The Wilful Daughter (48 page)

But she was back. “Papa, to send her away again would break mama’s heart.”

Floyd had settled at the kitchen table drinking coffee with Madman when the Blacksmith came into the room. He paused for a moment to be introduced, a short introduction since Floyd realized the old man wasn’t one for many words. Then the Blacksmith knocked on the door of June’s room and, without waiting for an answer, went in.

The pain came in his chest again. It was his heart he knew for he had never seen June look so frail before. “What happened?” was all he could find to say.

June was awake when he came in and at first she turned her head away. Here was the last person in the world that she wanted to confront weak and possibly dying in her own bed. She was not up to asking forgiveness. She didn’t think she needed to be forgiven for wanting to live her own life. She squeezed her mother’s hand and turned back to her father and simply said: “Papa.”

It was the way she said it that caused the big man to collapse into the chair next to her. It was the voice that he had been hearing ever since she had left and Ophelia had learned to talk. The tiny musical voice that he had missed everyday for over five years.

Bira looked at him for the first time since he had entered the room. “White man beat her on the head in New York. Mr. Jeffries and his friend were kind enough to bring her home, William. She is home.” Bira turned back to her daughter and asked. “You said sometimes you can’t keep food down, but a little broth maybe. Did Mrs. Jeffries try that?”

It hurt to nod her head so she said: “She did Mama, but she’s not a real good cook. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t keep it down. I want some of your broth, Mama. Please.”

The sweetness of the words danced in the Blacksmith and Bira’s ears. “I’ll go make some right away. Your papa will stay with you in case you need anything.”

Bira stood. She was almost two feet shorter than her husband but when she stood she seemed to tower over him. She had given a direct order to this man that had been giving orders for years. Slowly and surely he moved his chair closer to the bed, afraid that if he sat there he would jostle June and hurt her. He tried not to cry when she closed her eyes and he took her weak hand in his.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Bira went to work and magic followed. She told Ophelia, who had been sitting with Madman the whole time quietly as if she knew that was what they expected of her, to take him across the street to Mrs. Pritchett’s house and get her to ride with them to the doctor’s and tell him to get there right away, to the college to fetch the Piano Man, and to the hospital to fetch Rosa and James. She showed the little girl a cloth napkin with two big sugar cookies, her favorite kind, and sent her to the bathroom to make water before she got into the car. She told the men that when they returned she would have a big meal for them and a place for them to sleep, probably at the Piano Man’s house since he was staying with them nowadays because of his wife and the baby to come.

By the time the family doctor left most of the family was there, worried and working at the different tasks Bira assigned.

The Blacksmith sat in the room with his daughter until he realized the horse and cart were still at the shop and needed to be brought back or put in the barn across town.

James volunteered to do that after they ate, just to get away from the frenzied activity of the house. Reverend Chancey showed up to find out what was going on. After spending two hours alone thinking his drinking partner might never return, he consumed all the ‘ice water’ so that it wouldn’t go bad and then had a pot of coffee to wash away the results.

Everyone was there except the Piano Man. He arrived in a frenzy, caught sight of June lying in bed and then, without skipping a beat or changing and expression, told his mother-in- law: “Floyd and Madman can stay at my house.”

“
They can go with you after you eat.” Bira was smiling and singing. But the Piano Man was as nervous as-how had his mother once put it?-a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

“
I’m not hungry. I’ve got to go to get the place ready.”

“
Let Rosa go with you to get things. . .” she had said knowing that men knew nothing about fresh linen and towels and clean dishes.

“
No, Mother Brown,” he told her. “I can do everything and I will take Ophelia with me. Give everyone a break. Ophelia can play outside while I get things together.”

Bira hadn’t noticed the bead of sweat on his head. One tiny bead that was ready to explode like his insides. He forgot to go look in on Minnelsa until he got to the door. He peaked in and saw she was sleeping. With shattered nerves and for no reason other then he thought that was what he was supposed to do, he bent over and kissed her forehead. He didn’t stop to see if she would respond. He didn’t care. He had to get out of the house and fast. He got Madman and Floyd and told them to follow him in their car. Then he took his daughter and got in his 1924 Ford quickly and went home, shaking all the way.

Of course Ophelia couldn’t stop talking about the little lady in her room, and in her bed, at grandma’s house and the funny men who bought her in their big white car.

The Piano Man was sweating in his professor’s suit and tie and no one would fault him for it was a hot Georgia day. But he was sweating like a man about to go before the firing squad.

June was back. All this time he had wanted to be where she was and now she was here. He hadn’t wanted to be with her, or had he? He just wanted to leave.

He hadn’t admitted that the dreams of running into her on the streets of New York were exciting. That was away from the madness of the Blacksmith’s kingdom. But here he could only admit that the very thought of her disturbed him greatly, made him long for her and now. . .

She was back.

“
Papa, is she really my aunt?” Ophelia asked and he starred at her.

He swallowed as he said: “She is one of your mother’s sisters, like Jewel and Fawn and Rosa. So what does that make her?”

“
My aunt,” the little girl said then added: “Papa, where she been?”

He didn’t get to answer. They were already on Parsons St and in front of their house. “You fellows come on in.” He said as he unlocked the front door to the nice white structure he called home.

“
Piano Man, you done well for yourself,” Madman Jeffries said as he walked into the Jenkins home.

Piano Man knew he had done well on the day he saw the property and the other three houses on it. “Yes,” he pointed out to the fields. “They pay their rent to me, when they have questions they ask me.”

Floyd smiled. “I bet you have money in the bank and more coming in. All yours.”

“
Like I said before, Piano Man, you done well.” Madman was watching him.

“
Got you a home, a wife, a baby, and another on the way,” Madman continued as he sat down at the piano and uncovered the keys. “Yep, you a rich man.” He ran his hand over the keys. “Got you one of the finest pianos.”

“
A wedding present from my father-in-law.” The Piano Man shooed Ophelia off to the yard to play.

Floyd leaned back on the sofa with his eyes closed. He had taken off his jacket and removed his shoes to get comfortable. Piano Man knew Minnelsa would never allow such carrying on in her parlor but then like so many other things that surrounded him she would never know. He figured he better get the rooms made up soon.

Madman played a little something he had been playing up north in the clubs. Piano Man had never heard it and stopped to listen. “Nice,” he said to his old friend.

“
Something nice and sweet. I call it the ‘happy blues’,” Madman said as he played on and on. The Piano Man was remembering what it was like to know all the new tunes before they made it to the records and became popular with everybody in the country. He remembered the days when he could pick up something somebody was humming and then walk to the piano and just sit down and play.

Over in the corner of the room stood the gramophone he had purchased last year so he could keep up musically. He could learn things here, music that he could never have learned in the North. All sorts of blues, rhythms, songs that you couldn’t hear in the dens in iniquity in the North or in Europe. Yes, he could learn many things here.

But he was never in the place to learn them. He purchased the recordings for this new gramophone, an impressive instrument to his father-in-law, who still preferred the live music of the Piano Man or the occasional wailing of Poor Wally, local blues guitarist who sometimes stopped by the Blacksmith’s shop and sang a tune to the swinging of an anvil.

“
Your sister-in-law sure was one singing good looking woman,” Madman said. “Too bad what happened. She was just starting to make it, starting to sing in the places that white folks like to go.”

The Piano Man took a seat facing Madman and asked quietly, as if Floyd would wake up any minute: “How did she end up with you?”

“
You mean,” Madman kept playing lightly, gently touching the keys like petals on a delicate rose, “now or back when she first started out? Back when you told me that you had a pretty little sister-in-law with a promising voice and where to find her?”

“
I just wanted her to be able to do something with her life besides waiting. . .” Piano Man said a bit embarrassed.

“
Waiting for what?” Madman asked.

The Piano Man ignored him. “I don’t know much. The family. . . we don’t know what happened. I mean they knew she ran off and I knew from other musicians that she ended up North singing, but. . . How’d she end with you this time? What happened?”

Madman stopped his playing and looked at the Piano Man. He looked him up and down.

“
Man, you settled down. I wouldn’t be able to do that. I know I’d never be able to do that.” Which, of course, was a lie because whenever he looked at June he thought about doing just that. He cleared the thoughts as he spoke. “She was doing good, man, from what I hear. I mean we ain’t been together for a while.” Piano Man’s eyes brightened and when Madman saw it he corrected himself. “Not that we were ever really together. But you know I was the one that took her out of Alabama. Course I wouldn’t want that giant of a father of hers to know that since I’m the one what brought her back all beat up and sick.”

The two men traded glances. Nothing bad, nothing good, they weren’t exactly sure why they were staring at each other. So Piano Man cleared his throat and sort of looked away out the window to his baby daughter playing with her toys.

Madman went on. “I guess you don’t care much about her getting out as why she’s back and in that condition. So here is what I can tell you.

“
I had been in New York for two weeks when Roger found me. Said he didn’t know what to do for her. She seemed like she just didn’t want to live no more. Wouldn’t talk about what happened. Wouldn’t eat. Couldn’t eat, really. Nothing stayed down. Poor boy was wringing his hands.”

“
Who is this Roger?

The Madman looked surprised. Then he remembered. “Man I am sorry, so many things I wasn’t supposed to say. She asked me not to. To her parents, you know but. . .well you and me, we go way back.” He cleared his throat. “Roger’s one of them uppity educated boys that June met when we was playing in DC. They had a thing going for a while.” He winced thinking of the younger man fondling his perfect baby June. He tried not to remind himself that he had never had her.

He leaned back on the piano and watched a fly hover over Floyd’s open mouth and laughed. Piano Man turned and saw it and grinned. Madman rolled himself a cigarette as he talked. “But when that white man hit June with that pipe and she got sick and Roger had no one to care for her and no place to put her, well that’s when he showed up on my door step. Nine o’clock in the morning. Shit, I didn’t get in until six pm and he pounding on my door. He’s talking a mile a minute, about how she acted like she wanted to die, or go home and didn’t say nothing else.

“
I asked him how’d it happen, how did his woman end up with some white man ’cause I knew June had too much class to be hanging with no northern cracker. And he told me she wasn’t his woman no more. That she just sang and was a really big draw, but she wanted no part of him.”

They both sighed. Madman played with the tobacco.

Madman nodded. “Would show up at any place they played and sit in the audience. Waiting to hurt my baby was really what Madman thought. It hurt him bad to think about it so he puffed on his cigarette and said nothing more.

“
Did the police find him?” Piano Man asked innocently and then regretted his statement.

Madman jumped and looked down on him, anger sweating cross his brow. “Police? Nigger, is you crazy? The North just the same as the South. What makes you think a white police man is going to care at all what happens to a colored bitch?”

“
She’s no bitch.” Piano Man lunged at him. Madman dropped his cigarette and raised his hands.

“
Hey, I didn’t mean it that way.” The Piano Man pulled himself together and sat back down. The two men stared at each other. And that’s when Madman saw it, when Piano Man saw it. That was when they both recognized what they had not bothered to recognize before.

Madman was the first to say it: “You in love with her.”

If it had been anybody else Piano Man might have denied it. But the look in Madman’s eyes told him not to bother. “No more than you.”