The Wilful Daughter (53 page)

“
Push, harder, Minnelsa. I see the head,” the doctor said again and she pushed harder. Harder than she wanted to, harder than was necessary.

Let them get it out of me, she told herself. Let it be born dead. Let him take that with him when he leaves me. We are whores, they always leave the whores.

“
One more push and it’s done.”

She pushed again and her mother held her head and shoulders up off the bed with all her weight until the pushing ended and the wail of new life began.

“
It’s a boy,” the doctor announced rather subdued.

“
Bastard,” was all Minnelsa said before she fell back on the bed and passed out cold.

* * *

It rained the morning the Piano Man’s son was born, rained big buckets of water from the Georgia sky. Jewel made her biscuits and Fawn made another pot of coffee and cooked the eggs and ham, setting the table as usual.

The doctor and the midwife gone, the family returned to what they thought was normal: an early morning breakfast as usual for the Blacksmith and his family.

But this morning things were different. A baby howled near a mother who refused to touch it. “Get him out of here,” was all Minnelsa had said when her mother tried to put him to her breast.

So Bira went about making a sugar tit for the child to suck on.

No one bothered to wash the long night from their faces, to change from the clothes they had worn since the labor had started. They just came and sat down at the table.

The Piano Man had tried to leave but the Blacksmith told him to stay, he must stay for breakfast. “Every journey must begin with a good meal. Besides, where do you think you can go right now with a wife and baby lying in there? You know they can’t travel right now.”

The smile on the old man’s face was frightening.

If the Blacksmith had wanted to, he could have crushed him with a single blow of his fist. Could have hit him and sent him hurling through space. But the Blacksmith told him to come to the table and have breakfast.

It was Bira who found June in Willie’s old room and told her to come to the table.

“
Is this some kind of cruel joke to make us all sit together at that table as if nothing happened here last night? As if nothing was said?”

The baby in one hand Bira grabbed June’s arm and pulled her from the room. “You will do as I say. Come with me right now.”

June had never seen her mother so angry. In the kitchen, as Fawn put the last fried egg on the silver platter and Jewel placed the last biscuit in the bread basket, Bira turned to her youngest daughter. She appraised her from head to toe; unkempt, skinny and dirty. “Why didn’t you just tell us at first? Why did you make everyone go through all of this?”

The sisters stopped their tasks and lifted their tired lonely heads to hear her answer. “Because the Piano Man wanted the money. I learned that he wanted what came with Minnelsa more than he wanted me. Because he came here for the land, they all came for the land, and not the daughters. One daughter, any daughter. Because I saw the way Minnelsa looked at him when he left the room. The same way you look when papa leaves a room and I knew I could never love him like that. Because,” then she sighed. “Take your pick.”

She passed them all and went to the table not looking at her father or her ex-lover and genteelly placed the linen napkin in her lap.

As they sat, the new baby in Bira’s arms, the Piano Man realized he had yet to hold his son. The boy was the complete opposite of Ophelia - pale like his mother and big and strong like his grandfather. The doctor said he weighed over ten pounds. Part of why Minnelsa had had such a hard time. Only part. His son would be a big man, he’d be. . .

Like his grandfather, the Blacksmith.

“
Mother, who’s to say grace?” the Blacksmith asked as he poured his coffee and added spoon after spoon of sugar.

They all watched Bira’s sullen face as she looked around the room. Each one of them prayed that she wouldn’t call on them. There was no smile of delight, no look of happiness except for the infant in her arms. From a blank slate she spoke. “The person here who has the most to be thankful for should say the grace.”

“
And who might that be?” the Blacksmith asked as if this was the way things had always been.

He cut a glance to the Piano Man who was shaking so badly he could hardly catch his breath.

“
Me.” She looked down at the baby in her arms and kissed his forehead.

“
Dear Lord,” she began and they all bowed their heads. “A new life was given to us today. Thank you for that. Thank you for the return of the health of the prodigal daughter. Help the mother to recover from the labors of birth and the sisters to survive the loss of their husbands. And please Lord, let the fathers survive the end of their dreams. Amen.”

No one echoed her amen. The Blacksmith had not bowed his head. He had watched her the whole time. Now he sipped his coffee. “Strange grace, Bira.”

“
A strange day, William.” She looked around the table at the four solemn faces. “Eat children, eat.”

They tried to place the food in their mouths, but they couldn’t. The eggs and ham and biscuits got cold and went to waste. They watched the huge infant feed on the sugar tit and when it was assumed that breakfast was over, the Blacksmith, who had downed every ounce of food he could rose to leave.

“
No, William.” Bira said. She herself hadn’t touched a bite as the baby suckled in her arms. “Finish it.”

“
What?” He sat back down like an obedient child, a look of confusion on his face.

“
Finish it, William.”

“
Finish what, Bira?” he asked for he truly didn’t know.

“
It has to come to an end. All of this. What was said last night. You have. . .”

He smiled and leaned forward on the table. “We will go on, mother. We will survive. We will act as if nothing has changed.”

He looked at the Piano Man. “We will never mention these atrocities again. When your wife is better you will take her back to your home. I’m sure I can get whatever contract you signed voided. Lawyer Gibbs is very good at such things. At your home you will raise your children as was planned. I am also sure we will be able to find better husbands for our daughters who haven’t been so lucky. . .”

“
Lucky!” June said. “Who at this table is lucky?”

“
Silence,” Bira shouted in her direction. The very room held its breath. “No, William, finish it. Or I will.”

The Blacksmith leaned back in his chair. He really didn’t understand what his wife was talking about. “Bira, I don’t understand.”

She looked at his face long and hard. All she could see was all that he dreamed of and all that might be lost. He had no idea it was over.

“
No,” she responded sweetly, “I believe you don’t understand.” She sighed.

“
Listen well, all of you. There will be no more dowries, no more land to husbands. You daughters need to go back to the houses you had, the ones that were given to your husbands at marriage and live there. Lawyer Gibbs will help your father and me take care of all that. If your husband left you and you still love him, then find him. If necessary find new men and a new life.”

The daughters stared at her but didn’t speak.

“
June, perhaps it would be better for everyone if you went back to your singing. Maybe back North. Once a piece of land was put aside for your marriage. . .”

The Blacksmith looked at June in anger then hissed defiantly: “A piece of land for when she married. She is not. . .”

“
That’s over, William. It is finished.” She looked back at June with no emotion in her face. “We will sell the land and give you the money since it is obvious that you will never be happy here.”

The Blacksmith started to speak but Bira raised her hand.

“
Peter.” When Bira spoke, all of them, including June, turned to him. He had never known such hate.

“
You know what you have to do,” was all she said before she rose to put the sleeping babe in the cradle.

Most people don’t know exactly what happened after Bira gave her orders in the Blacksmith’s house. Word had spread from the gossipy midwife about the night before. So no one was surprised when the Piano Man got into his car and drove to his house to pack a bag and go down to the colored bank on Auburn Avenue and collect every penny he had on deposit.

Without a goodbye to his wife, his lover, or either child, he drove away in his shiny Ford a rich man.

June bathed herself and dressed herself in the same blue dress she had arrived in. She combed her hair and put on her lipstick and left the house to call on lawyer Gibbs to get her money and be on her way. She didn’t even return to collect her things. Some say she made it big when she got back up north, some say she faded away in the background. And some say the Blacksmith’s daughter got on the train, pretending to be a white woman and disappeared from her people never to be heard from again.

Bira turned the baby over to Fawn and Jewel who took care of it like their own while deciding their fates, since Minnelsa screamed whenever the child was brought near her. Then Bira called Miss Fannie long distance on the new telephone that had been put in the parlor and told her everything that had happened and that when her daughter was stronger, she was going to bring Minnelsa down there for a rest.

A very long rest, with Ophelia but without the Piano Man’s baby.

And the Blacksmith? Reverend Chancey had heard the good news about the birth of the grandson and came over to the shop a bit before high noon with a mason jar full of their beloved ‘ice water’ tucked amidst the papers in his briefcase. He found the Blacksmith asleep in the old desk chair holding the framed picture of the shop Willie had drawn so many years ago.

“
I hear it’s another boy for the man who has all those wonderful, beautiful daughters,” the Reverend said as he pulled the jar of potent drink out, ready to make a toast.

But the Blacksmith didn’t move.

The Blacksmith was dead. Somewhere between the birth of his grandson and his wife putting an end to his dream the pains had started again. Somewhere after a hearty breakfast, bigger than he usually ate (and that was a lot for he was a big man) the pains got stronger. Somewhere after he kissed his wife good bye for the day and crossed the town in the wagon, he had a heart attack.

The Blacksmith had come across the two miles to his shop slumped over his seat. No one took notice of a bent over colored man driving a wagon. There were too many men like that for anyone to care. The horse knew where it was going.

When the wagon stopped at the bottom of the hill, the Blacksmith sat up and said to the wind, for no one came there anymore: “I feel a little better.” He climbed out of the wagon slowly for his chest hurt. “Ate too much of that good ham,” he said to the horse who neighed in agreement. Then he walked slowly to the office to let the pains pass.

No cocks crowed, no bells rang. Life went on.

Thinking about his new grandson and his lost son, the Blacksmith died.

There were over thirteen million cars on the road that year in his great country. The Blacksmith had never driven one. People didn’t need his iron strength anymore. Soon the country would crash into economic depression. But the Blacksmith had done what they all said he’d never do-he still had land all over Atlanta and money in places other than banks. Maybe the silver and the china and the crystal wouldn’t come from France anymore, maybe the scandal would stop the daughters from being the talk of the town or being invited to all the right places, but poverty was something that his family would never know. Most people said the Blacksmith had a pretty good plan even if it went wrong somewhere along the way.

Those that know say that the moment the Blacksmith’s spirit left this earth, his wife screamed. She called his name: “William!” and fainted to the floor.

She knew even before the Reverend came to bring the news of his death that she was left alone with her daughters and her grandchildren in the Blacksmith’s house.

But that wasn’t Bira’s dream.

She waited a proper length of time. After the Blacksmith was buried, after the baby boy was baptized and after she was sure June and the Piano Man would never be heard from again, she prepared her daughters. Fawn and Jewel turned the baby boy over to his mother who finally accepted him and took her children home. Bira gave them six months to take over their own lives and go to their own homes-those pieces of property that were part of their dowries. Properties sold had been purchased again and given not to husbands who had deserted them but to daughters who were not sure how to live alone. Jewel thought about going to New York. Fawn thought about finding her reverend.

Then Bira packed a bag and took a train to Alabama where she stayed with Fannie and Ella for those six months. Sitting at the table on the lawn at lunchtime with toothless farmhands and people who talked with their mouths full, knitting on the porch at night with the ladies who had no men or men so long gone they didn’t care if they ever had any more, letting Millie brush her long, graying hair every night in exchange for letting her take a hot comb to Millie’s hair every two weeks so the girl could profess in front of all those who told her how nice her long straight pigtails looked: “I told you June said I got good hair.”