
“You’re not a servant, Tess,” she said. “Put it down.”
Reluctantly, I set the tray on the buffet. Then I dared to reach out to touch her arm. “I’m so sorr—”
“Don’t touch me!” she said, jerking her arm away from my hand. Her voice, suddenly loud—too loud—held such disdain that I took a step away from her. Behind me, all conversation stopped, leaving a silence as big as death in the room.
Ruth leaned forward, closing the distance between us, her lips next to my ear. “You are so common,” she said, only loud enough for me to hear. “I rue the day you ever set foot in this house.”
So do I, I thought, but I steeled myself. Tightened my jaw. I would take whatever she dished out to me. “I’m sorry, Ruth,” I whispered again. My eyes burned. “I wish there was something I could—”
“You ruined my son’s life and destroyed my daughter’s,” Ruth said, her breath sour against my ear. “You’re a low-class tramp with no right to be here in my beautiful home and if there was a way to cut you out of the Kraft family without bringing shame to us, I would do it in a heartbeat.”
“Mama.” Henry broke through the crowd and was instantly at my side. With one look at our faces, he seemed to intuit our disintegrating exchange. He took my arm and turned me in the direction of the foyer. “Go upstairs,” he said quietly. My body felt wooden and he had to give me a push to start me moving. “Just go.”
I felt everyone looking at me as I walked through the dining room toward the foyer. I stared straight ahead, but from the corner of my eye I could see Adora and Zeke in the doorway of the kitchen and Violet and her parents near the arched entrance to the foyer. A couple of Lucy’s girlfriends stood near the foot of the stairs. They couldn’t have heard all of the conversation with Ruth, but surely they could guess the heart of it. They would be talking about me for the rest of the day. Perhaps the rest of the month.
* * *
I didn’t go downstairs for dinner that evening, and when Hattie brought me one of the ham biscuits, I thanked her but told her I had no appetite. Henry was quiet when he came upstairs and it wasn’t until we were in bed that I broke the silence.
“Do you think of me as a tramp?” I asked him. We were both lying on our backs looking up at the dark ceiling.
“Of course not,” he said. “Don’t listen to Mama. She’s wounded, Tess. She lost her only daughter.”
“She hated me before that and she hates me even more now.”
“We’ll be out of this house in a month,” he said. “That is, if you’ll ever sit down with that interior designer. Things will be different then.”
I suddenly wondered if Henry’s lack of interest in lovemaking had something to do with living in Ruth’s house. Maybe he was concerned about making noise? But no, I thought. Henry was simply one of those
rare men who had little interest in sex. I had to accept that. If we stayed locked in this marriage, we would never have a truly intimate relationship. Not physically. Not emotionally. Vincent’s face flashed into my memory and I blocked it out. Thinking about Vincent would do me no good at all.
“I did sleep with you when I barely knew you,” I said. “That was a terrible thing to do. A trampy thing.”
“And I slept with you when I barely knew you,” he said. “We’re both culpable.”
“It’s kind of you to say that,” I said. “Not many men would, I don’t think.”
He sighed. “This is a very rough patch, Tess,” he said. “We just have to get through it.”
“Henry, please…” My voice broke. “Please can we find a way to end this marriage?”
I felt rather than heard his annoyance, and it was a moment before he spoke again. “We’re not talking about this now,” he said, and he rolled onto his side away from me.
He fell asleep quickly, while I lay awake for hours, torturing myself with memories of that afternoon. I should never have gone downstairs. There had been nothing to be gained by it. I wasn’t thinking clearly these days. I played Ruth’s insults over and over in my mind.
If only I could talk to Lucy to tell her how sorry I was. I’d tell her I wished I’d gotten to know her better. I thought of her giving that baby doll to little Jilly. How good she’d been to care for that family. I would withdraw forty dollars from my bank account and take it to them for the headstone. I’d bring them extra groceries when we could spare them, as Lucy would have done. The least I could do was take over that caring role for her. And there was one more thing I wanted to do for that family.
I got out of bed and wrote a quick note to Gina.
52
June 19, 1944
Dear Gina,
I have a favor to ask. There’s a little toy shop near Hutzler’s department store. They used to have a colored doll in the window. Could you see if they still carry that doll, and if so, buy it and send it to me, please? I’ll repay you, of course. It’s for a little girl I know here. She’s the granddaughter of the Krafts’ former maid and she recently lost her brother to polio. Thank you in advance, dear friend.
Love,
Tess
53
In the morning, I waited upstairs for Henry and Ruth to leave the house. I knew Ruth had a meeting with her estate attorney and I was glad she was going out. When I was certain they were both gone, I put on my robe and left the room, intending to go downstairs to breakfast. But when I walked into the hallway, I stopped short. There it was again, that eerie feeling that Lucy was nearby. I looked at the closed door to her bedroom. I felt as though, if I pushed that door open, she would be there. She’d be sitting at her vanity, looking up at me with hollow eyes.
I shuddered. I was being ridiculous. Shaking off the feeling, I walked resolutely down the stairs and sat at the dining room table. Henry had left the newspaper on the table as he did most mornings, and I pulled it close to read the front page.
Hattie opened the swinging door between the dining room and kitchen and walked in with the coffeepot. “You got some appetite for eggs and grits this morning, Miss Tess?” she asked as she poured.
I suddenly remembered Adora and Zeke standing in the doorway of the kitchen after Ruth had raked me over the coals. Surely Hattie and Adora, Honor and Zeke, had talked about me every bit as much as the guests had. I wondered what they’d said. What they thought of me now.
“That would be lovely,” I said, smiling gamely. I couldn’t quite look her in the eye and I turned my attention back to the paper.
The top half of the front page was filled with war and polio. Seven more cases of infantile paralysis from the area had been sent to Charlotte Memorial Hospital and another Catawba County child had died. The situation in the county was worsening, the article said, and Dr. Whims was meeting today with two physicians from the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis to plan a course of action. The hospital in Charlotte was calling for more nurses. And what was I doing? Sitting here being waited on hand and foot. Could I go to Charlotte? Maybe I could get a room there. I could do some good and escape Hickory, at least for a while. I’d feel closer to Vincent, emotionally at least, doing the sort of work he’d been involved with in Chicago last summer. Henry would say no, of course. If I left, I’d have to be able to support myself on whatever the Charlotte hospital was paying its nurses. I would no longer be able to count on Henry’s money to support me.
Hattie came into the room again and set a plate of scrambled eggs, sausage patties, and grits in front of me, the coffeepot in her other hand. I made myself look up at her.
“Thanks, Hattie,” I said.
“Sure, Miss Tess,” she said, refilling my cup.
I spread the paper open in front of me as I ate. A young man from Hickory had been seriously wounded in New Guinea and another was being sent home from Italy with a broken leg. I read the article on what this week’s rationing coupons would buy, which was not much. There was a small article about federal agents cracking down on counterfeit gasoline rationing coupons. Apparently that was becoming big business throughout the country.
At the bottom of the page was a large ad for Kraft Fine Furniture. Instead of advertising furniture, though, it encouraged people to buy war bonds and asked them to contribute to the scrap-metal pile Henry maintained in the parking lot by the side of the factory. Henry’s signature—Hank Kraft—was in large bold script at the bottom of the page, turning the ad into a personal plea.
I nibbled my breakfast as I read, unable to eat more than a few bites of egg and sausage. I was taking my time, uncomfortable about going back upstairs where Lucy’s ghost was waiting for me. When Hattie came into the room to pick up my plate, she shook her head and tsk-tsked.
“I always know when you upset, Miss Tess,” she said. “You don’t eat nothin’.”
I looked up at her. If there was anyone who’d understand how I was feeling about Lucy’s ghost or spirit or whatever it was, it would be Hattie.
“Do you feel Lucy in the house, Hattie?”
She cocked her head at me as if she didn’t understand. Then she let out a laugh. “Lordy, you need Reverend Sam bad, honey,” she said.
“I don’t truly believe in ghosts or spirits or any of that,” I said. “But upstairs…”
“Oh, she’s up there, all right.”
“You feel her presence too?”
“Yes, ma’am. She’s there.”
“Maybe I should go see Reverend Sam,” I said, more to myself than to her. “I want to ask Lucy to forgive me.”
“It was jest an accident, Miss Tess,” she said. “But he put your mind to rest. You oughta go.”
I pictured myself taking the bus to Ridgeview. Walking down that dirt road past the little houses. Past Adora’s yellow house. I could take her the money for the headstone at the same time. “I’ll go,” I said to Hattie. I glanced toward the foyer and the stairs. “But first I have to get dressed, and I feel like she’s waiting for me up there.” I laughed at myself and she chuckled.
“Want me to go up with you?” She grinned. “Keep her away from you while you put your clothes on?”
I laughed, getting to my feet. “You’re not good for me, Hattie,” I said. “You humor me too much.”
“Well, you good for me, Miss Tess,” she said, her voice suddenly serious. “Don’t let Miss Ruth run you off, ya hear?”
54
I took a cab to the bank and asked the driver to wait for me while I withdrew forty dollars from my personal account, leaving very little left for a move to Charlotte or anywhere else, for that matter. I slipped the envelope with the money into my red handbag, the one I ordinarily saved for dressy occasions and the only one I had now that I’d lost my everyday handbag in the accident. When I got back into the cab and told the driver to take me to Ridgeview, he asked me if I was sure that’s where I wanted to go.
“I’m sure,” I sa
id.
He shrugged and put the cab into gear.
I had him let me off in front of Adora’s house. The day was hot and I was perspiring by the time I got out of the cab. The short sleeves of my dress stuck to my arms, and I knew that unruly black tendrils were curling over my forehead. I walked up to the door, dodging a rusting tricycle on the crumbling sidewalk. In the front window, I spotted one of the red-bordered blue star flags and guessed it was for Del.
Although only the screened door was closed, it was too dark to see inside the house. I knocked on the door frame.
Honor pushed open the screened door and there was no warmth at all in her jade-green eyes, only a look of surprise. She peered behind me, and I guessed she was looking for a car or perhaps for Ruth or Henry.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
Jilly spotted me from the living room and ran onto the porch. Gripping her doll in one arm, she wrapped the other around my thighs. I felt touched by her reaction to seeing me. She acted as though we were old friends instead of two strangers who’d shared a five-minute conversation at Ruth’s house. I welcomed her innocence and trust.
“Jilly!” Honor chided her, but I rested my hand on the back of the little girl’s head.
“Hi, little one,” I bent over to say. “How’s your dolly today?”
She let go of me and hugged her doll with both arms, rocking it back and forth. “She’s happy,” she said.
“Oh, that’s wonderful.” I smiled at her, then looked at Honor who stood holding the screened door open with her hip, her arms now crossed at her chest. “May I come in?” I asked. “Just for a moment.”
“Who is it?” Adora asked as she hobbled up behind Honor and peered around her shoulder. “Why, Miss Tess!” She smiled and I felt relieved. “What can we do for you?”
“When Lucy and I had the accident,” I said, more to Adora than Honor, “we were on our way here.”
“Here?” Adora frowned.
“Yes.” I looked from her to Honor. “Lucy and Ruth had collected some money at church to help you get a headstone for Butchie and we were bringing it over. Or at least we planned to bring it over, but Lucy wanted to … run an errand on the other side of the river, and…” My voice trailed off as I pulled the envelope from my handbag. “Anyway, I brought you the money.” I held out the envelope. “I’m sorry it’s taken a while to get it to you.”