Home In The Morning (31 page)

Summer, 1995

J
ACKSON SAT IN A GRIMY
wooden chair trying to keep his elbows off a grimier wooden table in the attorney’s consultation room at the penitentiary in Yazoo City. He felt conspicuous, like a child stuck alone in a classroom while all the other kids were outside playing, a child spied upon by a teacher who had eyes on the back of her head, eyes that could see through doors and walls. Katherine Marie told him that in conflict with the law on the matter, she was positive that everything he said to Mombasa would be observed and recorded, so he got up and looked around, studying the vents and the lighting fixtures for microphones and tiny cameras. He found nothing suspicious.

He sat down again. His nose itched from the musty, sweaty smell of the place. With great effort, he stifled a sneeze, since the only thing he had to blow his nose was the handkerchief he’d used to wipe down the chair’s seat when he got there. The door opened. He whipped around in his seat. An officer ushered Mombasa into the room. Jackson stood,
wanting to reach out, embrace him, but Mombasa saw that, shook his head infinitesimally in warning, and stretched out a hand for him to shake instead. They gave each other a strong, heartfelt shake of two hands each and sat down on opposite sides of the table. The officer left. They were alone.

Each man murmured greetings and grinned. No matter the circumstances, they were happy to see each other again. Aged just a little bit, didn’t you, son, Mombasa said first. You’ve got your daddy’s hair and jawline I see, and just a hint of your mama’s belly. Then he laughed his great booming laugh of long ago, and Jackson laughed too, saying: Well, look at yourself. Looks like the snow has fallen on the mountaintop. He meant of course that Mombasa’s hair had gone completely white. To be honest, it was the only sign of age he could find in the man, which struck him as odd in one who’d been incarcerated for near thirty years. Mombasa’s muscles bulged like a young man’s through his prison shirt, and there were no wrinkles or sags on his face.

Their laughter faded into sighs, and there was silence. Jackson dropped his head and shuffled his paperwork about. Forgetting about the table grime, he put his arms on its top and leaned forward.

I want to help you at your hearing, Mombasa, he said. I want to bring you home to Katherine Marie.

The other man blinked.

That would be something, Jackson. But I don’t see how you can do that. I don’t mean to be critical. Unless things have changed more than I know, you’re not a criminal lawyer now, are you?

No, but I can tell them the truth. I can tell them the story that’s not been told. About what happened all those years ago. How your anger was about Bubba Ray, not the draft board. You’ve paid for your crime and you are no longer a threat to society. I can explain what life was like back then. How you saved my daddy’s life. You’ve had all the legal argument and manipulation a boatload of lawyers can think of, but no
one’s ever told the human side of the story. Katherine Marie and Stella think that’s the one piece of the puzzle that’s been missing, the one piece that’ll find you mercy and release. I believe I agree. Or at least that it’s worth a shot.

When did those two get thick as thieves again?

Excuse me?

Our wives. When did that happen? I asked mine and she told me something about an awards dinner she went to. I don’t know, it all sounded like a supper party in Shangri-la to an old boy stuck behind bars half his life.

Jackson told him as many of the details as he knew.

Then they came out of the kitchen hand in hand, he said. I don’t know quite what went on between them in there. You know how they are. Got their little secrets.

It was Mombasa’s turn to lean forward across the table: You know, son, I never did hear the story of what separated them in the first place. If you don’t mind, I’d like you to tell me what it was now. I know you know. Think of all the trouble being quiet got us into in the past. I’ve asked my wife several times, and I’ve got every evasion from “I don’t want to waste our time together talking about that” to “I’ll just get depressed today if I tell you all that, let me tell you another day.”

When Mombasa quoted Katherine Marie, he imitated her sweet, dusky voice in a way that made Jackson smile.

Well, I guess it doesn’t matter.

No, it don’t. And I do believe I’m making your telling me a condition of allowing you to appear before the parole board. How do you like that?

Alright, alright. I’ll spill.

Stella was over Katherine Marie’s house helping her set up a sweet-sixteen party for their daughter, Njeri. They’d blown up about a hundred and twenty balloons, strung up streamers announcing the happy
event, laid out the paper plates and cups in bold African colors, and made her a crown in the same scheme out of crepe paper and wire and tropical flowers. They were particularly pleased with that crown: It was a real work of art. It came time to prepare the food. They cleared off the kitchen table, which was full of papers: bills, application forms for the eldest Cooper boy’s assistance with college tuition, checking-account statements. Stella scooped up a bunch and asked Katherine Marie where to stash them for the afternoon and she said, in the break-front, top drawer, and it was there amongst a whole mess of other paperwork that Stella saw something that near stopped her heart.

It was an envelope with bank deposit slips falling out, it was so stuffed up with them. There were also two checks that had not yet been deposited. These were from a checkbook she recognized. They were welfare checks, and they were made out to Malaika Cooper. She examined the dates of deposit slips and checks alike. They were all recent. She grabbed up the envelope and marched back into the kitchen to wave it in Katherine Marie’s face.

What is this? You have not been eligible for welfare for nine years, Katherine Marie. I know that for a fact. Nor have you used the name Malaika for about that time. So what is this? You been cheating the government, girl? Have you?

Katherine Marie grabbed at the envelope and a fight ensued. A terrible, terrible fight with those two thrashing around the kitchen, banging into things since neither one was willing to let go of the evidence. They shouted at each other the whole time. Stella shouted: Thief! Is this where you wind up after all these years! Stealing from out of the mouths of those that need it! Thief! Katherine Marie shouted back: What do you know! How can you possibly know how I’ve needed that money, how my children have needed that money! What do you, Miss Silver Spoon in the Mouth, know! What do you, Miss Whitebread of Boston with the Husband in Perpetual Residence, know! You know
nothing of what my life is like! What it’s been like! What the goddamn white world owes me! Stella shouted louder: Can’t do enough for you, can we? Wasn’t helping you through school and setting you up in a decent career enough? Is there a time we can all sit back and applaud while you stand on your own two feet? Katherine Marie gasped then shouted in a scornful patois: Oh, well, Missy Stella, youse sounds like youse thinks me ungrateful. So then why don’t you bend over so I can kiss your white ass!

Jackson was near out of breath, as the only way he’d been able to get the story out was to tell it fast. He gulped for air, choked by the coarseness of the tale he’d been compelled to tell.

He went quiet, deciding he had not the courage to tell Mombasa about the threats Katherine Marie made if Stella exposed her. How her husband could dispatch men from the prison to hurt her if she told the authorities about the checks. The threats were all temper and desperation born of the moment anyway, Jackson was more than sure, so why bother exposing them now. Stella had kept her mouth shut anyway, out of pride and at his encouragement. The Sassaports owe that family greatly, he told her and she’d listened. And Katherine Marie had restrained herself.

The silence in the room stretched, became brittle, ‘til the room felt full of noise: the noise of breath, of clothes rustled against furniture, of bodies shifting weight.

I’m very sorry, Mombasa said at last. I’m very sorry that things came to that.

That’s alright. It took more than a decade of stubbornness, but they both got over it and made up. If you want to know the truth, I think Stella thought in the end that Katherine Marie had a point. She couldn’t know the pressures Katherine Marie was under from the very moment of her birth by virtue of a simple thing like skin color and the place she was born and the date. She might be able to guess what
it was like to raise children with a husband in prison, but she couldn’t know that. It embarrassed her that she’d given her life to civil rights and social services and she still couldn’t know the half about that.

Mombasa had his head down but he smiled: But you know don’t you, Jackson? You know a little bit about it.

I should say I do know a little bit, just a little bit. I grew up in the goddamn middle, didn’t I?

Yes, you did, son. I was there. I recall. I recall everything.

They spent another hour together that afternoon and they shared three more appointments together before the parole hearing. After the final one, Jackson drove from Yazoo City to Guilford, where he met up with Stella over to Katherine Marie’s, as it was her turn to feed them supper. Against all reason, he was feeling optimistic about the hearing. His step was light up the walk to the Cooper home, one of those postwar ranch-style homes on the edge of town. It was situated in a nowadays-integrated neighborhood with damn decent property values, he thought to himself, proud of his town and its growth. He knocked on the unlocked door, let himself in, dropped his briefcase on the floor of the living room where the two women sat on the couch waiting for him, worry and consternation writ fierce upon their brows. He opened up his arms, smiled wide, and said: Well, we talked. He’s agreed to let me try. The women rose with features suddenly alight with hope and he wrapped his arms around them.

Home in the Morning
is my seventh novel and the first one published after more than thirty years of effort. I had resigned myself to perpetual obscurity when the bold, bright energy of Peter Riva burst into my life and agented me into the light with remarkable speed. He was a godsend. So was my editor, Diane Reverand, a most wise, generous woman who made the editing experience a complete pleasure for me. I hope we work together again and soon. I must also thank my longtime agent Mary Yost, who was my lifeline during decades of rejection, keeping me honest, keeping me working no matter what.

During those years in the cold dark, there were the faithful who sustained me: my long-suffering husband, Stephen, of course; my beloved and most refined parents, Frank and Freda Kowalski; my siblings who encouraged me against all odds, Carl, Robert, and Debra Kowalski, Kathleen Baber, Patricia Romanello, Margaret Cerilli, and the inestimable Jeanne Kowalski; my loyal friends Karen Oakes, Sam Boyd, Linda Pochesci, Adele Lurie, Wally Kelly, Susan K. Howards, and Felicity Carter, all of whom kept me going by saying: This is the one, Mary! This one will make it!

How happy I am that they were finally right. And how grateful I am that all stood by me.

Born Mary Kowalski on the south shore of Boston, Massachusetts, Mary Glickman grew up the fourth of seven children in a traditional Irish-Polish Catholic family. Her father had been a pilot in the Army Air Force and later flew for Delta Air Lines. From an early age, Mary was fascinated by faith. Though she attended Catholic school and as a child wanted to become a nun, her attention eventually turned to the Old Testament and she began what would become a lifelong relationship with Jewish culture. “Joseph Campbell said that religion is the poetry that speaks to a man’s soul,” Mary has said, “and Judaism was my soul’s symphony.”

In her twenties, Mary traveled in Europe and explored her passion for writing, composing short stories and poetry. Returning to the United States, she met her future husband, Stephen, a lawyer, and with his encouragement began to consider writing as a career. She enrolled in the Masters in Creative Writing program at Boston University, under the poet George Starbuck, who encouraged her to focus on fiction writing. While taking an MFA class with the late Ivan Gold, Mary completed her first novel, Drones, which received a finalist award from the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities but was never published.