Home In The Morning (26 page)

When the invitations went out, most of the Boston ones were returned promptly with regrets. Nineteen sixty-four was not exactly a good summer for public relations in Mississippi, what with church
burnings and murders and all. It was obvious that Stella’s people were afraid to come. To the Sassaports’ credit, they did not rub it in. Well, you know, just after the holidays is a hard time for people to travel, was all Mama said, adding: If only your people married during the month of repentance, we could have had the wedding before the holidays in August, but then, of course, it would have been very hot in the tent. She forgot to mention it would be dang hot in the tent in October, too.

Perry Nussbaum was more forthright.

Stella, he said when she complained, I don’t know if you know this, but I was born in Canada. I studied and worked all over before I settled here. I worked in the Philippines in the Army during the war and Texas just after, but I worked in Massachusetts and New York and New Jersey also. I know Yankees. Yankees are very good at telling other people how to live, especially us backward folk down here. But they don’t seem to care that they stir up a lot of bad feeling and then skedaddle back home where they feel safe and cozy in their de facto lily-white neighborhoods and schools, issuing speeches and edicts about a thousand miles behind the front lines. Which leaves us on our own to take the blows and put out the fires. I’m not saying we don’t need to change down here, no, not at all, but no one knows as well as I do that we who chose to stand up, stand alone.

Stella blushed, shamed on account of the entire region north of the Mason-Dixon line.

You’ll never stand alone as long as I’m around, Rabbi.

He chuckled, and his eyes with their great bushy brows crinkled. Nussbaum was a man of average height. His hair was salt-and-pepper, short, wiry, his belly round and hard. Chuckling like that, he resembled nothing so much as a bemused gnome.

That’s a real firecracker you’re bringing us, Jackson.

Yes, she is, sir, she is indeed.

Long about August, time sprouted jet wings, flew by, and suddenly it was the week of the wedding. The bridal couple arrived in Guilford the Monday before. Everything was whirlwind. Presents arrived every day in the post. The lawn was manicured, the tables and chairs delivered. By Wednesday, the scaffolding for the tent was erected. A generator arrived for the fans that would be plugged inside the tent to keep them all cool. Stella had the final fitting for her dress, a gown inspired by a photo in
Vogue
magazine, hand sewn by Annie Althea over in the village, although her mother wanted to see her in one by Priscilla of Boston. She explained to her mother that eventually she and Jackson would like to live in his hometown. I want to have good relations with everybody from the ground up, she told her. Plus, it’s good for the local economy to throw some money over that way. You have no idea how hard life can be for those people, Mom, you really don’t. She’d lost some weight from nerves, so the fitting was more than a pro forma event. The dress was made from an ivory satin chosen for the creamy way it set off her flame-red hair, which she intended to wear down and studded with flowers underneath a half veil fastened to an ivory ribbon beaded with pearls. The veil was a marvel of delicacy, although Stella planned to ditch it the second the ceremony was over. The neckline of the gown was lower than her mother was going to like, she knew that and didn’t care. It had long sleeves that buttoned from the inside of her elbows down to her wrists, and from her breasts to past her hips it fit tight as a wet leather glove dried in the noonday sun. It came to a deep
V
below her waist front and back then flounced out in a wide skirt that stopped, scandalously her mother was sure to think, above her ankles. Stella liked it because it made her feel half ballerina, half lady of Camelot. Jackson would dress in a black suit with a Nehru collar rather than a tux, and for underneath, Annie Althea had sewn him a collarless shirt of fine cotton the same shade of ivory as Stella’s dress. There were no groomsmen or
bridesmaids, which Jackson and Stella insisted upon over the objections of both mothers. Their unspoken reasoning went that with no bridal party, there was no need to come up with an excuse to exclude Bubba Ray.

The Godwins arrived on Wednesday, the same day as the tent scaffolding. They flew to Jackson, which in those days represented a two-stop, seven-hour trip. Guilford boasted a single bed-and-breakfast inn that, while perfectly charming, happened to be far below the Godwin standards. Stella didn’t want to spend the few days before the wedding listening to them whine about sharing a phone line, about their lack of a television or, should they require it, air conditioning, not to mention the annoyance of hearing the conversations of other guests in the hallways or through the paper-thin walls. So she booked them a suite at the best hotel in Jackson, to which they taxied directly from the airport to rest and freshen up before the young couple collected them for a drive to the Sassaport residence, where a getting-to-know-you-all supper with Rabbi Nussbaum was planned.

The evening started out better than any of them had a right to expect. The Godwins were pleased with the hotel. They greeted Jackson with affection and hugged Stella long and hard as every bride might expect her mama and daddy to do at such a time. They apologized that Seth and Aaron were not able to arrive until just before shabbos, as someone had to mind the factory during the busy season, family wedding or not. The high holidays had caused enough disruption to the management of the assembly line and the shipping office. On the drive to Guilford, they kept their eyes peeled for trouble, staring into the dark night of country roads and twice asked Jackson if he was sure he knew where he was going.

Mo-ther! Stella said, exasperated. What makes you think Jackson doesn’t know his way home?

Well, it looks like the very ends of the earth around here, doesn’t it?

I assure you, it is not. She was about to instruct her mother on her ignorance and provincial judgments when Jackson, fearing the storm about to break out inside the confines of his vehicle, interrupted.

We’re almost there, Mrs. Godwin. In just a few minutes, we’ll be in the center of town.

You know, I think you should start calling my husband and me by more familiar names. I’ve never liked it when people call their in-laws Mother and Father as if they didn’t have any of their own. So how about Mildred and Leonard?

Alright, Mildred, will do. Thank you very much.

From the back seat, Leonard Godwin put his hand on top of the front seat cushion and pulled himself forward to speak more intimately to his daughter.

And what do you call Jackson’s parents, Stella? he asked.

Mama and Daddy.

He fell back against his own seat, sighed. Of course.

When they arrived at the house, Perry Nussbaum’s car was parked in the driveway. Stella breathed a sigh of relief, which no one but Jackson noticed. He put his hand on her knee and squeezed.

Well, here we are, he said.

Jackson’s parents peered out the doorway, then stood on the front porch, beaming welcome. Rabbi Nussbaum joined them. Between a lot of so-happy-to-meet-you-at-last and can-I-get-you-a-drink, everyone introduced himself, the rabbi included, and the whole lot of them were ushered into the living room, where Eula had laid out crackers and cheese and a bowl of fruit along with a pitcher of sweet tea, as the night was particularly warm. Do you have anything a bit stronger? Mrs. Godwin asked straightaway. It was an awfully long trip.... Well, we do have wine, but that’s for dinner, Mama said in a flustered tone, so Daddy went into his office and clattered about noisily until he popped back out with a bottle of peach schnapps under his bad arm. Locking
the bottle under his armpit, he screwed off the top then poured for Mrs. Godwin, who grimaced at the first sip but drank it down anyway. Daddy narrowed his eyes at her, chuckled, then without being asked, exchanged her cordial glass for a larger one and poured again. Mama was busy showing Mr. Godwin her array of family photographs set in their silver frames all over the mantel of the fireplace and noticed nothing.

We’re picking up the liquor for the wedding tomorrow, Daddy said. Guess you came a day early, darlin’. Mama, there used to be some bourbon in my desk, I know that it’s true. It’s gone now. Who drank it, do you think? My money’s on that rascal Bubba Ray. Where is that boy, anyway? Wasn’t he told to be front and center tonight?

Oh, I’m sure he’s upstairs, dear. He’ll be down a bit later. She popped a cracker into her mouth to signal to the assembled that they should begin enjoying what was sitting there before them when, at that exact moment, just as if she sat in her own living room instead of being a guest in another’s, Mrs. Godwin said:

Rabbi, before we partake, would you care to make a blessing over the...

Her gaze took in the cheese platter, the purple grapes, and sliced Granny Smiths. Her bemused disdain was not so much in her eyes but in her pause, in the angle of the hand she waved over the food before she continued.

...the fruits of the earth prepared for this wonderful occasion?

Mama spit her mouthful out into a cocktail napkin as surreptitiously as circumstances allowed and shook her head in Nussbaum’s direction with a close lipped smile, encouraging the suggestion. Jackson and Stella looked at each other and both saw all hope for a strife-free few days sprout legs and run under the floorboards. Rabbi Nussbaum stood, spread his arms.
Baruch a-tah Adonai,
he sang, and then everything went directly to hell.

First, there was the sound of sirens blaring, then columns of red and yellow light flashed across the living room wall from the street. A police car and paddy wagon had pulled up front. Chief Duncan got out of the car with three of his officers to approach the house, walking rapidly with his head down. He held paperwork in one hand and banged on the door with the other.

What on earth? Mama muttered, signaling to Eula to answer the door.

The Godwins stood and clung to each other, shrinking back into a corner of the room. Their eyes were wide, panicked. Stella went over to them to say that surely this was not the kind of problem they feared, and for them to please just calm down, no one was going to hurt them, but there were tears in her eyes when she said it. Jackson, the almost-lawyer, opened his mouth to say he’d go see what it was about when the rabbi interrupted him.

They’ve come for me, he said. I’m very sorry, but I’m sure they’ve come for me. I met Chief Duncan on the street in the capital last week and he told me he thinks my last speech at the Rotary Club was seditious. I have no idea what he meant. It was about a joint faith conference I attended in Mobile. Perhaps he’s found a way to charge me with something....

Eula came into the living room with the chief and his men behind her. She stepped aside. Chief Duncan handed Daddy his paperwork.

I’m sorry to have to do this, Doc. Especially as I see you’ve got company. But I have a search warrant here, instructing me to go through your house top to bottom and look for certain stolen goods. Bubba Ray here?

Mama fell back into the quiet comfort of a well-cushioned chair, buried her head in her hands, and breathed from between white-knuckled fingers: Upstairs, she croaked out, upstairs.

Chaos erupted. The three policemen charged up to the second floor to locate Bubba Ray, dragged him downstairs, handcuffed and shirtless.
Mama shrieked. Daddy got in the chief’s face and wagged a finger at him, shouting about his history with the Citizens Council and his many political connections who would subsequently ruin the man’s career. Rabbi Nussbaum got angry and flustered and charged the chief with taking out their personal disagreements on the Sassaports while Stella began to weep in earnest when the chief’s men rifled through the wedding presents piled up in the foyer. Jackson obtained the search warrant papers and sat down to try to read them carefully amidst all the wailing and shouts.

He didn’t need to get very far before he could assume with confidence that Bubba Ray had assembled a new crew in the months since Mickey Moe and the others hired off his old one. When he studied the list of objects the police sought, his blood heated up in a hurry. He cursed and left the house, marched over to the police car where Bubba Ray sat cuffed to the inside door handle, brooding. You bastard, he said, waving the list through the open window. A silver nut bowl engraved “H.L.”? For our wedding?

Bubba Ray smirked. You accepted it, didn’t you? What did you think? I’m an unemployed high school dropout, you stupid fuck. Where was I going to get the wherewithal for a silver nut bowl?

If it hadn’t been for a police officer holding him back, Jackson might have punched him out through the window.

Rabbi Nussbaum drove the shell-shocked Godwins back to their hotel. Stella wept most of the night away, sitting on the couch with Jackson’s arms around her while Mama and Daddy cussed and moaned and helped Eula work until three a.m. trying to put the mess the police made back in order. Lordy, Lordy, Eula muttered more than once, this is just plain mean. They didn’t have to throw everything around like that. Not at all.

By morning, the Sassaports had got hold of themselves. Mama announced at breakfast that they all needed to drive over to the jail-house
and get Bubba Ray sprung. I will not have that child incarcerated. I am afraid I have to assume he has sinned, yes, but he would not survive in an institution, juvenile or otherwise, she said. I need him home with me to help take care of you, Daddy. We would not survive without him.

I can take care of myself, the doctor said, caressing the sling on his arm, adjusting his eye patch. You grossly exaggerate my disability.

You cannot drive. I called the jail just now before you all were up. He’s being transferred this morning to the courthouse in the city for arraignment. Bail will be set and we need to be there to post it. Jackson? Why don’t we drop off Miss Stella at her parents’ hotel and then we all can go over to wherever we need to go and pick up Bubba Ray.

Jackson didn’t respond. He was contemplating the fact that neither Mama nor Daddy seemed to think he’d take care of them in Bubba Ray’s absence. She asked again if he’d drop Stella off and help them collect his brother.