Never Too Late (26 page)
Authors: Michael Phillips
She took the flowers, wiped at her eyes and held them to her face, then drew in a breath and smiled.
Suddenly Henry stepped toward her, leaned forward, and kissed her. Josepha's eyes opened wide and her heart started beating so fast it felt like it was going to jump right out of her chest.
But already Henry had turned and was disappearing across the yard.
T
WO
H
EARTS
34
H
ENRY WAS LYING ON HIS BED STARING UP AT THE
ceiling, wondering if what he'd just done was the stupidest thing he had ever done in his life.
He did not hear Josepha's approach. She crept up the steps almost on tiptoe and timidly knocked. Not suspecting who it was, Henry rose and went to open the door.
There stood Josepha, still holding the simple bouquet, a sheepish look on her face.
“Nobody eber gib me flowers before,” she said. “I wanted ter thank you proper. I wuz so speechless I didn't know what ter say.”
Henry gazed into her face just a moment, then opened his arms, stretched them as far as they would go around Josepha's waist, and drew her to him. The bouquet of flowers was crushed between them.
“Oh, my goodness, what's dis all about!” exclaimed Josepha.
“I ain't too shore, Miz Black,” said Henry, “but I's afraid dis ol' heart er mine's losin' itself fo da second time
in its life. I hope you don't take no offense at da affections ob an ol' colored man.”
Gradually Josepha relaxed and slowly returned Henry's embrace.
“Maybe it ain't too late after all,” she whispered.
“What dat you said?” asked Henry.
“Oh, nuthin' . . . jes' thinkin' out loud.”
“Happy thoughts, I hope.”
“Yes, sir, Mister Pattersonâdey's happy thoughts indeed.”
A
NOTHER
L
ETTER
35
O
ur aunt Nelda from Philadelphiaâwhere Katie's mother and uncles, and my family too, were fromâhad never seemed to have much use for any of us, at least not for her two brothers, because she seemed to think they had wasted their lives. But gradually over the last couple of years there had been more letters back and forth between Pennsylvania and North Carolina, and she had gradually been taking more and more of an interest in Katie. I think at first Papa might have been a little annoyed by it, thinking that maybe she was trying to work her way into Katie's good graces and thinking that the company of her two rough and wayward uncles wasn't good enough for her. But by this time we were all so close that nothing anybody did or saidânot even an auntâcould get between us. So Papa didn't seem to mind so much now. Aunt Nelda's letters always came either to Katie or to all three of themâKatie and Papa and Uncle Ward, and usually it was
Katie who wrote back. I don't know if they had told her about me. I mean, she knew that Katie had a black friend called Mayme and that we had survived together. Whether she knew that I was kin and that she was my aunt too, that much I didn't know. Papa was still guarded and private about what he said about him and Mama
.
The most recent letter had come to Katie, and in all the hubbub about Mrs. Hammond and then Micah and Emma's letter, she hadn't said anything about it. So it was a surprise at the dinner table several days later when she announced
:
“Aunt Nelda said she would like to come for a visit.”
We all looked around at each other. Papa and Uncle Ward wore questioning expressions
.
“What did you tell her?” asked Uncle Ward
.
“Nothing yet,” answered Katie. “I wanted to see what you thought first.”
“Hmm . . . well, I reckon you might as well tell her to come whenever she likesâwhat do you think, Templeton?”
“Sure, why not?” said Papa, though he didn't seem completely enthusiastic
.
And so Katie wrote back the next day, and three weeks after that came another letter telling us that she would arrive by train in Charlotte two weeks later
.
I think maybe we were all more than a little nervous before her visit. We didn't have any idea what to expect. After all Katie's anxiety years earlier about
us being found out by her kin and her telling me her Aunt Nelda had never liked any of them that much, I couldn't help wondering why she was coming and what she would think. Papa was jittery too, and that was a mite peculiar for him. He was so friendly with everyone. There wasn't anybody he didn't like. But maybe it's different with kin
.
As the day drew closer everything around Rosewood got quieter. No one knew what to say. We were all just waiting. Neither Papa nor Uncle Ward had seen their sister for years. Why was she coming for a visit? No one knew. Then suddenly we got nervous and the quietness turned into a flurry of cleaning and baking and washing, straightening up all the rooms, making sure everything would be just right
.
All four of us went in to Charlotte to meet her train
.
The train stopped at the station. People began to get out. Papa was always kind of the leader in situations like this because of his friendly personality. The moment he saw his sister, he stepped forward and greeted her warmly
.
“Nelda,” he said, “welcome to Charlotte!” He didn't exactly give her a hug or a handshake, but placed his hand on her shoulder
.
“Hello
,
Templeton,” she said
.
He led her over to where we were waiting. Uncle Ward stepped forward
.
“Hello, Ward,” she said
.
“Nelda . . . it's nice to see you again. It's been a few years.”
“Thank you. It's good to see the two of you too. I cannot in all honesty say that you haven't aged a day since I saw you. You are olderâof course, so am I. But you . . . you look well, both of you.”
“Come and say hello to Kathleen,” said Papa, leading her to where Katie and I stood
.
“Oh, Kathleen,” she exclaimed, “I would know you anywhere. You are the picture of your mother!”
“Hello, Aunt Nelda,” said Katie. “I'm glad you could come. It is nice to see you at last.”
“And this must be Mayme,” she said, turning toward me with a smile
.
“You remember Lemuela,” said Papa
.
“Of course.”
“Mayme is her daughter.”
“I see. How wonderful. She's almost family, then.”
I saw Katie and Papa exchange a brief glance. It was their place to tell her more when the time came, not mine. I knew they wanted to let it sink in slowly to her that I wasn't just almost family, I was family
.
Aunt Nelda stayed at Rosewood a week, and it was a better visit than any of us had expected. Enough time had gone by that the old antagonisms of the past had faded away. Most evenings Katie and I lay in bed upstairs in our rooms drifting to sleep, listening to the talk and laughter from downstairs of the two brothers and their sister catching up on their lives and sharing story after story from their younger years, memories of their parents, and of Katie's mama
.
One night they began reminiscing about their grandparents
.
“How well do you remember Grandpa Daniels?” asked Ward when they were talking.
“You mean Grandpa William and Grandma Sarah?” asked Nelda. “âI don't remember them at all. I think they died when I was two or three. Do you really remember them, Ward?”
“Just faintly. My only recollection is that they were religiousâseemed too religious even to a little tyke like me.”
“Quakers, weren't they?” asked Templeton.
“That's what Mama always said,” replied Nelda. “It's strange, now that I think of it, how the Daniels family was Quaker for so many generations, ever since old Elijah Daniels came over from England with the Woolmans and the Bortons . . . but then it died out with our folks.”
“Yeah, well, Papa was the Daniels, and I don't think he cared too much for all that. Mama was religious enough, but she was no Quaker.”
“I do remember her telling us about the Woolmans and the Bortons,” said Templeton, “and that we'd come from an important line of people and were related to the famous John Woolman.”
“Papa was funny about his heritage,” said Nelda. “Everything I know about our family's Quaker roots I remember Mama telling me, not him. She must have gotten it all from Papa's parents before they died. What about the
old homesteadâdid you ever see it, Ward?”
“Mama took me and Templeton out to see the farm once. But that was after Grandma and Grandpa were gone and the place had been sold.”
“She took Rosalind and me out to see it too. We were probably ten or twelve.”
“Anybody living in it?” asked Ward.
“A man and his wife, I think. Actually I've forgotten. All I remember is that it was run-down and old-looking even back then.”
“Yeah, that's how it was when we saw it too.”
“And why not?” added Templeton. “The first house was built there in the 1700s when the first Daniels came to Pennsylvania as part of William Penn's Quaker experiment, as Mama told it. It's amazing anything's still left of it.”
“There might not be by now,” said Ward.
“Be nice to see it again though, wouldn't it?”
“If we could find it,” Templeton agreed. “I don't know that I could. You know where it is, Nelda? You were there more recently than us.”
“I don't know . . . somewhere near the Maryland border . . . what was the name of the town it was by . . . Hanover, that's it. Hanover, Pennsylvania.”
“Funny, when you think if it,” said Templeton. “Here we've been living in the South, and Rosalind spent all her adult life in the South, but we're not really Southerners at all. Kathleen's the only true Southerner in the whole family. But our roots are really in Pennsylvania.”
“Quaker roots,” said Ward thoughtfully. “Kind of strange to think of it like that. But I suppose it explains how we were raised. Mother wasn't a Quaker, but she tried
to teach us the Bible. Kind of wish I'd paid more attention to things she taught us and what they said about the old days and how our people came here and all. But when you're a child you don't think of that.”