Again (22 page)

New York—October 1879

R
achel watched the words form on the page with each pen stroke, the letters round and cursive, slanting to the right. They pled for forgiveness, for understanding. The plea was in part to Sarah, to whom she was divulging her latest folly. The thought of it made her quake. Why had she believed she could meet with him and make him end his attentions? That it would go no further than words? She could barely write of the events of her last meeting with him nor the violence that had ensued. In those words not written, but understood, the letter was also a plea to God; to George, gone these many months, whose image now vacillated in her memory, if not in her heart; and to Lawrence, to whom she had lied again and again.

A breeze blew the hem of the white gauze curtain toward the writing desk and it caught. She brushed it away, her eye breaking from the page to look out the window. A hansom was passing by, and a woman sat inside. Although Rachel could not make out the woman’s features, by the elaborate feathered hat, she guessed it was Twila Dabney, the eldest of Reverend Dabney’s three unmarried daughters. An advocate for the rights of coloreds, Reverend Dabney often allowed like-minded groups to use Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church as a meeting ground. Earlier in the century, the church had served as a junction of the Underground Railroad and its illustrious history was known by all the city. In keeping with the standing of their esteemed father and his venerated church, the daughters felt duty-bound to serve as their father’s unofficial ambassadors to the colored community, to represent Negro womanhood as vessels of staunch Christianity and female purity. Therefore, husbands would only inconvenience their mission. The sisters visited the sick, organized fund-raisers for those suffering in their finances, and held women’s meetings wherein they promulgated the rules of virtue by which all decent Negro women were to adhere if they would hold their heads up and march in God’s holy army. Twila was the banner waver and the horn blower for this righteous militia. A militia to which Rachel no longer belonged.

Not that anyone exactly knew of her fall. Nor had she been branded a pariah. At least, not yet. But what could only be guessed at caused tongues to whisper, eyes to cast her way then quickly shift in another direction, and her own brother to call her virtue into question. Two nights ago, at dinner, he had berated her over the table that held a platter of roast pheasant, a bowl of steamed baby carrots and broccoli, a tureen of gravy to be poured over creamed potatoes that sat beside it. But her culinary efforts were ignored that night as Lawrence sat for all the world like a god enthroned on Mt. Olympus.

“So you’re telling me you spent all that time shopping?” he asked, his eyes skewing her from across the table.

“That’s what I said Lawrence. Why are you questioning me?”

“Because I saw no packages, dear sister. I find it hard to believe that you could not find at least one item in nearly three hours of
shopping
.”

She put down her fork and met his stare with more aplomb than she felt. But she refused to be intimidated. “Then tell me where you think I was and what you think I was doing. Tell me right now. And be careful what you say because it could change everything between us.”

She knew Lawrence. He would never confront her outright. He would never accuse her of impropriety. He would mask it with a sermon on decorum, on what appeared seemly or unseemly.

Lawrence’s brow creased. It was a high and stately brow, usually bare of lines. His hair was oiled and looked luminously ebon, except for flecks of premature gray dotting his sideburns. “When you are seen in the presence of a white man, the same man with whom you created a spectacle months ago, you should then be more circumspect in your actions to diminish, not exacerbate, the damage you have already caused. The only thing a woman has is her good name, and you seem not only willing, but determined, to tarnish that. If George were alive…but then again, none of this would be happening if George hadn’t died in the fire. Or would it?”

At the mention of her dead husband’s name, tears pricked. Shame immobilized her. “You don’t understand, Lawrence,” she said softly. But of course he wouldn’t understand; she barely understood herself. How could she forget who she was and demean herself, her family, and most of all, George’s memory?

As though he read her mind, Lawrence said, “Remember, it is George’s name you are soiling also.”

His authoritarian tone raised her hackles. It always had, even when they were children. Lawrence, older by six years, had lorded over her, always echoing their father’s dictates, as though she were too naïve to understand without interpretation. Their parents would always tell her to “mind your brother, he knows better.” Lawrence the good student, the obedient son had been the example held up to her as a standard to attain.

But looking across the dinner table at her brother, who relied on her to provide meals since he had never found a woman who could meet those high standards he set for himself and everyone else, she momentarily could forgive herself for her lapse. It was human. Besides, it was over. She had ended it for good two days before. The day of her shopping venture.

In mortified retrospect, she thought for the hundredth time how she had let it start in the first place and had a hard time reconciling how she had taken leave of all that mattered to her these last months. As much as Lawrence suspected, he didn’t know the true extent, the breadth of what had gone before. How it had diverged from mild flirtation to something more ardent, something desperate, extending beyond propriety, igniting a passion she had never known, not even with George. Most devastating of all, how she had not found the strength to stop herself. Grief, loneliness, the need for consolation that she still hadn’t found, had propelled her into Joseph’s arms time and time again.

Brown eyes still accused her as she dismissed their passion in the words she now wrote to her dear friend Sarah. She closed her eyes, and the memory of demanding fingers on her arm caused her to rub the offended area. He had tried to keep her from walking out the door of the apartment he rented on 26th and Seventh in the Tenderloin District. But she had broken away finally and had shunned his offer of a cab, even though walking through the streets of tenements, saloons, and whorehouses was a risk no decent woman should take. Especially a Negro woman, who was all too often considered fair game. Still she had walked until she hailed her own cab, warily eyeing the men, mainly Irish, hanging in front of the saloons who had shouted out indecent proposals, causing her alarm. Afterward, at home, she had berated herself for allowing this further descent, for allowing herself to become involved with someone who nominally was of the upper class but whose actions were no better than those of a wastrel. Even his reason for renting the apartment in so horrid a place had given her pause. A regular gambler, he frequented the infamous gambling dens in the area, often playing into the early morning hours. Instead of trying to get a cab back to his family’s estate, he would stay overnight, a knife beneath his pillow should any of the local denizens take it upon themselves to try to relieve him of his money. That is, if he had not gambled it all away.

His last words to her, half slurred by the absinthe he had drunk during her visit, had followed her out the door: “We’re going to be together forever! You’ll never get away from me!” The taste of absinthe clung to her lips where he had torn hers apart. Her thighs were bruised from where he had forced them apart and taken her on the floor.

But never again, she vowed silently to herself as she ended the letter. A vow she had made before.

Chicago, 2006

Tyne watched him climb the stairs, and each step that brought him closer rang a death knell inside her. Fear rooted her there in the half-lit hallway even as her instinct told her to get into the apartment and lock the door. But, she reasoned, that would be overreacting. All he wanted to do was talk. She would let him. She owed him that much, at least.

Still, as he advanced up the last flight, his body rigid in motion, her whole being told her to get away. But it was already too late. He had reached the landing and within a few steps, stood towering over her. Before, his stature had been a point of attraction and, at times, comfort. Now his height threatened, and she realized that as lean as he was (he had lost considerable weight), his whole body exuded strength. Maybe it was the anger, but his face seemed different, transformed, as though a stranger stood before her—a stranger who wanted to hurt her.

“Let’s go inside,” he said so softly that at first she wasn’t sure she had heard him.

“We can talk out here,” she countered as softly.

He smirked. “Still not the right time and place? What, are you afraid to be alone with me now?”

“No,” she lied wearily, and more bravely than she felt. “It’s just that it’s late, and I’m tired. Anything you have to say, you can say to me out here.”

“What, with witnesses?” he half joked, but the words were strangely ominous to her. “Do you really want your neighbors to know your business?”

“No, but what I don’t want is a prolonged fight, which I know is going to happen if we go inside. I’m sorry if I hurt you, David, but it’s over. Just let it go.”

She didn’t know it was possible for him to look any angrier. “So, you decide that it’s over, and I’m just supposed to go away like an obedient dog. You walk away with no explanation, and leave me racking my brain trying to figure out what the hell I did to make you treat me like a leper.”

His voice had risen during the tirade, and she realized that she
didn’t
want the neighbors to hear. He was too far gone to care about causing a scene.

With a sigh, she headed inside the apartment, knowing he would follow. She locked the door behind them, her back to him for a moment as she gathered strength to turn around to face the storm. When she did turn, she leaned back against the door as though it could give her the emotional support she needed. She
was
tired, tired of hiding, of running. Her fear began to ebb as she thought about the release of resolution.

“Look, I know I should have at least talked to you when you called. But, I thought you’d understand when I didn’t call back.”

“Understand what?” he challenged.

She hesitated a moment, her eyes settling on the picture on the wall behind him. It was of a mountain stream, quiet and reflective. She wished for that retreat now, to be away from here. She talked to the picture instead as she said, “You
know
what. That I didn’t want to see you again. That it was over.”

He shifted and at first she thought he was going to close the space between them. She straightened in anticipation of what could turn into something physical. But he just stood there, looking bewildered.

“Well, excuse me for not picking up on your ambiguous signals. But if someone decides to break up with me, I usually want an explanation why.”

She moved from her resting place against the door, walked around him to the kitchenette that fronted the living room. She opened the refrigerator and brought out a pitcher of orange juice, retrieved a glass from a cabinet, then poured herself a drink. She sipped, quietly deliberating how much to tell him.

He stood on the other side of the counter, glaring at her nerve to ignore him yet again. She thought he looked a few steps away from losing it entirely. Some of the fear began moving in again. She put the emptied glass down and looked at him finally, keeping the counter between them.

“I didn’t want…I mean I don’t want…” she started, not sure what she meant to say. But her hesitancy only made him look at her as though she was a blithering idiot. She decided that bluntness was needed. Or a lie, even.

“Look, what happened between us was a mistake, and I don’t want to continue making the same mistake. I just thought it should end before somebody got hurt.” Yet she remembered the hurt she’d felt when he called out another woman’s name. She realized only at that moment how much she’d let herself become emotionally invested in something that hadn’t even had a chance to develop. She had been falling in love and hadn’t known it.

“And you don’t think you’ve hurt me? You don’t think I have feelings?” Consciously, or unconsciously, his finger thrust at the middle of his chest. “Or was I just some walking dildo that you could use then toss away without a thought? Because that’s how you’ve made me feel.”

He
was
hurt. She could see that, had been trying to avoid seeing it. Because the pain in his eyes was harder to bear than his justified anger. She had never wanted to hurt him.

“Didn’t you have any feelings for me at all?” he asked, the tone sounding much like the wounded voice of a child who had just realized the extent of the cruelty in the world.

“I do care, David, and that’s why I’m putting a stop to this. This—thing—between us isn’t going anywhere. You have issues, and so do I. And whoever this Rachel is, you have to come to terms with…”

He was shaking his head, confused. “Rachel? Who…what, what are you talking about?”

Now she felt the first twinge of anger. He was going to play her like she was some fool. “Look, you don’t have to tell me who she is because it doesn’t matter anymore. So, please don’t lie to me, because I really don’t give a damn.” Her voice was tight with indignation. “You’re not the only player out there, but I thought, at least, you were smarter than the others. But then, that was my mistake. And I don’t intend to be on somebody’s rotation. I won’t let myself be used like that again.” Even as she said this, she knew that her anger was out of place. They had never claimed monogamy, or anything other than a mutual infatuation. Still, she felt betrayed.

“Is this what this is about?” he asked incredulously. “You think I’ve been fooling around? Look, I haven’t seen anyone but you these past few months. And I don’t know where you got the idea that there’s someone else, but there isn’t, Tyne, I swear. There’s just you. Only you.”