The Wilful Daughter (28 page)

“
I bet she isn’t asleep,” Jewel smiled and Rosa pretended to gasp. “But I bet she’s still in the bed.”

“
What do you know about that?” Rosa grinned as she feigned surprise.

“
What do you know?” Jewel responded. “What do any of us know about that?”

“
June knew.” Fawn frowned. “June knew before any of us.”

The sisters stared at her quietly. They had never really talked about June and her baby and her leaving. They had been busy with the joy of a wedding and the hopes that theirs would be soon.

“
June did what she did out of grief,” Rosa stated. At least that’s what she hoped.

“
June did what she did because she’s a whore,” Fawn replied.

“
Fawn! Don’t say that. She’s our sister.” Jewel wiped the dust of the flour from her skirt.

“
She’s a brat, always was, always will be. Sister or not, she did it on purpose. To have her way. She always had to have her way. . .”

“
That’s enough!” Bira was standing there staring at them in silence. She had nothing to say. She didn’t want to talk to them. She didn’t want them to leave but she wanted them to go. Go and find their own homes and husbands and make themselves some children so that she could crawl backwards in time. So that it could be as it was when she and the Blacksmith first came to Atlanta and lived alone in this house.

Suddenly she wanted to be alone. If one of her children had to leave, she wanted them all to go. She wanted them to be happy but she wanted them to go and do what Minnelsa was doing this morning: loving her husband and being alone for a while before she had to share him with children and family and the world.

They waited for her to say something, but she didn’t. She turned and went out on the porch where she stood in the chill of the pre dawn air. Maybe when they were all married and gone, maybe then she could go back and live with Fannie and Ella. Maybe there would be some peace. Maybe then she could tell William that all of this was too much and she just wanted to go home.

But not until they were all gone.

* * *

So on the first Monday morning after his daughter’s marriage, the Blacksmith sat at the table half empty of his children, and ate as he always did, not noticing the bird-like portions his wife consumed, or the tired, tortured look on her face. Yes, he agreed to meet each of the men that his remaining daughters wanted to bring home. Yes, it would be nice to have a barbeque for him to meet all the men at the same time. Yes, it would have to wait until Minnelsa and Peter had left town this coming Saturday, but why not let it be her first social event as a married woman?

“
Bira, what do you think?” he had asked.

She looked up at him slowly from the biscuit that she was chomping on and just stared. She didn’t answer, didn’t look as if she was interested in what he or the daughters were saying. In fact she acted as if she didn’t care.

“
Mama?” Fawn looked at her mother.

“
I’m tired. The wedding, the baby. . . June. I think I’ll rest. Everyone have a nice day.” She got up and walked away from the table without looking back and went to her room, their room, the room she shared with the man she loved, and closed the door and laid fully dressed on top of the covers listening to the Simmons’ rooster crow again down the street. Listening to the ice wagon clanging down the street, listening to Eugenia Hawks next door swearing and begging forgiveness at the same time as she rushed out the door late to get across Atlanta to her white lady. She listened until it lulled her to sleep and that didn’t take long for Bira was tired, very tired. She had been tired ever since Brother had died but nobody noticed, nobody knew.

In the dining room, the Blacksmith was startled but not unnerved. “Your mama is part Indian and she had always had funny ways,” he assured the daughters and left for his shop, the proudest man in Atlanta. He had done what he set out to do, marry his oldest daughter off first. That set off a chain of events that would create a family to carry on his ideas forever. He was not to be shamed by the youngest one. He wanted to forget her name.

She did this to me, was all he ever thought. She did this to me.

Once June had been his favorite for she looked just as Bira had when she was young. Bira knew this and warned him that he had five daughters not one. So he had become standoffish with her and didn’t spend a lot of time with her. But he had always loved her the way a good father would.

And after all his love she did this to him. That was all he could think about. Fortunately he had other daughters, good daughters, who did as they were told.

Like Minnelsa. She would make a good wife and mother. Sorry he had to burden her with her sister’s child but it had to be done.

He was creating a dynasty. Soon there would be other sons-in-law. Soon there would be other grandchildren. They would have the property he had bought. They would live on his land and understand his ways.

He was the smartest man in Atlanta.

But he did not know he had the most tired wife in Atlanta.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

From the very first June figured that the only way not to miss home, mama and her sisters, and even her father, was to get involved with what it took to run the big house. She decided to get busy.

For the first time there was someone interested in teaching her how to cook and not in getting her out of the kitchen. And the things she planted in the garden actually started to grow, although Old Ma said it was because she was as fertile as a field with that baby in her belly and every seed she passed over was willing to show its tiny head. June envisioned leaving a path of flowers or squash wherever she trudged. She learned to sew and crochet much better than before. She even admitted that she liked doing it. When Cora asked was she going to make some things for the baby, June replied: “Right now I want to make my mama something. I’ve never done anything like this before.” With Mattie and Cora’s tutoring she made Bira the prettiest cream colored shawl. They got Toby to take her to the white folks’ town to mail it.

It was so quiet in that town, dead and boring, and her belly was just starting to jut out a little. Toby waited by the car as she went into the post office with the package properly labeled and addressed. Two white men passed by and tipped their hats to her. She and Toby exchanged knowledgeable glances. She wasn’t trying to pass. They were just stupid.

Her dress danced about her. Pretty and dainty and finer than most of the poor folks that lived about. With her hair hanging over her shoulders, she looked just like a white girl, but June wasn’t paying attention to that. The two white men that passed had reached the corner and were eyeing her. She went into the post office and went up to the counter.

“
Morning, ma’am,” the clerk said. June was surprised at his politeness then realized he too was making an error in color. She pretended not to notice.

“
Morning,” she responded politely. “I need to send this to Atlanta.”

The clerk pulled his glasses further up on his nose and looked at the package and then at her. It wasn’t the Atlanta address that got him and made him realize she wasn’t white for he knew nothing about the colored section of Atlanta. It was the return address to Ella and Fannie’s farm that turned him.

“
Right,” he said and stared at her angrily.

June wanted to laugh but knew better. It happened so often she didn’t even want to count the times white men driving through the north side had asked her what she was doing in the colored section of Atlanta. “I live here,” she would boldly tell them.

“
Well,” they usually responded, “poor white trash done left Cabbagetown and started living with the nigras. Where you living, gal?”

She would say defiantly: “I live with my father. You may have heard of him. He’s a big blacksmith?” Then they would speed away in their jalopies, leaving a trail of brown dust behind them as evidence of their fear of one particular colored man.

But here in this small Alabama town she knew she was just a light skinned colored girl with no added protection and she had to be careful.

As she left the post office, the white boys eyed her hungrily until she got into the front seat of the car with Toby. Then their faces turned beet red. That was the last time she had gone into the white people’s town. She let Toby do the mailing without her from then on.

Within two weeks of her town experience, she had come out of her shoes, learning to like the dirt between her toes. She was plump and round and popping beans for dinner as she sat, her hair tied up on her head, her outfit a plain and simple house dress stretched across her ever-growing tummy. This is how Peter and Minnelsa saw her for the first time in over five months as they drove up the long path to the big house.

She didn’t get up for she was not sure she should be excited to see them. Then again it was getting harder for her to get up without putting her body through several twists and turns and grunts. But she saw them and smiled: Minnelsa looked so happy and pretty. She’s away from papa, that’s why, June thought. She barely glanced at Peter who had a shocked expression on his face. Was it because she was so brown from being in the sun and that her hair was tied out of her face? Was it that her feet were almost black at the bottom from the local dirt? Or was it the dress she was wearing, a sack so simple she would never have worn it before?

Perhaps it was the size of her belly swollen with his child.

The greeting Minnelsa gave was truly warm and wonderful, for she found she missed her sisters. “June, look at you. You look so beautiful.” Their hug was filled with happiness.

“
You look like a happy bride.” June kissed her sister glaring in mixed anger at her new brother-in-law. “Here,” she handed Peter the bowl of beans. “Help me get up,” she told Minnelsa, who gladly assisted her. Once upright and catching her breath she told them to come into the house.

Peter marveled at the size of the place. “Quite anti-bellum,” he pronounced with an eloquent flair. “Was this once part of a plantation?”

June looked about her before she answered. “No, this was built after my parents left Alabama. Papa paid for it. Aunt Ella and Miss Fannie wanted to have a nice big house where all their friends could stay and even live if they wanted too. Why, once about ten years ago, there were five different families living here. All with lots of children.” She patted her tummy and smiled. “They have that much room.”

Peter nodded, Minnelsa asked: “Where are they?” She also seemed a bit nervous to June. “I mean Miss Fannie and Aunt Ella.”

“
They still have a store to run and a farm. They’ll be back soon.” Cora came in from the kitchen and was introduced.

“
You got your father’s handsomeness, Minnelsa,” she said and Minnelsa thanked her. “We having lunch soon. Since you folks is spending the night, why don’t you get settled and unpacked? Millie,” she hollered out the front door. “Get in here, gal.”

Minnelsa giggled at Cora’s strange accent and Peter squeezed her hand. June wished he would die, but then that would hurt Minnelsa and she wasn’t sure if that kind of hurt was worth the Piano Man’s death.

The little girl ran in, was introduced, then given her task which she did without complaints. She had become attached to June since she had been there and had no intention of embarrassing her in front of her sister. (Although Millie was afraid this sister might take her place in June’s affections)

At lunch in the backyard, Peter sat like a fool, June thought, in his proper shirt and tie, sweating and trying to show he was not a country bumpkin. Michael sat next to him asking about the car from time to time. Millie sat between June and Minnelsa now and then asking Minnelsa when was she going to have a baby, when was she going to do this or that. Cora, Ella and Fannie were busy asking questions about Tuskegee and the Piano Man’s teaching future.

Usually after lunch June took a nap. So she excused herself while the ladies cleared the table and Michael went back to work. Millie was sent on an errand and Minnelsa could not break away from the talk and gossip.

“
Need some help upstairs?” Peter said to June once inside the huge parlor.

“
I get up these stairs every day without you.” She moaned as she went on up, stopping to take a breath and he thought she was going to faint. Quickly he ran up to her.

“
I’m fine,” she whispered. “Stay away from me.”

“
I just wanted to help.” Peter leaned against the railing and stared at her.

“
I’ve had enough of your help. Just don’t you dare ever hurt my sister because I will tell everything, even if it means losing my life.”

She moved faster up the stairs then stopped. “You two weren’t supposed to come for another six weeks so why are you here now?”

“
Minnelsa was worried about you, wanted to see how you were doing.” He hesitated than added: “And she’s about six weeks pregnant.”

June turned almost losing her balance. Peter quickly came to her aid. “Let go of me,” she screamed, the sound of her voice carrying out over the great hall. Fortunately the entire household was outside.

She pulled away once she got control of herself. “What is wrong with you? Have you lost your mind? You take my father’s money and promise him to raise my child and then you get my sister pregnant before the honeymoon is over?”