Little Sacrifices (17 page)

‘Like she did today?’

‘...Sometimes.’

‘Why do you let her?’

‘Let her?’

‘Yes, let her. She shouldn’t talk as if we’re not doing anything for her. She’s ungrateful is what she is.’

‘I think she’s very grateful for the chance to learn to read.’

‘She doesn’t act it.’

‘May, not everyone feels the need to express their gratitude all the time.’

‘Do you like teaching her?’

‘I wouldn’t do it otherwise.’

But I thought she would. She’d do it because Duncan wanted her to. And because she thought she ought to. I didn’t feel sorry for her. I was angry that she let herself be pushed around by some teenager who didn’t have the sense to be grateful for our help. Why bother at all if the charity case isn’t at least going to be appreciative?

‘Eenie meenie miney moe, catch a nigger by his toe, if he hollers let–’

For a second I didn’t believe I’d heard right. ‘Hey!’

‘What?’

‘It’s tiger!’

‘What?’

‘Tiger. Catch a tiger by the toe.’ It was bad enough to have been banished to a game of hide–and–seek with children.

‘Aw, shut up! It is not.’

‘Tigers don’t even have toes.’ Everyone laughed. Of course. How ignorant of me. Thanksgiving was turning into a long day.

‘Fine. Suit yourselves.’

‘...if he hollers let him go, eenie... meenie... miney... moe!’ The little bigot’s finger stabbed at his brother. 

Everyone scattered to find his hiding place. I walked back into the house. No one was going to look for me among the adults.

Duncan sat in a corner in the living room not talking to anyone. ‘Hi honey, get tired of playing outside?’

‘Yeah. What’re you doing over here by yourself?’ I sat on the chair’s arm in the crowded room.

‘Aw, your mom made me promise not to get into a debate with anyone today. I threw myself out of the kitchen when the gals started in about Negroes on the police force. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t mind my manners otherwise.’

‘No,’ I admitted. ‘Probably not.’ Mister Welles caught my eye and smiled. I waved and Duncan grinned hello. ‘So. What do you think of it so far?’

He knew I didn’t mean the party. ‘It’s okay. It’s always hard moving to a new place, but I think we’re doing okay now. Don’t you?’

‘Yeah, we’re okay I guess. Ma seems happier anyway.’ Though I begrudged her that happiness.

‘Mmm. Phew. I’m glad she’s finally making some friends. How ‘bout you? You’ve met some good people here, haven’t you?’

‘I guess.’

‘I like Fie and Jim very much. They’re good, honest kids. Like Lottie.’

‘I know.’

‘You’re not still sad over that kid, are you? What was his name? Sand? Concrete?’

I sucked my teeth and smiled. I wasn’t over him, not by a far stretch. But I was inching in that general direction. ‘I’m okay. Just sore. He’s a real lemon.’

‘Yeah, I thought so the first time I saw him.
I’ll cover her eyes at the scary parts, sir
,’ he mimicked. ‘For crying out loud.’

‘Duncan!’ I laughed. ‘You did not think so!’

‘Did so. Lemon. That’s what I thought.’ He chuckled and hugged me. It felt nice, comfortable. It’d been too long since we’d sat together just being father and daughter. He tested my limits with his opinions and constant challenges, but it was good to know I could say anything and he’d give it his full consideration, and I’d get a straight answer.  So I said what was on my mind.

‘Duncan? I heard you and Ma talking about the teacher at your school. Is... is everything all right?’

‘What teacher? Oh, sure it is. Don’t worry. She didn’t even tell Mister Hawes.’

‘I don’t mean that. I mean with Ma.’ There, I said it.

Duncan looked at me steadily. ‘I want you to listen to me. Your Ma and I have arguments, sure. Everyone does. But you don’t ever have to worry about us. Ever, okay? We’re fine. We will always be just fine.’

I knew I could believe him. And that was something to be thankful for.

Chapter 25

1918 Savannah

Mirabelle wasn’t so thankful. She stared through her open bedroom window for whole afternoons at a time, without seeing anything. In the garden below no blooms graced the bushes or beds. Everything that had lived a few months before was dead or dying. She thought for sure the shock of Henry’s death would kill the baby. She half hoped it would. More than once she doubled over with cramps, while relief and guilt elbowed in on her. But the blood didn’t come and the cramps always faded. She’d sure made a mess of things.

Had she been eighteen instead of twenty–eight, her parents would have forced her return to polite society quicker. Instead they contented themselves with her nourishment, leaving meals outside her door to be cried over in her own time. She did cry, and whimper and seethe and snivel and rant and rage and pity herself. Eventually, as everyone does, she got beyond tears. Then, her thoughts took a sharp turn from the tragedy of Henry’s death to its consequences. She was in deep trouble.

She knew there were back street doctors whose job it was to uncomplicate unwed women’s lives. There were herbal medicines from the old slave days. A fall down the stairs. She had all the means available, but couldn’t bring herself to go through with any of them. Ready or not, the baby was coming. Giving birth was going to be a piece of cake compared to telling her parents. She knew they were right outside the door. They’d been hovering there for more than a week. It took a while to screw up her courage before she opened her door to them.

Her unexpected appearance startled Mister and Missus Reynolds into babbling. Their nostrils curled as they passed her and she realized she hadn’t changed her clothes since the letter came. Or brushed her hair.

Her parents had spent so much time trying to figure out how to get into the room without knocking the door down that, once inside, they had no idea what to do next. Everyone stared at each other. Mirabelle didn’t trust her voice. The letter was on the dressing table, worn thin with reading. Mister Reynolds made short work of it, his eyes flicking to her face. ‘Oh. I see. Oh. Dear.’ Her mother read over his shoulder. ‘Oh.’ Mirabelle’s quivering chin called her father over and he hugged her as naturally as someone not used to affection can.

Mirabelle knew she’d better spill the beans while she had their sympathy. She blurted out the rest of her news. They stared goggle–eyed at their youngest child, trying to decide if they’d heard right. They had, and within a few seconds their opinions were evident on their faces.

Mister Reynolds’ eyebrows worked furiously on his forehead. ‘You’re what? You. I. You can’t... you’re...’

His wife’s reaction was less ambiguous. She strode to her daughter and slapped her hard. Mirabelle felt the sting of her favorite cocktail ring, and watched her mother’s face warm up to scarlet. ‘How dare you!’ Her position in Savannah was hard won. She’d married well, above her station some said, and she wasn’t about to be brought low by a bastard grandbaby.

Mirabelle was a disappointment and worse to her father. That much was clear from his scowl. ‘Ah Mirabelle,’ he finally managed. ‘What have you done?’ She had the crazy notion to smirk. That much at least, she thought, was obvious. Her news was too much for him all at once. He sputtered and fussed for a few minutes while his wife simmered quietly, but nothing sensible emerged.

They didn’t ask her what she was going to do. They told her. She’d have the baby. Mirabelle let out the breath she didn’t realize she was holding. She watched her mother, who kept her eyes leveled on her husband. ‘You’ll go away and have it, and Clare and Julius will raise it as theirs.’

She didn’t hear them right. Give her baby away? Henry’s baby? To her sister? Clare was older by twelve years, and childless. They didn’t even get along. She wouldn’t do it. She said so, a little incoherently through the sobs building in her throat.

But she would, her mother told her. She would or Missus Reynolds would personally take her to the doctor to get rid of it. She’d do it too. Venom dripped from the woman’s words. How little she must have loved her daughter. The decision was laid out plainly, and Mirabelle wondered if maybe they’d suspected something was up all along. Their ideas seemed awfully well thought out to be straight off the tops of their unsympathetic heads. If she didn’t give the baby to Clare, her mother threatened, she’d be out on her ear to raise it as best she could with no money, no house, husband or family. Try that on for size. It was only nineteen eighteen after all. In the pecking order of shameful things, unwed mothers came pretty close to the top.

Missus Reynolds smelled Mirabelle’s scheme hatching a mile off. ‘One more thing, dear daughter’, she continued. ‘Don’t even think about letting the child know the circumstances of its birth. Ever. Clare and Julius are going to be the only parents around. I’ll cut it off, so help me I will, the second I hear you’ve breathed a word, and all your sacrifice now will have been for nothing.’ Mister Reynolds didn’t look so sure about things, but he was loath to be drawn into his wife’s bitter orbit, so he let her keep talking.

Mirabelle was stitched up tight, and she knew it. She was too worn out to fight. It wouldn’t have done any good anyway. She asked them to leave her alone, changed her sweat–dampened dress, grabbed her hat and left for her sister’s, with the idea of convincing her to let her keep her child.

From the look on Clare’s face, it was clear that she had no idea what was going on. She was speechless while Mirabelle sniffled through her predicament and finally got to the part about their parents’ plans to expand Clare’s family. Clare smiled like she’d been told they struck oil in the back yard. ‘Clare! How can you be happy about this? They’re making me give up my baby!’

‘Yes, so it seems. But to me, dear sister.’

Within the month Mirabelle was in Atlanta with her maternal aunt. It was a mean twist of fortune that landed her so close to Henry’s home. From the first day there, she was sorely tempted to turn up on his family’s doorstep, but one look in a full–length mirror kept her in the house. She’d never even met them. They’d keel over if she and her swelling belly showed up to tell them she was carrying their dead son’s baby. Where was the proof?

Her last hope was to try Henry’s uncle, so one morning after weeks of tossing and turning about it, she struck out to find Albert Plunkett, the big cotton man. It didn’t take her very long. He was at the cemetery. Or to be precise, he was in the cemetery, dead a week after Henry. The letter he wrote to her was probably his last. She was out of options, and resigned herself to giving the baby to Clare. All during the pregnancy she sat in her favorite spot in the house, a big bay window in the living room, and played little games with herself to stay indifferent. She didn’t think about whether it was a boy or a girl, didn’t try out names, or imagine whether it would have Henry’s eyes. Nothing worked. She loved it just the same.

It would have been better, she mused, if she’d miscarried. But as luck would have it, she had a strong constitution. She didn’t have even a day of morning sickness. As the time came closer she started to panic, but knew there wasn’t much choice about what to do. There was only one way it was coming out. The hard way.

By the time the baby saw the light of day, her adoption had been arranged for months. The agency lady lurked outside with the wet nurse, but the midwife didn’t pay any attention to the rules. She put Mirabelle’s daughter on her chest, as she always did with new mothers. Mirabelle was overwhelmed by the slippery little toad belting out a hale and hearty wail. She watched her daughter’s red face and clenching fists, and couldn’t help but join her.

Mirabelle stayed with her aunt for a little while to regain her strength, but the baby was whisked away the next day to Savannah. When she turned up at her house a week later, she saw that guilt was eating away at her father. He felt simply awful, he told her, for his part in the family drama. To make amends, he’d bought her a lovely house just like he’d promised. He hoped it would make her decision a little easier to live with. Mirabelle was grateful to him and grateful to have Cecile, a beautiful bundle of sweet smells, just next door on Henry Street.

Chapter 26

In nineteen forty–eight, Savannah had fifteen banks to tend to residents’ savings, and ninety nine houses of worship to tend to their souls. As one might expect, being agnostics where so many people were in the business of dispensing godliness was bound to call attention to us. In Williamstown, my irreligious condition made me the envy of my peers. While my classmates struggled bleary–eyed to catechism every Sunday I got to lounge at home worshipping St. Mattress and the Holy Pancake. When, every so often, I’d get curious about my friends’ blessed shenanigans, Duncan would pack me off to church with Lottie to see what all the fuss was about. Lottie tantalized me with the knowledge that each week the priest deposited waffles onto the waiting tongues of his flock. I had to take her word for it, not being of the faith myself. I was a teenager before I realized that the Eucharist was a wafer and that Lottie had a speech impediment. Catholic masses bored me stiff. They were long, solemn, in Latin, and a single one satisfied my curiosity for years at a time.

Religion in the South involved much more than an hour–long inconvenience on Sunday mornings. Savannahians took churchgoing seriously and the sheer diversity of their faith was remarkable. Baptists, Catholics, Christian Scientists, Episcopalians, Jews, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Adventists, and Nazarenes all had their own take on God. It wasn’t so much a question of whether church was part of your life, but rather which one. Minty, Ceecee and Charlene were devoted to the oldest church in Savannah. They supported the Christ Church choir with varying degrees of talent and went to bible study by choice, not compulsion. On my first weekend in town Jim remarked that our lack of attendance was bound to be noticed. He was right, though it took a few months. Until then, we had enough other peculiarities to attract everyone’s attention.