“We don’t want your money,” Honor said. I was taken aback by the hostility in her voice. She’d treated me politely at the house after the funeral. I supposed that, at the house, she’d had no choice. Now I was on her turf. I felt a bead of sweat trickle down my cheek and brushed it away with damp fingers.
Adora gave Honor a light swat on her arm. “Act like a good Christian for once in your life,” she said to her daughter.
“No, it’s all right,” I said hastily, not wanting to be the cause of animosity between mother and daughter. “I’ll just leave the envelope with you, Adora, and go.”
Adora looked past me toward the street. “No car?” she asked. “You took the bus?”
“A cab.”
“Oh, that’s better,” she said. “Why don’t you set down here before you go back?” She pointed to the two white rocking chairs on the porch. “Mite bit cooler in the shade.”
Honor gave her mother a look of daggers. “I need to go out,” she said, and without so much as a glance in my direction, she walked past me and down the porch steps.
“Where you going, Mama?” Jilly called after her.
Honor didn’t answer and Adora held the door open with one hand while leaning over to draw her granddaughter to her by the shoulder. “She be back soon, Jilly, don’t fret,” she said.
“I didn’t mean to stir things up,” I said softly.
Adora waved away my comment and limped heavily across the porch to one of the rockers, motioning me to follow her. Jilly sat down on the wood floor of the porch and began talking to her doll, making it dance through the air.
“Honor thought of Miss Lucy as a friend,” Adora said as she sat down. “She don’t feel too kindly toward you, I’m afraid.”
“I’m sure she’s still grieving her son too,” I said, sitting on the second rocker. “She’s had two losses in a row, plus she’s apart from her…” I searched a bit desperately for the right word. Boyfriend? Lover?
“From Del, yes.” Adora saved me. “It’s all been hard on her and you’re right. There’s an empty spot in this house with no Butchie, that’s for sure,” she said. “Like I imagine there is at your house with no Lucy.”
I nodded.
Adora leaned forward in her chair, nearly close enough to reach out and touch me. “I want to tell you somethin’,” she said. “I’m glad Mr. Hank chose you.”
I was surprised. “You are?”
“Uh-huh.” She nodded. “That Violet, she a real pretty thing but she ain’t no good. She don’t feel for other people,” she said. “You do, don’t you? You feel things in your bones.”
“You barely know me,” I said, though she was certainly right about me. My bones ached with all I was feeling these days.
“Oh, I know enough.” Adora brushed a droplet of perspiration from her temple. “Jilly took to you right off. Honor told me how she sat with you at the house after Miss Lucy’s funeral. She only four but she got one of them sixth senses about people, you know what I mean?”
I nodded uncertainly. I looked at Jilly who was trying to tie a little bonnet over her doll’s molded blond hair.
“You can tell a lot about a person by the way a child takes to them,” Adora said. “You don’t hold yourself above nobody, not even a little bit of a thing like Jilly. Miss Violet, though—” She shook her head. “She hold herself above everybody. Above Jesus.” She chuckled. “I hated when it looked like Mr. Hank was gonna marry her. ’Course I had no say. Miss Ruth was thrilled. Two big families comin’ together. That kind of thing be important to Miss Ruth. Not so important to Hank though. He got a better head on his shoulders, thank the Lord.”
She wasn’t going to mention that I’d given Henry little choice but to marry me when I showed up carrying his child. I was sure she knew. Everyone else did.
“Henry told me you saved his life when he cut off his fingers,” I said.
She leaned back in the rocker and set it moving with her feet on the porch floor.
“Just lucky I was there or I don’t know what would of happened to that boy,” she said, looking past me into the distance. “I’ll never forget it, long as I live. Nineteen twenty-three, it was. I was coming from the cottage to the house when Hank come running out of the shed screamin’ his fool head off, blood flyin’ everywhere. So much blood it took me a minute to realize three of his fingers was gone.”
I bit my lip at the picture taking shape in my head.
“I quick tore the rag off my head—I was younger, skinnier, and faster movin’ in those days.” She winked at me from behind her glasses. “And I made one of them tourniquets and yelled for Miss Ruth to call for help. They was one of the only families with a phone back then and old Dr. Poole—the new Dr. Poole’s daddy?—had a phone too and he come right over. Meanstime, the blood done gone everywhere. All over Hank. All over me. All over the ground.”
I tried to imagine what Adora had looked like all those years ago when she came to work for Ruth and her husband. Behind her round face and thick glasses, I could see a pretty young girl. She’d probably been slender then too, like Honor.
“I don’t know if I could have done what you did,” I said, “and I’m a nurse.”
Her eyes lit up. “You a nurse, honey?”
“Yes, though obviously I’m not working as one. Henry doesn’t want me to work.”
“That’s a fine job for a girl, but you being a Kraft, you got no cause to work now, do you?”
I sighed. “I have no cause, but I’d still like to,” I said.
She didn’t seem to hear me. She was staring into the distance. “My children was Mr. Hank’s only playmates after he hurt his hand,” she said. “Other children called him a monster and such.”
“Really?” I supposed this was why Henry didn’t like talking about the loss of his fingers.
“Oh yes. Nobody would play with him after that. He would of died from bein’ lonely if Zeke and Honor didn’t play with him. They loved him like a brother till they was old enough to know better.”
Jilly had walked over to me and dumped her doll unceremoniously on my lap. “I can’t make this hat go on,” she said in frustration, handing me the bonnet.
“Would you like me to do it?” I asked.
Her head bobbed up and down and I began to tie the bonnet beneath the doll’s chin. “I’m glad he had Zeke and Honor,” I said to Adora.
“He needed them, for sure,” Adora said. “That little Violet was the worst about Hank’s hand. One of the ringleaders really. She didn’t care nothin’ for him until her mama and daddy put the idea of all Hank’s money in her head. Then suddenly, she mad in love with him.”
I thought of that picture in Lucy’s room, the one of her and Violet standing with Henry. He hadn’t looked all that miserable at finding himself with his arm around the pretty blond. I handed the doll back to Jilly.
“What you say?” Adora asked her.
“Thank you,” Jilly muttered. Then with her eyes on my face, she added, “You’re pretty.”
I laughed. “So are you, sweetheart.” I watched as she flopped down on the floor again with the nameless doll. I hoped Gina could find the colored doll for her. I wondered if she’d give that one a name.
“She’s a pip, ain’t she.” Adora nodded in her granddaughter’s direction.
“She’s darling,” I said.
“Hank give Zeke that job at the furniture company when he got sent home from the Marines,” Adora said, continuing our earlier conversation. “Nobody wanted to hire a colored man with a gimp leg, but Mr. Hank never forgot who his true and honest friends was.”
I thought of Zeke’s surprisingly lovely room at the factory. Lovely, but lonely, perhaps, living in that huge factory day and night. “Does Zeke have a family?” I asked.
“No, that boy ain’t never met a girl he liked well enough.” Adora sounded a bit annoyed by that fact. “He a good man, but tough to please.”
“How about you, Adora?” I asked. “You lived in that litt
le cottage for twenty years, right? What about your husband?”
“When I started working for Mr. and Mrs. Kraft, I was twenty-four with two little ones and my husband worked for a farmer over to Newton,” she said. “We lived with his parents not far from here.” She pointed south of where we sat. “He got pneumonia one winter and…” She shook her head. “He went right quick.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. I did the math in my head and was shocked to realize Adora was not even fifty. Arthritis and hard work had really taken their toll.
“That’s when Hank’s daddy built that little house for me and the children. They was good to us, the Kraft family.”
“I think they were lucky to have you.” I motioned toward her current house. “This little house is darling,” I said. “Prettiest house on the street.”
She smiled. “Zeke and Hank keep it up for us,” she said. “They paint it. Fix the roof. Hank got us these rocking chairs.”
“I’m glad they look after you,” I said. For a moment, I loved my husband. “Well, I’d better get going.” With a sigh, I got slowly to my feet, smoothing my skirt.
Adora suddenly looked worried. “How you gonna get home?” she asked. “We ain’t got no phone to call the cab.”
“Oh, I’ll take the bus,” I said. “It’s not a problem.” I hoped she didn’t watch me as I left, since I’d be walking in the wrong direction for the bus as I headed toward Reverend Sam’s house. “Thank you for the shade and conversation,” I added. “I enjoyed it.”
She winced as she stood up, then shuffled with me across the porch.
“Everybody always ’spected Hank’d marry Violet and that would of been a terrible thing,” she said. “Maybe you saved him from something terrible, Miss Tess. You think of it that way, all right?”
55
I was clammy with perspiration by the time I climbed the steps to Reverend Sam’s big sky-blue house and knocked on his door. On my second knock, he pulled the door open and his face lit up in surprise.
“Tess!” he said, his smile warm. “I’ve missed seeing you. How have you been?”
I opened my mouth but couldn’t find my voice. My eyes filled and I shook my head. “A lot has happened,” I managed to say.
He lost his smile. “Come in, child,” he said softly, stepping back to let me pass, and I walked into his dark, cool living room and breathed in that suddenly familiar scent of old burned-out firewood. “Let’s go to my office.” He motioned toward the hallway.
I followed him down the dark hall and through the anteroom, barely noticing the tall white skeleton and other artifacts lining the walls. In his office, we took our places, Sam behind his desk, me in one of the wooden chairs opposite him. He immediately reached across the desk, and I rested my hands in his. He shut his eyes.
“Dear Lord,” he said. “With your protection and if it’s your will, open the doors between worlds today so this child can find peace.”
I swallowed against the lump in my throat and said nothing. I was certain he didn’t want me to tell him why I was there. I doubted I could get the words out, anyway.
“Yes?” he asked the air, turning his head slightly and opening his eyes to half-mast. “Ah,” he said. “Walter is here with us.”
“Walter?” I whispered, puzzled.
“I see spirit running down the street.” He smiled at me. “Bouncing a ball.”
I shook my head, disappointed. Maybe I’d imagined that he had a gift. Maybe I’d believed what I wanted to believe about him.
“I don’t think you know him very well, Tess.” Reverend Sam frowned, his eyes tightly shut again.
“I don’t know any Walter at all,” I said quietly. “At least not any who have passed away.”
Reverend Sam wore a slight frown above his closed eyes. “Yes. Yes,” he said, and I could tell again that he wasn’t speaking to me. Then he opened his eyes and looked directly at me. “You’re definitely connected to this Walter in some way,” he said. “Some way outside our knowing.”
“All right,” I said. I would just accept it.
“There are many connections in this room today,” he said, still frowning. “I feel them pummeling me. Vying for my attention. It’s hard to separate them.”
I nodded, feeling dubious. Walter?
He shut his eyes again, muttering a few words that I guessed were a prayer.
“Ah,” he said suddenly. “I see spirit … I see … Lucy? Lucy, is it?”
“Oh.” I clutched the arms of the chair.
“Spirit is beautiful,” he said. “Surrounded by a healing blue light.”
“Lucy is?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. He seemed far away from me. If he truly was connecting to Lucy, I needed her to know how sorry I was.
“Please tell her I’m sorry,” I said. I heard the intensity in my voice. “Please tell her I’d do anything if I could bring her back.” My eyes stung. “Tell her how sorry I am that I couldn’t save her.”
“Shh.” He frowned again, his eyes closed. After a moment, he shook his head. Opened his eyes. “She’s gone,” he said.
“Oh no. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have spoken. I—”
“She died in a terrible way?” he asked.
“Yes. I wasn’t supposed to use the car, but I did and we blew a tire and landed in the river and I couldn’t get her out.” The words rushed out of me and I began to cry in earnest. My hands were in fists on his desk and he leaned forward and covered them with his own.
“No, child,” he said softly. “Lucy is beautiful. Lucy is fine. I told you, she’s wrapped in a healing blue light.”
I looked into his kind bronze-colored eyes, longing to believe him.
“Never think about the way someone died,” he said. “Never stew on that. Think about the way they are in spirit, my dear. You tried your best to save her, didn’t you?”
I nodded, gulping my tears.
“Your Lucy is fine,” he said again. Then he shut his eyes and said another prayer and I suddenly felt distrustful of him. Was I a sucker? The cynic in me wondered if he might be a charlatan after all. He knew my name. Tess Kraft. Everyone knew the Kraft family, even here in the Ridgeview neighborhood. Everyone knew about the accident that killed Lucy Kraft. Maybe Reverend Sam read the newspaper with a magnifying glass, memorizing the names of people who’d passed away in case their loved ones showed up at his door. He’d started with the name Walter. I didn’t think I’d known a Walter in my entire life. How had he known my mother’s name, Maria, the first time I saw him though? That I couldn’t explain.
“Someone else is here,” he said, interrupting my thoughts.
I hesitated. “Who?” I asked, and I imagined he was going to say my mother’s name again.
He frowned, turning his head slowly left then right, his brow furrowed in concentration. “Andrew,” he said.
Oh my God. I let out my breath, and with it my doubts about Reverend Sam’s honesty.
“Andrew doesn’t speak,” he said, “but I feel him with us in this room.”
My tears were back, burning my eyes. “He was my baby,” I whispered, and Reverend Sam’s eyes flew open.
“Born too early?” he asked.
I nodded, my voice failing me.
He closed his eyes again. He didn’t speak but appeared to be listening. “He feels his mother’s love,” he said finally. “Your love. That’s all he needs. He loves you very much.”
I wept then, my face buried in my hands. My baby. I felt him in the room with us. I truly did. I’m so sorry I didn’t fight harder to hold you, Andy.
I cried a long time while Reverend Sam waited quietly on his side of the desk. When I finally pulled myself together, he was looking at me, clear-eyed sympathy in his face.
“No one understands,” I said. “They act as though he never existed.”
“He exists in spirit now, child. Peaceful spirit.”
“Is he in a healing blue light?”
“I didn’t see the light,”
he admitted, “but I felt the peace. You can let go of any guilt or worry about Lucy or Andrew, Tess. Let go of it all.”
We talked a while longer and I began to sense his weariness. I was overstaying my welcome, yet I hated to leave.
“I want to give you something back,” I said finally. “Please, can’t I pay you for your time?”
He looked surprised. “I don’t take money,” he said, then smiled. “I don’t need money.”
“But this tires you, doesn’t it?” I asked, suddenly worried about him. “It takes a lot out of you.”
He nodded. “I believe you’re the first person ever to ask me that. To realize that,” he said, then he folded his hands neatly in front of him on the desk. “Understand, Tess, that I enjoy helping people,” he said. “Comforting people. But yes, I often nap for two or three hours after I connect with the spirit world.”
“But who comforts you?” I probed. “I think you give and give and give, but who gives back to you?”
“You are an inquisitive girl,” he said, looking amused. “And a very kind girl as well. My sons look in on me. They live in Charlotte and they take turns making sure I’m still alive. And my wife visits me quite often.”
“Your wife?” I said, surprised. “I thought she was…” I stopped, then laughed as I understood his meaning. “Well, good,” I said. “I’m glad she comes to see you.”
I got to my feet, not really wanting to go but knowing he needed to rest. He walked me out, through the anteroom, past the skeleton and down the dark hallway. We said good-bye, and when I stepped into the bright sunlight and began walking down the street toward the bus stop, I knew without a doubt Lucy would no longer bother me in the house. I knew it like I knew my own name. But more important to me at that moment, I’d been able to talk safely and openly about Andy. Someone else had honored his existence. If only Henry had, just one time, acknowledged that our baby had been a real person. A real baby boy. With a name. With a future stolen from him. But now I knew Andy existed someplace safe and serene. I would never get to hold him. Touch his sweet cheek. See him smile his first smile, bright-eyed and gurgling. But he was at peace. I could ask for no more than that.