May the Road Rise Up to Meet You: A Novel (26 page)

The results of the election took two days to fully sort out, but by the eighth of November it was clear to even the most ardent Democrat that Lincoln had won. Marcella attended a celebratory tea at Mrs. Carlisle’s that afternoon and then reluctantly returned home for supper at her father’s house, dreading the idea of listening to him gloat with Miguel and Bartolomé about the great fortune they had just made. Perhaps it was because she had sipped wine and not tea at Mrs. Carlisle’s, perhaps it was because she had forty blocks of a taxi carriage ride to work herself into a minor idealistic frenzy, perhaps it was an inevitability regardless of the circumstances, but when she walked in the front door of the house, all previous plans and all customary decorum were immediately discarded. She flung open the doors to the parlor where her father and brothers were entertaining five business associates in a cloud of cigar smoke and brandy vapors.

“Mr. Lincoln has won!” she announced, walking quickly to the brandy decanter and then to the five gentlemen guests, filling their glasses as they laughed politely or stared in bewilderment at her.

“What
wonderful
news for you, Papa,” she continued. “And for you too, Miguel and Bartolomé—and for all of you gentlemen, I suppose. Congratulations! You will be able to sell all your cotton you’ve been hoarding and make a real killing!”

Her father was not amused by her antics, of course, but reserved his temper.

“My daughter is very high-spirit,” he said to the men gathered around. “You must know if ever you have the bad fortune to have daughters.”

And the men laughed and commented about their daughters and so on, all in the usual manner of barely acknowledging her presence in the room other than to lift their glass slightly as she approached them to fill it.

Marcella could only surmise that Papa was treading so lightly now because these men were new associates, none of them the familiar faces she had seen at the dinner table over the years, and appearances were, as always, everything to him.
I have made him squirm
, she thought, smiling furtively.
Here in this very room where he has so long ruled!
And it emboldened her to pour a snifter of brandy for herself, then lift it high in the air, clearing her throat before she spoke.

“To Lincoln! To cotton! To money!” she exclaimed, and was the only one, other than Bartolomé, to drink to her toast.

“Marcella, you should go with your Mama and sister in the other room,” Papa said, only slightly more assertively.

“Oh no, I want to sit with the Masters of the World and discuss the great issues of the day,” she insisted, then took a cigar from the case on the decanter table and flopped down in the seat next to it. She held the cigar up to her lips, and Bartolomé laughed instinctively before catching himself beneath Papa’s icy glare.

“Marcella you embarrass yourself,” Papa said, staring at her icily for a moment before looking around at the other men. “Gentlemen, I am sorry my daughter is so much a high-spirit she forget sometimes how we raise her to be a lady.”

And there were fewer comments than before, but still some general recognition of the difficulties of bearing daughters.

“Ahhhh Papa,” she interrupted. “I know it must have been difficult
to be burdened with my presence all these years. But you will not have to fret any longer, as I am moving out! This evening. Right at this very moment!”

The men laughed a little, then stopped once they realized her sincerity.

“Marcella,” Papa said, “
enough
of this now! Leave us to our business.”

He said it in the way that once had frightened her, squinting his eyes and tensing his mouth as if she had shattered a fine vase. But she did not know such fear anymore.

“Oh, I
will
leave you to your business, Papa,” she said, standing up and dropping the cigar on the table. “I only wanted to toast your triumph and to tell you that, from this moment on, you can reach me at Mrs. Carlisle’s house on Twenty-Third and Broadway.”

She lifted her glass slightly, then drank down the rest of its contents.

“Farewell, gentlemen,” she said, and walked out of the room, leaving them in stunned silence.

She would have walked straight out the front door and returned to Mrs. Carlisle’s at that very moment, except for the few items she could not risk leaving behind. Papa could hold on to all the dresses and whatever jewelry she had, every stick of furniture, and even the sheet music and books that had made life here more endurable over the years. But then there was the brush and the brooch and the notebooks from Abuela, and those she would not let fall into his hands to be held ransom until she moved back home. And in the time it took for her to gather these in a small case, Mama and Pilar were bursting into her room, Pilar in tears and Mama with a look that surprised Marcella, neither angry nor sad, but as if she had long been resigned to such an eventuality.

“Marcie … no … you are not leaving,” was all Pilar said, sitting on the edge of her bed and pulling Marcella’s arm until she sat beside her.

She could not explain to them everything, of course, since Pilar didn’t seem to know the possibility of another way and her mother, if she ever had, had long ago yielded her entire identity to Papa. So she left it as a matter of simple politics, telling them that she had decided to join the abolitionist cause and could no longer live in the same house with Papa. It was an act of mercy to Pilar at least, her Mama sensing far more of the truth and thus hardly assuaged by such consolation.

In the end though, her mother insisted that she take the trunks with her, even helping her pack them, while Pilar sat on the bed and plotted ways in which she would come to visit Marcella every day, announcing that she would become an abolitionist too if that’s what it would take. But even with all the promises made of letters and secret visits and the like, the goodbyes she offered them seemed final. Mama had two of the servants carry down the trunks, using the back stairs of course, and placing them in their harnessed carriage waiting for her. But Marcella would not skulk her way out the servants’ entrance and insisted on using the front stairs, and the front door, more than willing to confront Papa and her brothers and their guests another time. Instead it was just her Papa standing alone by the front door, his hands planted against his hips and a scowl on his face. She could hear Miguel and Bartolomé talking in the parlor, but the men were all gone by now.

“Marcella, if you leave this house you will have no more money from me,” Papa said.

And she was amazed at the limit of his response, as if he finally understood that appeals to her duty, her place as a woman, even the shame she would bring upon the family, no longer held dominion over her any more than he did.
He goes directly to the money
, she thought, but held her laughter back to only a smile and short exhale, understanding the defeat she could now administer to him.
Not Abuela, not the Minister of Finance, not Mama or Miguel or Bartolomé or Pilar, none of them
, she thought.
Only
I
have gotten the better of him
.

“That’s fine, Papa,” she replied, calmly, coldly. “I’ve got all the money I need.”

“You will not be my daughter anymore,” he added, though with what seemed like some trepidation that his final stand would not be enough to scare her into staying.

“I understand, Papa,” she said.

And then, as if sealing her triumph, she kissed him on the cheek and walked out the door, stopping only long enough to see Pilar on the landing at the top of the stairs, tears covering her cheeks, and Mama’s arm wrapped around her for comfort. Marcella smiled and raised her eyebrows slightly, wanting to tell her that it could be no other way. But the time for words had passed, and so, with one final glance at her
confused father, she closed the door behind her, her life, at long last, now entirely her own.

That night, in the comfort of her new room at Mrs. Carlisle’s, she couldn’t help but think of the finality of the evening’s events. Papa was not the sort of man whose resolve and anger grew weaker with time. And despite her mother’s assistance and Pilar’s desperation to remain close, she knew that neither of them would be able to stand up to Papa in any real way. So she went to the only recourse she had at that very moment, taking out the most recent of her notebooks to Abuela, and writing the shortest entry she had ever written, unable to transcribe the events of the day into more words than these:

By the time Micah was eighteen or so he’d grown into his shoulders. And he was long done being anything like an apprentice. Dunmore had taught him everything he knew about carpentry. Took all of a few months. And still it wasn’t but a fraction of what his Daddy had taught him back on
Les Roseraies
. That was ’cause Dunmore was a shit carpenter right from the start. The kinda man who had a reason for every time a job didn’t get done right. Spent more time explaining than it woulda took to do the thing right the first time.

But when Micah looked old enough to do a man’s job by himself, Dunmore started hiring him out to work alone, sometimes. Micah tossed out all the shortcuts and patch-ups straight off. All the ways Dunmore’d taught him about how to make a job
look
done. And that’s when shopkeepers and farmers took real notice of Micah. Started asking Dunmore just to send the boy over. Told Dunmore they’d only pay for Micah to do the job. And Dunmore didn’t need any persuading to
become a man of leisure. So by the summer of Fifty-Seven, when Micah was a man of twenty, Dunmore was as retired as a lazy country squire. The boy had turned out to be gold. But then there came a chance to really cash in on his investment. Once and for all.

For Micah the days had long run together into one indistinguishable mess. Except for Sundays. He worked just as hard, but did all his workin’ on Dunmore’s shit house that wasn’t such shit anymore. He knew the approach of winter and summer only once the extreme of temperatures told him to put on or remove his coat. Nothing. Not even spring. Not even the autumn colors along the Blue Ridge, could make him take notice for more than a few tortured moments. Not when the rest of his days were lived in the darkness. And by the time he was a full-grown man. Twenty twenty-two twenty-four, even. Escape was not even a thought in the deepest part of his soul. Figuring that it wasn’t worth the whipping just so he could be a mule somewhere else.

And just like any other day, Micah woke up before the sun. Made Dunmore’s breakfast. Woke up Dunmore. Made his own breakfast with the leftover bacon drippings. Dunmore drove him to the job site, the livery on the west end of town. Then it was off to the Blue Spruce for Dunmore, to drink all day with the Embrys, who were in town. No runaways for them to hunt down this week.

Micah’d made great progress on the job the first day. Too much it turned out. Got Dunmore thinking he could finish it on the second day instead of the three they both figured it would take. ’Course Dunmore charged the livery owner ten dollars for the job straight out. After lumber. Told him it’d take a week at least. Told him he was gettin’ a bargain. Which he was. But Dunmore had plans on making a real killing this week. And Micah knew there’d be trouble soon as he heard the squeak of Dunmore’s cart pulling up to the livery doors.

Micah! Job done … time a go
.

Dunmore still hadn’t figured out not to yell inside the livery. Horses started kicking, whinnying, livery boy came running. ’Course, the livery boy was every bit as scared of Dunmore as Micah used to be so he didn’t go to settlin’ the horses down. He ran inside to get his Massa the owner. Owner came out just as Micah was coming down the bottom ladder to tell Dunmore he wasn’t done. To tell him he needed another half day.

Dunmore, what the hell’re you doin’?
Livery owner was angry as a mule.

Wha? Oh … I’m callin’ m’nigga boy t’come down ’ere. Job finiss now
.

Only it wasn’t finished. Micah got to explaining what he still had to do. Livery owner said he was happy with what he’d done already. Another day maybe to finish it.

Now ten dollars for three days work is a nice deal for you, Dunmore
.

Didn’t matter that the livery owner said that. Dunmore still hauled off and whacked Micah soon as he got in range. Micah felt his right cheek on fire. Could taste the blood beginning to trickle from inside his mouth. But it wasn’t as bad as it might’ve been. Micah knew by now to stand far enough off Dunmore’s right shoulder so all he could do was hit him with a backhanded right. It was too far to reach to get his real power hand, his left, to the target. Not after a full day at the Blue Spruce. Not after the Embrys were there to do their share of the buyin’.

So then it was Dunmore and the livery owner arguing back and forth. While Micah loaded the tools in the wagon. The livery boy calmed the horses down in time to help Micah put the last tools on the cart.

Man, you in a bad spot
. The boy said. Like Micah needed informing. Just looked at him, didn’t say a thing. Angry at the boy for being so afraid. Thought of tellin’ him it was easy enough once you let yourself become a mule. Gave up on ideas of anything better. But still, just looked at him. Didn’t say a thing. Climbed up into the cart. Then it was the ride home with Dunmore. Micah sitting in the cart while Dunmore did the driving up front.

Back home there was the broken-down horse to unhitch and water. Cook the chops Dunmore’d bought at the butcher. Cook the panbread in the grease, bring it all to Dunmore, who was on the porch with the jug. Surveying his land like the country squire he was. Not the shit carpenter anymore. Then it was feed the horse and water him some more. Cook some more panbread for himself in the grease left over from the chops. Eat it without sittin’ down. Check on Dunmore.

He was passed out by now. His plate fallen off his lap and the last of the three chops lay on the porch floor, mostly untouched. Just one bite out of it, and then the dirt from the floor. So Micah stuffed it in his pocket, woke Dunmore up, none the wiser about the chop. Put him to bed. Then out to the well for more water for the broken-down horse.
He poured some of it over the chop and ate it down with as little chewing as possible.