A Virtuous Ruby (9 page)

“So let me get this straight.” Adam stilled himself. “It’ll be myself and you as members in the Winslow chapter of the NAACP.”

“To start. I’m going to be the president.”

“I see. Well, I’ll have to give it some thought.”

“For what?” Ruby fiddled with her own line.

“To make sure there is no danger. I don’t want to launch into a dangerous enterprise.”

“I see. Part of the tie wearing you do.”

“If it bothers you, then I’ll take it off.”

Adam loosened the stays on his stiff collar and it dropped to the ground. The thud the collar made in the soft grass echoed through the fishing place and made him sorry he did it.
You are her instructor. This is wrong.
An apology came to his lips when there was a tug on his line and he forgot to let Ruby think he didn’t know what he was doing. In one swift movement, he pulled in a beautiful spotted trout.

He enjoyed the shocked look on her face. Her bright eyes were wide with surprise and the sprinkling of freckles across her nose seemed sharper and more prominent in the dawn light. “What? How did you…”

Adam reached over to the box now on the ground, fixed the pole again with proficient fingers and threw it back into the pond. “I was raised in Tennessee by a little creek bed. I know how to do a few things too.”

The doctor could fish. Oh Lord.

Why did she have to kick him in the leg? If she took a dunk in the cold creek, it would not cool her humiliation at her behavior at Bob’s.

It did not seem possible for him to be more handsome, but he was and freer without his stiff collar on. She could see his Adam’s apple move up and down in his throat as he spoke to her in his deep and resonant voice.

Focus on getting some fish.

How shameful she had not caught anything yet. She could not let herself get caught up into the spell of this man—a man unlike any other she had ever met. Uncle Arlo had left her a great and powerful work to do. He would not like for her to be distracted for a silly reason. Determined, she stepped over and placed her bare feet onto some of the smooth stones of the creek bed, and focused on catching something.

“Moving closer to them doesn’t necessarily help,” Adam cracked as he pulled in another one.

“I know. We’re fishing too close. Let’s get on to another place. I do fine when I’m on my own.”

Adam threw his pole in again. “I know. I’ve been on my own for a long time. But I have to admit, it is nice having companionship.”

“Nice idea. It doesn’t always work.” Ruby laughed and the old times slid through her mind. “For instance, growing up, I was supposed to be David’s wife. What a joke on me.”

Adam said nothing. She liked that. He was ready to listen. Maybe that was his doctor training, but she was glad that he wanted to hear her side of things. “I mean, we’re the same color. Always running around when we were young, comparing our skin, all over.” Ruby remembered those carefree days before she got to be a Negro. She and David played right up until the summer she turned fourteen..

Then, her changing body betrayed her. Suddenly, they couldn’t be friends anymore. No more playing. “But we weren’t the same color. Not in the eyes of everyone. People said, I thought I was too good for anyone else in this town, ’cause I’m light.”

Ruby peered at Adam’s quiet and dignified countenance in the dawn as he pulled in yet another fish. He added the fish to his growing pile and faced her again. “Folks were wrong. I just thought we were the same and it was the natural order of things we would be husband and wife one day. But I found out the hard way. I’m a Negro. Different. And now, I’m soiled for any other man.”

Adam snorted which wasn’t like him at all. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

“It’s what people say, day and night.”

“It’s not true.” Adam faced her as he paused in baiting another hook. “What happened to you was not right and not natural. You cannot honestly believe you ruined your chances. You’re a perfectly lovely, smart woman. Once you decide not to be any trouble to any man, you will find a husband who will care for you and provide for you.”

Now it was Ruby’s turn to snort. “I don’t want to be taken care of like a china doll. I want to help a man in his work. I could do somebody some kind of good.”

“You have a lot you can do.” Adam pointed out her fishing rod to her. “Look, I think you got lucky.”

Ruby reeled in her catch, a small trout not worth eating. She unhooked it and threw it back in. “You.” And with a finger, she touched his hard, thick, muscled chest. A delighted little shiver went through her, “Are bad luck.”

The wind shifted and she sensed the change in the day, thank God. “Solomon’s up by now. He’ll want breakfast.”

Adam picked up his five fish. “I think there is enough to go around for breakfast, thanks to me. If you clean them, I’ll fry and give your mother a break.”

Ruby hooted, “Fry?”

“I told you there were a lot of things I could do. Don’t underestimate me.” Their eyes met in the first spark of sunlight for the day, a new day full of hope and promise.

“I won’t.” Ruby gathered up the poles. “I just want to see for myself.”

“Good,” Adam praised her, “You have used the kind of language a teacher wants to hear from his student. You’ll make a fine nurse someday.”

Her heart sank. He didn’t say a fine nurse for himself. No need to get excited about his hard chest. Despite what he had said about her not being soiled, he spoke one thing and believed another. A true hypocrite. He was no kind of person to be in her life and certainly not one to be an example to Solomon. Ruby resolved right then and there to make his words come true—to be a fit nurse for someone else despite the ever-pulling and ever-tightening bond between the two of them.

Chapter Eight

As they walked back to the house in the early morning dawn, Adam kept sneaking glances at Ruby’s side profile and thinking how pleasing it was to look at her. She was eighteen, almost nineteen years old, but she looked younger with her luxuriant black hair tied back into one thick black braid. She had a fine mind as well, as she talked to him about the rights of the Negro people and how they had to fight. Her animated way of expressing herself made him get lost in the intensity of what she was saying. Any man would want to be caught up in her intensity.

He couldn’t help but admire her. Those brown freckles scattered across her nose like nutmeg on a pudding of some kind—something which only enhanced her sweetness. David, his pseudo brother, was a fool. If he ever really loved this worthy, wonderful young woman, how could he have done her such a profound evil and wrong? He shook his head to clear his mind of the thought. One saw many such things in the medical profession, and David, in his weak sensibility, was just one person who had it in him. He wasn’t a man, he was just a thing controlled by Paul Winslow. Adam would not be controlled.

They came up to the porch and her mother was standing there with her hand on her hip. “Solomon was looking for you.”

Ruby grinned. “I knew he was up. I can just tell when he’s awake in the world. Look at what we caught.” She held up the string of fish.

Lona nodded. “A fine breakfast. Good job.”

“We?” Adam choked out. “You mean me.” He turned to Lona. “I can fry, Mrs. Bledsoe.”

Lona waved him away. “Men don’t belong in my kitchen.”

Ruby’s mother’s offhand comment did not strike him as much as when Ruby gestured with her thumb at him in a careless way. That got to him right at his heart. Couldn’t she regard him any better than that? “He had some beginner’s luck down at the pond.”

Lona regarded the fine string of fish. “He don’t look like no beginner.”

“I am not, surely. We had similar creeks in Tennessee.”

“A Southern boy. And a provider.” Lona took the fish and admired them. Adam could hear her as she turned to address Ruby who passed her by, “That’s another kind of catch over there.” She spoke to him in a stern voice. “You coming to church with us tomorrow?”

Lona held the door open for him as he went into the house. All of the Bledsoes were in a flurry getting ready for the day. Ruby grabbed a squalling Solomon in her arms ready to get him fed, and yelled over her shoulder as she went into the bedroom. “I don’t know about church yet.”

“It’s getting past time,” Lona yelled out after her. “You have to get over it. Solomon is nearly six months now. He has to be christened for the sake of his soul.”

Adam handed off the string of fish to Mags who bustled off to the kitchen with it. John came to him and guided him to the table. “Ruby hasn’t had an easy time with the church folk since she started showing with Solomon. Folks at First Water are real particular about how young girls behave.”

“As they should be.” Lona elbowed Em.

John insisted, “I ain’t said that. But as I recall, the Bible says something about throwing stones. And as you say, we got to bring Solomon into the church. Any thing his mama did don’t have nothing to do with him.”

“Or his father.” Adam did not hesitate to come to Ruby’s defense. When he said those three words, something he thought of as a mere utterance, as his way of telling the truth, every one of the Bledsoes stared at him. What was wrong with what he said? Was it wrong to say Solomon had a father?

He was about to ask for some explanation when Lona asked him in a clear tone, “Will you come with us, Adam? Come to the church and stand in God’s light?”

“I’m not usually much for church,” Adam’s mind went back to those long, boring Sundays when he attended in Tennessee. And to God denying him his mother.

Ruby emerged at the doorway, holding a satisfied looking Solomon so he faced outward. His little legs wriggled back and forth and Adam could see the blue veins working in his little skinny legs. A trail of milk went down his cheek. Solomon gave him a toothless grin that took his heart away. Who wouldn’t, or couldn’t bring themselves to welcome this child anywhere, much less into the kingdom of God? “Well, why not?”

Ruby jiggled Solomon up and down a bit, almost using him as a shield against the world. “You can meet more of your patients there. I can check on Agnes while I am there as well.”

Her use of the first person plural did not escape him.

“There’ll be lunch afterward too—they always do on the last Sunday,” Delie chimed in. “You’ll get to meet lots of folk and eat some good cooking too.”

Everyone chuckled. Adam smiled at the love-struck Delie. “How can I refuse? Ruby?”

A sigh of relief went all around. All except Ruby, who had a stormy look on her face as she sat down at the table with the baby. Mags came bustling out of the kitchen with a plate full of crisply fried potatoes. “Fish will be out soon. Have a biscuit,” she urged Adam. He obliged her.

Ruby sat down next to him. “No one is saying anything about Dodge.”

“What should be said about Reverend Dodge?” Lona split a cathead biscuit and put some peach jam on it.

“He’s the one who cast me out.”

“And now you’re coming in to have your child brought to Jesus. He won’t turn you away.”

“He didn’t even come to see Solomon when he was born. Or when he was sick. He might have at least prayed for him. What kind of minister is he?”

“You know his feelings were hurt,” Mags mumbled as she came back in with the platter of hot crisp fish.

“That’s enough,” Lona interjected. “No disrespectful talk in this house about a man of God.”

“Even if he disrespects me by turning away my child,” Ruby said.

“That was months ago, Ruby,” Lona insisted.

“Eleven months and twenty-one days.”

Pain etched onto Ruby’s beautiful features. Missing the worship had meant a great deal to her. He reached over and held his hands out for Solomon. The baby pushed out his arms to him excited, and as they exchanged the holding of him, he and Ruby touched flesh. A jolt went up and down his arms.

But he would never drop precious Solomon. He accepted the warm, milk-heavy weight of him. He was doing much better. “Everyone will be there. I’ll be there. If it is a true house of God as you say, then anyone should be welcome. Including you.”

Ruby’s warm brown eyes gazed back at him. “It’ll be all right then.” Her voice went soft as if she were praying. “God’ll see to it.”

Since she had spoken it, he was sure she was right.

Ruby’s stomach was in knots. She told Adam she’d go to church in front of her family, but hadn’t been in nearly a year. But she was ready. She wanted the Winslow community to see that Solomon, despite his birth, was worthy of God’s blessing. Solomon was one of them—a child of God. If she were brave enough, she would make Reverend Dodge bless her son.

She had been brave about other things, why not this? Ruby tightened her grip on Solomon as Adam’s car slowly and carefully navigated the bumpy, Georgia back roads to the little church on the other side of the Bledsoe’s woods. Ever since Dodge came to the community to lead and establish First Water four years ago, his eyes had always gazed on Ruby with a burning intensity. He had been waiting, probably, until she was eighteen years old and a young lady, to ask her father’s permission to court her.

Maybe he had been about to, but then there was the awful Sunday when he realized she was going to have a baby and he cast her out from the church in a very public way. She could have kept going if he hadn’t made every sermon about sinning or low behavior. She couldn’t take it anymore. That was when she stayed at home, and then her family, one by one joined her. It wasn’t fair to the other fifty people who attended the church to have to hear the same sermons all the time. God had more in mind, and better goodness than that.

Adam pulled the car to the side of the little grey clapboard church, which needed a coat of paint, and stood away from all the horses and mules. Adam’s car was the only car there. As he came out and opened the door for her, she got a full view of him in his suit. And just as before, the sight of him made her heart skip a beat, which irritated her. Why did she react to him in this way? The lighter linen color held a clean crisp edge. The beige didn’t wash out his light skin, but enhanced it.

My, he
is
handsome.

As he extended his hand to help her get out of the car, a tingle went up her arm. She was a lady, clean and snow white, not dirty. Not anymore.

She held onto Solomon as she came out of the car and walked to the front steps of the church. A good portion of the church members of First Water, about fifty in number, stood in stunned silence as they watched this strange, light-colored man help her out of the car. Reverend Dodge stood at the top of the steps, staring, seemingly ready to condemn her once more. They moved to the stairs and Mrs. Bomead, one of the leading church women, fixed Ruby with a stare and then shifted her gaze of judgment to Solomon.

The whole church held its breath, Ruby was sure. This woman, next to her mother, was the foundation of the small church. She, without Lona’s input, had decided Ruby did not belong. Even though it was somewhat apparent he had feelings for Ruby, he folded, not wanting to lose his high position as a minister. Just another reason Ruby wasn’t too fond of Dodge, as she called him.

“Ruby Jean!” Mrs. Bomead boomed from under a ridiculously decorated daisy hat. “Let me see that baby.”

Ruby stepped closer to the woman and held Solomon out. She really didn’t want to give her son over to her. On the top of Solomon’s head, his little veins throbbed faster as if he were nervous.

When Doris Bomead turned the baby around in her arms, Solomon stared up at her with curiosity. He reached a small hand out to the big woman, and grabbed at her dark brown nose.

Ruby let out her breath when Mrs. Bomead smiled. That woman probably hadn’t smiled in years. “Look at this here little fellow.” Mrs. Bomead grabbed his hand. “He’s so handsome and friendly. And as white as a boll of cotton, bless his heart.”

Her countenance became stormy. “Where’s his hat? Got to keep a baby’s head covered.”

Solomon played with Mrs. Bomead’s face some more and then searched for his mother. Ruby stepped forward for him, but it was Adam he wanted. Adam took the baby. Ruby foraged in her bag for a hat and a clean cloth diaper. She didn’t want Solomon to be sick on his beautiful suit. But Adam rejected the diaper as she tied the hat strings together under Solomon’s sharp little chin. His light colored suit was so beautiful.

Well, if Solomon got sick, she would wash his suit for him. What would it be like to wash his clothes? Such a personal thing. She warmed a little at the thought of it until she lifted her eyes and saw Dodge at the top of the stairs, watching the family-like tableau. His small black eyes narrowed and he peered down his large nose at her. He made sure he used enough oils on his person until he shone to the color of teakwood. Dodge could have been handsome, but he was vain. Vanity was not a good quality in a preacher. He wore his collars too often and insisted on being called Reverend.

She’d heard he may have gone to school in Tennessee or maybe he was from there? Maybe Adam knew something of his people. She would ask him later.

As a number of the parishioners gathered around Solomon to admire him, Reverend approached the baby, the crowd parting for him. “
Reverend
Dodge,” Ruby put emphasis on the title he loved so much. “Reverend, will you bless my baby?”

Everyone quieted once again. Everything was still. “Sister Ruby,” he intoned. “We have not had a chance to discuss your request.”

Ruby said, “You’re always welcome at the Bledsoe home. Solomon has been there. He’s almost six months old now..”

“True. But this child is not the child of a sanctioned Christian marriage. His heavenly position is in jeopardy.”

In the hot summer sunshine, a chill froze her limbs. Coming here was wrong. Poor Solomon should not have to deal with this. If she could only move, she would take the baby back to the car, or better yet, walk with him on down the road. Why were people staring and judging them? Why had she listened to Lona?

Adam turned the baby outward again. “I believe, Mr. Dodge, God said, ‘suffer the little children to come unto me.’ Surely you know life is a blessing. Perhaps you didn’t hear Solomon has been sick recently. He’s much better now, but this illness alarmed his mother. She wants to have her child blessed.”

Dodge had the nerve to look shaken. “Dr. Morson.”

“Glad to see you. We didn’t get to meet at the funeral last week.”

Ruby took a measure of pleasured delight. Adam didn’t call him Reverend. He extended his hand to Dodge while still keeping a firm arm on Solomon.

Dodge didn’t approach his handshake. “So you’re still here? I believe the Winslows know you.”

Adam took back his rejected hand and placed it more firmly on the baby. She could see Adam was fully aware Dodge was judging him, the same way he condemned Solomon, and Adam’s narrowed lips showed his displeasure. “Of course. I’m a child of God too.”

Dodge shot a glance at Doris Bomead. With her approval, Dodge said, “And welcome. Bring the baby in and we’ll begin church.”

“Come on, Ruby.” Adam extended the crook of his arm out to her, still holding Solomon with steady hands. She slipped her hand into it, and taking comfort in the firmness of his arm, climbed up the stairs into the church building, which had provided her so much comfort over the years. She was glad to be home.

Adam despised the man the moment he saw him. Dodge’s gaze at Ruby was full of unseemly lust, as if Ruby were a pastry in a shop window. Dodge’s behavior was not appropriate for a man in his position. He had judged and practically condemned Ruby.

How many of these people truly understood Ruby’s trials? He doubted any had. In his position, he had been witness to ugly behavior in the world. Because Ruby and David had known one another, people probably blamed her—thinking she had seduced him in some way—just as those who’d condemned him for his mother’s low standing. It wasn’t true. And Ruby wasn’t a woman of low character either.