The Twelve Tribes of Hattie (16 page)

Hattie,

Well, spring has come and gone and we’ve had nothing but rain. The forsythia bloomed and the dogwood, and those delicate purple things that grew around the side of the house when we were girls (remember Mama liked them?) and then a positively Biblical downpour came and mashed them all to bits. I suppose it was pretty in a way. The walkway and yard were strewn with white and purple petals. It’s been quiet and sunny the last few days. The lawn has come in nicely and Benny says it’s nicer than the Parsons next door.

Mrs. Parsons helped me during my trouble. She’s a kind woman and my fellow deaconess at the church. She’s like a sister to me, such a comfort. She checked on me every day, even after the doctor stopped coming around and Benny was acting so funny. I guess men are always funny about women’s things. This time I had taken the crib down from the attic and set it up in the sunny room at the back. I had planned to have the nursery back there. It’s a nice room, very airy. You’ve never seen it, of course. Did Marion tell you about my trouble? I don’t ever hear anything from you. I suppose you are too busy and then without a telephone, such a modern convenience.

Well, I have fully recovered now but the doctor says I oughtn’t to try again. Mrs. Parsons thinks that silly. What do doctors know about it, she says. Isn’t it peculiar how some things run in families and others don’t? You and Marion have been so blessed in that regard and here I am like Abraham’s Sarah.

I talked to Marion last week. She told me her girls were doing well. She also said you’ve had some difficulties as of late. Well, that August never was what he ought to be. Marion says he hasn’t been working and you’ve been receiving relief. I’m not finding fault. I always thought northern life was full of pitfalls, but it seems some solution is needed. I thought Benny and I might be able to help. We have so much space here, you know. And this great big yard and Benny’s business is doing so well. Ella would be happy here. I know she would. So much fresh air and sunshine and the Negro high school has just graduated three girls bound for Spelman College. There are so many opportunities, even here in Macon. Do you remember how Mama and Daddy joined the Negro Uplift Society all of those years ago? Well, I have kept up the dues and the society has done some very good work and I know that things will only get better. Benny says these associations can’t undo laziness, but then he is so funny about things.

I told Marion I hoped to talk to you. I didn’t tell her what it concerns. I know how much you value your privacy, but I know you go around to her house on Sundays and I thought I might call you there next week.

Well, I have sent twenty dollars, just to ease things a little. I hope you will accept it.

God bless and keep you.

Pearl

Hattie threw the letter away and didn’t go to Marion’s for over a month. But each time Miss Prisby came to the house, Hattie was forced to face how desperate things had become. Her sisters wouldn’t say outright that she’d disgraced herself and their family, but it was what they thought and what Hattie knew to be true. She could bear her poverty and her disappointment, but her children could not, Ella could not. Once a week Pearl sent envelopes with ten-dollar bills tucked inside. Hattie kept the money. She hated herself and hated Pearl but she spent every penny.

In high summer Pearl wrote again:

I hope you are considering my proposal. I know you don’t place much stock in what August says, but he is in favor.

God bless,

Pearl

Hattie put the letter into her purse and went to Marion’s. When she arrived, Marion was sitting on her porch swing fanning herself in the heat.

“What do you know about this?” Hattie asked, waving the letter in Marion’s face.

“I know you shouldn’t be charging up my steps like one of hell’s children when I haven’t even seen you for a month. What is that?” Marion answered, reaching for the sheet of monogrammed stationary.

“Oh,” she said as she read it.

“Well?” Hattie said.

“It’s just like Pearl to put things all the wrong way. It’s not as bad as she makes it sound.”

“What it sounds like to me is that August and Pearl have been plotting behind my back, and you too, I expect,” Hattie said.

“Nobody’s plotting. It just happened that August came over here to talk with Lewis—”

“Since when is August coming over here without me? He and Lewis haven’t said more than ten words to each other since you all got married.”

“I don’t know about that, but he all he said was it might not be the worst thing if Pearl took Ella, with you all having such a hard time.”

Hattie put her hand over her mouth as if to stifle a scream. She took a deep breath, dropped her hand to her side, and said, “One sister is trying to steal my flesh and blood and the other’s lying to cover it up. I don’t have much of my dignity left, Marion. I’m standing here asking you to tell me the truth.”

“I told it to you. August was over here, he came to … He came to borrow some money from Lewis but he didn’t want you to know about it, so we promised him we wouldn’t say anything.”

“He came over here begging?” Hattie asked. “What for?”

“I don’t know what for, Hattie.” Marion reached for Hattie’s hand, but Hattie took a step backward, out of her sister’s reach. “He and Lewis got to talking about things, and that’s when he said he’d been thinking about Pearl.”

“And?”

“And I happened to talk to Pearl the next day and I mentioned it.”

“I see.” Hattie took the letter and folded it back into her purse. “Thank you,” she said and descended the porch steps.

“Hattie, wait!” Marion called.

“Let me be, Marion. Just let me be,” Hattie said.

August came home that evening whistling Dixie like he always did, rain or shine, feast or famine, whistling Dixie. At dinner Hattie spooned his mashed potatoes onto his plate with such force that they spattered onto his necktie. After they ate, the children scattered like frightened birds. August was left alone with Hattie’s silence and the clatter of the silverware against the plates and the rush of water filling the double sink. She whirled to face him.

“Were you going to let me know you told Pearl that she could have my child or were you planning on stealing her and driving her down to Georgia while I was sleeping?”

August reached for his cigarettes. Hattie didn’t allow him to smoke in the house, so he tapped the corner of the box against the table.

“I ain’t told Pearl no such thing,” he said.

“You ain’t told Pearl no such thing.” Hattie shook her head. “So she just made it up and wrote it to me in a letter?”

“I didn’t tell her to take Ella. All I said was we was having a hard time and could be …”

“And could be you ought to sneak behind my back begging money from my sister’s husband? And while you were at it, you thought you might say Pearl could have my child?”

“It wasn’t that way, Hattie.”

“What did you need that money for, August? I don’t recall seeing any meat in the icebox. And you certainly didn’t add it to the down payment savings.”

“It was just a few dollars. I already gave it back.”

“I hope she was worth it.”

“Wasn’t no woman, Hattie. All I did was borrow fifteen dollars and tell Lewis I been thinking ’bout what Pearl said. That’s all.”

“You sold my baby girl for a few dollars and the money Pearl sends every week!”

“What money? I never took no money from Pearl. I didn’t say she could have Ella. Hattie, listen, they got so much down there. It ain’t like we wouldn’t see her again. She’d just be down there with your sister. Your own blood, Hattie, just till things ease up a little.”

“When will they ease up, August? When you run out of girlfriends? Are they going to ease up when you get sick of wearing nice shirts and going out every night?” She hit the kitchen table with the palm of her hand. “And you have the nerve to come in here whistling like a fool every night.”

“You think I don’t know I got mouths to feed? Shoot, one of ’em ain’t even mine.”

“Leave Ruthie out of this!”

“I go down that yard every day, and every day they say, ‘Nothin’ for you.’ I come home singing—you damn right I come in and bounce them children on my knee and try to make them laugh—I ain’t got nothing else to give them.”

“I don’t want to hear your sad stories when I have Miss Prisby looking in my drawers and cupboards every week. You wonder why I don’t smile at you? You’re lucky I don’t stab you in your sleep. A better woman would.”

“You ain’t never tried to understand what it is to be a man out in this world.”

“Don’t give me that line about how hard it is for Negroes. I’m on the dole because you spend your money in the streets. I know it’s hard!”

“You know what I used that fifteen dollars for? Union dues. I thought it might get me better pay, but it ain’t done nothing but buy whiskey for them white boys. I don’t want Ella to go no more than you do, but cain’t you see that’s what’s best? We poor folks, and we gon’ stay that way. Pearl and Benny got lots of money. Ella will have more than we can give her.”

“Well, why don’t we just give them all away, August? We don’t have to stop with Ella. How about Franklin? How many of our children do you think somebody else will take care of because you won’t?”

“Easy, Hattie. Easy. We talking about Ella here. You know in your heart this the right thing. She goin’ back where we came from, good earth, good air.”

“You and I don’t come from the same place,” she hissed. “You came from a shack, and I came from a house on a hill. We don’t have single thing in common as far as that’s concerned, and don’t you forget it. You field hand. You nigger.”

August rose from the table and rushed at Hattie with his hand raised. He had never hit her. She stood her ground even when he got so close she could see the sweat beading on his forehead. His raised hand trembled in the air.

“You a cold woman, Hattie.” He dropped his hand and walked out of the kitchen.

As she watched him leave the room, all indignance and wounded pride, Hattie decided to give her daughter to Pearl. August wasn’t ever going to do any better. He might think he was trying but he’d go on as he always had. I can’t be so irresponsible, so selfish, she thought, as to subject my girl to this circumstance when there is another choice.

PEARL AND BENNY CROSSED
the Mason-Dixon Line into Pennsylvania. It was safe to stop, so they pulled onto the shoulder of the highway and got out to stretch their legs and relieve themselves. Pearl walked deep into the wood that bordered the road. It was just after dawn and the dew soaked through the ankles of her stockings. These northern forests smell different, she thought, more like tree bark and less like earth and moss. Oh, but that’s silly, we only just crossed the line, and it’s not as though the trees changed because we left Jim Crow.

Fallen acorns pressed against the soles of Pearl’s shoes and into the balls of her feet. She had an urge to take off her pumps and rub her feet in the dirt. Pearl never went into the wood near her house in Macon. She preferred cultivated places. She squatted behind a wide tree, one hand on its trunk for balance and the other pulling her girdle away from her body so she wouldn’t dirty it. She squatted there so long her thighs ached and a wide puddle formed beneath her. The cool air felt nice on her backside, but she couldn’t help looking around to see if anyone was there.

This is the last morning of my childlessness, Pearl thought. The closer she got to Philadelphia the more euphoric she felt—the white men at the rest stop didn’t matter anymore nor Benny’s scorn nor even Hattie’s anger. She would come to see she’d made the right decision. Even that fool August knew it.

Pearl’s knees cracked when she stood. A few feet behind her a chestnut tree was all but picked clean by squirrels, so she walked further into the forest to find another one. She wondered if Ella had ever seen a chestnut tree. She’d probably never seen lots of things: peach trees, sugar beet fields, the horses some of the country people rode into town now and again. She hoped the baby was healthy. Marion had said Hattie was looking worn and sickly. To think Hattie had accused her of trying to buy Ella! She sent that money to put food in those children’s stomachs, and Hattie had reduced it to a bribe. She’d taken the money though, hadn’t she?

Hattie had never been easy to love. She was too quiet, it was impossible to know what she was thinking. And she was angry all of the time and so disdainful when her lofty principles weren’t satisfied. When they were girls, Pearl tagged along behind Hattie wherever she went. Hattie held some part of herself back no matter how devoted Pearl was, no matter how much Pearl loved her. She still loved her, though Hattie made her feel like a failure. Even now, poor as she was and crammed in that house with all of those children, Hattie was as proud and self-sufficient as she was when they were girls in Georgia and their father was the only Negro business owner in town. Even the dole probably hadn’t broken her. Pearl reminded herself that it was Hattie who had failed, not Pearl. Hattie had married the wrong man and she had failed.