The Wilful Daughter (33 page)

Minnelsa stared at them. What could they possibly mean?

“
I. . . I don’t know if that’s what he wants. I mean he did come back here after the war. And Europe is so far away.”

June watched the old ladies at work. She took her feet out of the dirt and walked up on the porch. She sat on the swing opposite her sister while Millie jumped rope across the yard staying out of grown folks’ way.

“
What we’re saying is that you should have some time with your husband to enjoy yourself.”

Minnelsa nodded in silent agreement then said: “But what about June’s baby?”

Yes, June thought. What about my baby?

“
June is fine here. She’s happy here. She can stay as long as she wants, raise her child here. This ain’t stuck up colored Atlanta society.”

Fannie laughed at Ella’s statement and added: “We the only colored society here. The church, the store, everything you see here we got for our people.”

“
And we were watching how June is with the little ones. She might make a good school teacher.” Fannie cut her eyes at June. “For a while she might want to do that. Help the little ones learn to read and count.”

“
We know she don’t want to go back to your father,” Ella said.

“
But. . .” Minnelsa was so confused.

“
You need to be with your husband and make your own baby.” Ella went on. “Ain’t nobody gonna ever care about who that child’s father is here. Ain’t nobody ever gonna worry about that story your daddy done made up about the saw mill accident.”

Fannie laughed again: “Don’t nobody believe that no how. Enough girls in trouble done been shipped to us and places around here to know what the true situation is. June is liked and loved here. June can be happy here and earn her keep.”

June said nothing. Minnelsa silently took it all in. Finally Fannie told her: “Talk to your husband about it. The land is deeded over to him, he could sell it anytime that he wanted.”

“
But papa said the land would go back to him when we moved out if we didn’t raise June’s child.”

“
Maybe the land here,” Fannie said. “But not the land in Atlanta. It’s your husband’s land.”

“
But papa said. . .”

“
I heard about what your father said to you and Peter at your wedding. Your mama told me in her letters. But your father left out one thing. On the day Peter married you and signed the papers, the property was his free and clear. Ain’t nothing the Blacksmith can do about it. He told you to let him care for it for tax purposes? Humph, William Brown ain’t no fool. He told you that so if you ever have to go to court and he tries to get his land back, he can prove that you didn’t pay for the upkeep of the land-he did. But the land is really Peter’s. So do what you want. Sell, move up north. You need to start off your marriage right.”

Ella gave a sly grin. “All you have to do is legally adopt June’s baby. Get papers signed. Lawyers can do it; they can do everything. But you need to be alone with your husband. And June can stay here until you two is ready.”

Peter and Minnelsa headed back shortly after that. June waved goodbye from her perch on the big porch while Millie ran after the car until it was out of sight.

“
You need to rest, Missy.” Aunt Ella ordered. “Thought you were going to stay longer.”

June got up on the porch and sat on a chair next to the old woman. “She needed a little comforting but like you said she needed to be alone with her husband more.”

Ella patted her knee. “Now that was smart of you. You can look at them two and tell they just longing to get away from all this mess your father done put them into.”

Ella rocked as June put her legs under her. Fannie popped beans and June stuck out a hand to offer to help. “Millie ought to be doing this,” Fannie complained.

“
She’s only eight, Fannie. Be time enough soon. Let her play. ‘Sides, June seems to be doing just fine with you.”

They sat in silence for a while until June asked. “It’s true what you said about the land?”

The old ladies looked at her a little puzzled.

“
The land my father gave Peter and Minnelsa. Is it true that it’s Peter and Minnelsa’s no matter what they do?”

“
Course its true.” Fannie popped beans as she eyed the girl. “Why would we make something like that up?”

June shrugged. It’s just that my father. . .”

“
Your father,” Ella interjected, “has this idea that the whole world is supposed to do as he says.”

June nodded and said nothing more until after dinner when she insisted on washing the dishes, allowing Cora to go home early. Fannie was covering the cornbread when June asked: “If I get married, my father would give the man some land for us to live on even though I had the baby?”

Fannie looked at her. “You are very determined to work my last nerve on this question today, ain’t you?”

June wasn’t aware of what she could have possibly done to unravel Fannie’s nerves. She was fond of the old woman so she didn’t repeat the questions.

Fannie didn’t bother to answer, just put away the bread and went out on the porch.

As June was about to mount the stairs for bed, Fannie hollered in to her: “You got the ways with the young people, June. You could teach the little ones. I watch the way you play with them, and the way Millie has remembered everything you taught her.”

“
That doesn’t make me teacher material, Miss Fannie,” she sat on the steps to rest, shouting back out the door. This was something she could never do at home. The quiet of the Blacksmith’s house was often like a tomb until the Piano Man came. She shook him out of her head as the old lady came in and sat next to her. Outside people said their good nights.

“
No, maybe not. But if you wanted to you could. You could earn your keep. Could keep that little baby all to yourself.” Fannie patted her tummy.

“
Miss Fannie, I don’t know how to do much that you and Aunt Ella and Cora didn’t teach me. I’ve been thinking I could go to Tuskegee and get a teaching certificate and come back and have a school here.”

Fannie smiled and slapped her knee. “See that’s how you should be thinking. Paying your own way.”

“
But I’d have a baby and no husband. I wouldn’t be able to get the money to go unless it came from papa, and papa is not going to give up anything unless I do what he wants.”

June stretched and Fannie rubbed her back. “June, did anybody ever ask you if you wanted to keep this baby?”

June shook her head. “I guess they all, we all, thought what was best for you. Your parents didn’t ask and here I am telling you to keep the baby and get a job and raise it. I don’t mean to get into your business, girl, but I was thinking about how hard it’s gonna be for Minnelsa.”

“
I know you right, Miss Fannie, but I don’t know what to do. Everybody always decides for me. Then I decide if I’m going to do it or not. I guess I’m just doing things like always. Doing what I’m told when things get out of hand.”

She got up with Fannie’s help to go to her room. When she reached the top of the stairs Fannie called out: “June?”

“
Yes, ma’am?” she wanted to rest not talk anymore.

“
Do you want to keep your baby?”

June learned against the door. It took her so long to answer Fannie called up again. “I don’t know, Miss Fannie. I never had a chance to think about it before. It seems right and then when you look at it from my papa’s view and my sister’s view. . .I don’t know.”

* * *

She was combing Millie’s hair one afternoon when her water broke. “It’s too soon,” she said after she sent the child to get the women. They helped her into the house and up the stairs. They helped her out of her clothes and asked about the pains, but she wasn’t having any. Cora sent Michael for Sara, the midwife, because, after all, it was too soon.

“
You don’t feel nothing?” the gnarled old midwife said after poking and prodding. “Cause something ain’t right. It ain’t yer time.”

“
I’m just uncomfortable, Miss Sara,” June was trying to be polite.

“
Hum, well you just stay in this bed. And keep Millie up here with you. You need something make her get it. Don’t get out of the bed at all, you hear?”

June nodded and watched as the entire group of women left the room to decide her fate. Millie sat down next to her with a slate June had found in some of the boxes that Fannie and Ella had gotten from the school with the piano. The girl was learning her letters and numbers faster than June could teach her. She was a good student too, but June felt that was because Millie wanted to please her so much.

The colored doctor came the next day. He was seldom called upon to visit outside of Tuskegee. Most people still tended to go to “root ladies” and “uneducated doctors” for their ailments, but he was old friends with Ella and Fannie, and he knew of the Blacksmith so he made the house call without question.

“
You’re in the best place to be in your condition, little lady,” he said to her with fatherly concern. “This baby ain’t ready to come out quite yet. Needs a couple more weeks. Ain’t nothing you can do but stay here in this bed and get waited on hand and foot. I’ll be back through here in three days’ time and check on you then. If the pains start, then the baby’s going to come and we just got to pray for the best. But if you can, just lie in this bed.”

And so June did just that.

Ella decided that it was time to call on Bira to come and be with her daughter. “No matter what that stubborn old coot of a Blacksmith says.”

“
No, don’t worry mama just yet.”

“
But child, it’s almost your time.”

“
I know, but I think Minnelsa should be with me.”

Ella frowned: “June this is your baby.”

“
It’s gonna be Minnelsa’s baby soon.” Fannie and Ella looked at her. “Don’t be mad. I am doing the right thing. I know I am. If Minnelsa’s going to be its mother she should be here to see it into the world.”

They didn’t seem satisfied with the answer but it was an answer. They sent for Minnelsa but word came back that Minnelsa and Peter had taken a little vacation, a little honeymoon to New York City. June was disappointed. “I’ve never been anywhere,” she cried. “Minnelsa didn’t even want to go to New York.”

“
She went for her husband’s sake,” they told her. June cried and cried until Fannie and Ella insisted on calling for Bira again. June still said not yet. Besides, she didn’t tell them she was crying because she knew she would have learned to love and enjoy New York in a way that Minnelsa couldn’t.

The pains hadn’t started and June was tired of being in bed. She wanted to get up and move about. Teaching Millie was fine and having Michael read to her from time to time with his unsteady broken rhythm because he was unsure of the pronunciation of the words was nice. His voice was pleasant and he was always so sweet to her. She started to notice that whenever he came into her room he was clean and smelled as if he had just bathed. He seemed so shy and yet so endearing. Cora was constantly telling him not to bother her, but June said she needed a friend.

On the day before the doctor was to return she asked Michael: “How come you don’t have a girl hanging around you all the time like all the other men folks?”

He put down his book and swallowed hard.

“
I guess don’t nobody like me. I mean I like girls, lots of girls. But working here and being with my mama and all, I don’t get to see them till Sunday and. . . I just ain’t got one.”

He was smiling and she was smiling. She kept on crocheting and he was about to start reading when she interrupted him. “You gonna get married one day?”

He dropped his book and looked up at her with a funny shocked grin. “Ma’am?”

“
Michael,” she insisted, “I told you not to call me ma’am. I’m barely two years older than you. You make me feel like an old lady when you call me that.”

“
I’m sorry.”

“
Then call me June.”

“
June.” The word came out of his mouth on gilded flowers. He spoke it so purely that she knew immediately he was sweet on her. Before the Piano Man, before the baby, she would have tortured the soul of any man who reacted to her that way. She would have led Michael to believe all kinds of things but never meaning to love him, truly love him. That had been another lifetime. Now she had Michael as a friend and admirer. She knew what it was like to love someone and get nothing in return.

Except the baby in her belly.

“
I asked you if you ever going to get married.”

“
Well, ma’ am. . .I mean June,” she heard it again clear as a bell. It was different from the way he said anything else. “I guess if I find the right woman. I mean a woman who loves me and what I am ‘cause I ain’t much.”

“
What do you mean you ain’t much, Michael? Who told you that?”

He cleared his throat again and nervously answered. “Well, I ain’t no rich Blacksmith, like your father. And I ain’t no piano playing professor like your sister’s husband. Hell, I don’t think I’d ever want to work in a saw mill like your husband. I just do what I got to do. Means I ain’t that much.”

She had never thought of him that way. “Michael, come and sit here,” she instructed him to come over to the bed. He didn’t at first, looking to the door to make sure no one would come in. “It’s okay. You can sit by me.”