The Orphan Mother Page 3

  Inside, she stoked the fire and poured water for coffee. Her fire and her coffee. Her pot. Her house. She hoped she never got used to saying those words and meaning them, knowing they were hers in a fundamental and absolute way, that they were better than gifts. They were not loans made by her mistress, but hers that she could burn to the ground if she felt like it. She could paint a face on the side of her house, she could sit up on the peak of the roof and spend the day singing to the sparrows. Why not? She could. This could make some people very angry, she knew. Would she rattle her freedom at them, sing it from that rooftop? She wouldn’t, because she had never actually stopped being the wise woman, the responsible woman, the sock darner and fever tender. She couldn’t sweep back time, however much she wished it.

  * * *

  An hour later Mariah’s own flesh and blood, her son, sat on a hard gray slatted chair next to her, talking low and amused about politics, which she let him do. He was a cobbler by trade, set up his own shop a few streets away, but already he was thinking beyond owning his shop. Now he was thinking of owning the whole world, Mariah sometimes thought. As if slavery were something that a stroke of a pen could just wipe away, and the whole world could open up before you.

  Mariah kept two potted plants on the railing of her small porch, on either side of the steps to the street. She kept two chairs on the porch, facing the street on opposite sides of the front door. Mariah always sat on the left, and any visitor would sit on the right. Her chair had worn down some on the back legs, and there was the slightest black mark on the clapboard wall just behind. Mariah liked to lean back on the chair and rest against the wall. She liked to lean just past the moment of balance, constantly testing that balance. Sometimes she rocked forward, and other times she eased back. When she was balanced she thought it felt like flying. Or at least floating.

  Theopolis once told her that she looked like an old man when she rocked like that with her legs spread wide. Her son leaned forward in his chair, elbows on his knees, hands clasped in front of him, staring at whatever happened to be going by on the porch floor, often ants. Or he looked out down the street squinty-eyed like he could see from there to Perdition.

  “You’ll come then, Mama?”

  “If you going to make a fool of yourself, I suppose I’ll be there to watch it.”

  “Who do you think is going to run, Mama, if it’s not me?”

  “Some other not my son. But you go on, you do what best.”

  “Good thing I don’t listen to you.”

  Her Theopolis was damned modern, thinking he was going to put himself in charge of that House of Representatives in Nashville, even just a little bit.

  This terrified her.

  Theopolis would be giving a speech today. In public, in the town square, alongside a man running for the U.S. Congress and other bigwigs. But how could she try to talk her son out of something as honorable as giving a speech? Quit thinking like a slave. She vowed she would not say anything more to Theopolis about it.

  “If you listened to me you’d be in that San Francisco by now, you’d have already took your mama out there where I be a comfortable lady looking out that ocean. But here I am.”

  “You wouldn’t leave this place.”

  “Might consider it, you don’t know.”

  Theopolis snorted and drank his coffee.

  Theopolis had told her it gave him comfort to think that he, a Negro, might soon be sitting in the legislature with his feet up on the rail and voting according to his own instincts and philosophies. I have instincts and philosophies, Mama. You do, too. He would have his own polished spittoon when he sat in that beautiful chamber. He would sit and spit alongside his heroes in the state’s Reconstruction government.

  Governor Brownlow, for instance—Theopolis had last year traveled clear to Nashville to see him, and could recite whole chunks of the speech the governor gave. Someday Governor Brownlow himself might turn to Representative Theopolis Reddick and ask him what he thought of a new law, or some problem that needed fixing. Governor Brownlow would ask him for his vote. Governor Brownlow would reach out with his big, important hand and shake Theopolis’s. This is what he had told his mother, and it was these very words that terrified her. Not the words, but the fact that he believed them.

  It would all start today, whatever she thought. These big, important white men and Theopolis, her son, with his instincts and philosophies, would stand onstage trying to win votes side by side.

  Theopolis loved his mama. He loved her so much he came to see her every morning for his coffee, but he did not fear her like she would have liked. If he had feared her, he wouldn’t be giving any speeches that afternoon right there, across the way, where the white men with their bricked-in faces would be watching.

  His love for her, which when he was a boy she had felt powerfully every time he had slotted his hand into hers, couldn’t compete now. Who was she, his mama, but a foolish woman who could hardly read and write, who needed to be reminded she had her own ideas about politics? Who was she next to those men, whose words he hung on like they were all that mattered in the world? No, he would go and he would speak and she would stand by, as always, afraid of what would happen when he raised his voice.

  No one could say that Mariah acted like a slave: she held her head up and met every white man’s gaze with a clear, gray-eyed stare. But no matter how she acted, she knew one thing: Negro folk did not speak. They raised their voices in a chorus only to praise the Lord and pray for a better time to come. They did not stand before white folk and try to change their minds, try to understand them, try to make the white folk see them.

  And now, this afternoon, Theopolis would be seen.

  * * *

  She smelled liquor and tobacco smoke and biscuits, and thought all three had never smelled so sweet or so definite, so full of things she’d never noticed before. Even the dogs seemed to know that something was imminent, for they trotted along barking at nearly everything they saw and nipping each other’s necks distractedly.

  “What about Mrs. McGavock, Mama? She’ll want to come. She’ll be there, I’ll bet.”

  “She got better things to do.”

  “What’s better than to be in the middle of change? Nothing, that’s what.”

  “Miss Carrie has her dead folk to tend to. And Mr. John’s away, traveling.”

  “That ain’t more important than today. I’d think they’d want to come hear me speak.”

  “Don’t be a sassy boy.”

  The whole town seemed jittery—even the air and the leaves dancing on it. Mariah’s neighbors plied the wood sidewalks to and fro, from the academy to the Presbyterian church to the courthouse and back again, everyone buzzing. The Colored League Negroes swaggered, boots clattering on the paving stones, stopping each other with a clap on the back, bending their heads together, joining their voices in an excited hum. Upon meeting or parting they would give a spirited chant for the Republican governor—“Huzzah for Brownlow!” It all seemed very unnatural to Mariah.

  The Conservatives buzzed with a different energy, dark and angry, coiled up like snakes preparing to strike. Their eyes followed the Leaguers around town as if they were tracking them. They spoke in whispers. Some had been angry for a long time. Some were planters made poor and small by Reconstruction, their punishment for opposing the Republicans and fighting for the Confederacy. They had watched their land and slaves disappear, their houses deteriorate. Mariah could feel their anger stalking the streets, bristling against the eager anticipation of the League men.

  You couldn’t not feel it. The day was breaking open, and it was everywhere—the anger and excitement both. It would be good to be out of town this morning. Mariah thought about going up to Carnton since Miss Carrie had sent her another note, another request to return. It was time to end that nonsense. She would never go back for good like Miss Carrie wanted. She even shivered at the idea of going back just for the morning, but she never refused Miss Carrie. That would have to change. Sh
e strengthened her resolve. It was time, finally, to sever the ties.

  The farrier’s hammer clanked clearly, ringing out agreement, as if Mariah were standing right next to the anvil and not four blocks away.

  Theopolis got up to go, straightening his black trousers and tucking in his best white shirt, which Mariah knew would be a filthy mess by the end of the day. The boy has good intentions, she thought, he just needs a lick more common sense. Theopolis had been soiling his shirts since he was a boy, though, and Mariah supposed she would be disappointed if he ever stopped.

  “I don’t want to sass you, Mama. I just want you to come see me speak. It ain’t going to happen every day.”

  “I’ll come if you quit talking about it.”

  He smiled and kissed her on her forehead. Mariah smoothed the back of his shirt as he walked away from her, down the steps, and off up the street.

  A breath of windblown dandelion fluff came to rest on his hair, white against dark, as if anointing him.

  Later, she wished she had at least got up, followed him off the porch, and pulled him close enough to brush the stray fluff away, or told him he was a good man, or told him she loved him more than any child she had ever brought into the world.

  Chapter 4

  Tole

  July 6, 1867

  Tole wore a buttoned-down shirt he had pressed himself that morning, a vest, and a cotton cap pulled close to his ears. The fancy clothing felt restrictive and strange. He loitered near the midwife’s tiny house on Cameron Street, passing time, smelling the breeze, feeling as if the world were better than it had been—the colors fiercer, sharper, darker. Far away a mockingbird shrilled in a tree, and another answered it, echoing.

  Around him men were preparing for the rally. Colored Leaguers hurried past with their easy laughs and their drums. White men followed them with slower steps, glowering. Some Negroes shook their heads as they watched the Leaguers go by making the white men grumble and stomp their boots. They wanted no part of that and didn’t appreciate the disturbance of the peace. Eventually everyone moved off toward the square, away from Tole. He stood and watched them go, in no hurry to go anywhere himself.

  And then: there she was, sallying forth, skirt shining in the sun, carrying a basket under an arm. She didn’t see him, or feigned not to, and turned in the other direction, marching out past the other clusters of houses along the high road. Her hips swayed as she walked.

  “Missus Reddick,” he called to her. She didn’t respond, so he called again. This time she turned.

  Tole approached. “Thought I might say hello.”

  “Hello,” she said. “Forgive me for not remembering your name. I never forget faces, but names are more difficult these days.”

  “Tole. George Tole.”

  “Mr. Tole.” Something about the way she said it sounded musical. He was George after his mama’s brother who died as a child; and Tole after his father, who was dead of drink, or worse, these long years past. But now, here, hearing her speak it, the whole name sounded exotic and mysterious and worthy.

  “You heading out of town?” he asked her.

  “Carnton. The McGavock place.”

  “Where you were—” Where you were a slave. He knew he didn’t have to finish the sentence.

  “Yes,” she said. “Heading back to return some things to Missus McGavock.”

  “I ain’t never been over that way. I’m still learning my way around here.”

  “Well, I don’t make a habit of walking these back roads with strangers, but since you know my son, you welcome to walk along with me if that’s what you trying to say.”

  “Thank you,” he said, falling into step with her. “But I want to carry your bag there.”

  “I can carry my own bag,” Mariah said. “You just focus on walking.”

  He felt an unfamiliar tightening around his lips: it took him a moment, as he fell into step next to her, to recognize that he was smiling.

  There were certain simple pleasures, he reflected, that had been denied him—or that he had denied himself, more like. Simple easy graces that could fall upon you unexpectedly, if you had the good fortune to recognize them for what they were, like an unlooked-for gift from someone you loved once. Who would have thought it a gift, walking down a humid summer lane in Middle Tennessee with a beautiful woman swinging a basket next to you? But if you were a killer and sometimes con man, a drunk and washed-up soldier who could sit with a rifle in a tree and pick off defenseless men from a quarter of a mile away, it would seem a gift indeed.

  She seemed different from other women he had known—a bringer of life, with a confidence and assuredness he envied and wanted to possess. But now, for this moment, it was enough just to walk beside her. Right then, with the dust of the road kicking up at each step, even with piles of horse dung and ruts to avoid, right then he wasn’t a drunk and a killer. He was a better man.

  “You say you not from around here,” Mariah said.

  “Yes’m, New York’s home for me. Was, anyhow. Came out here to Franklin just before this summer.”

  “What a summer it’s been,” Mariah said. “I don’t think it’ll ever end.”

  “There’ll be an Indian summer, surely,” Tole said. “Though I don’t know what the Indians have to do with it. I guess they go ahead and blame them for everything they can, even the heat.”

  Mariah smiled. “Why you come to Franklin, of all the places?”

  “Oh, this and that reason,” Tole said.

  Her eyes narrowed. “That ain’t no kinda answer.”

  “I guess I just needed some new scenery,” he said. “New faces to look at.”

  “What was wrong with the faces in New York?”

  “The problem wasn’t so much with their faces,” he said. “The problem was with mine.”

  “Ain’t nothing wrong with your face as far as I can tell,” Mariah said.

  Was she flattering or flirting with him? Surely neither. Or both?

  Or she was just being kind. And was kindness such a bad thing? The war, after all, was over. This situation with Mr. Dixon would soon be resolved. Perhaps Dixon would be grateful for a job well done, help find him work. The man was a magistrate, after all, and very wealthy. Talk was that one of his children was sickly, and Dixon doted on her like a crazy man. The man had some charity in his heart. Perhaps this was the new beginning that Tole had sought. “Believe it or not, I had my looks when I was a younger man. I wasn’t always this old fool.”

  “Don’t go talkin’ about age, Mr. Tole.”

  “You don’t look a day over twenty years old, Missus Reddick.”

  Tole could have sworn he saw the tinge of a blush in her cheeks, but he took the summer heat to be the cause and lowered his eyes to his feet.

  “You’re kind. A liar, but kind. You think you can charm your way out answering the question, though, you wrong.”

  “Not trying to charm my way out of anything.”

  “Sounds to me like you running from something,” Mariah countered, slowing their pace to a stop as she met his gaze. “Except you don’t seem like the kinda man who’s scared of much. Makes me think the thing you running from is more frightening than any war or anybody’s face.”

  He held her stare. “Maybe I’m running toward something now, not away.”

  They began walking again along the dirt road, wide-open farmland on either side of them: to the left, acres of corn; and to the right, sunflowers breaking into bloom. Mariah adjusted the bag on her shoulder. Tole kept his head bowed, looking down at his shoes, only daring to glance over at Mariah when he knew she wouldn’t catch him.

  They let silence fall over them, the soft shuffle of boots against the dirt, and soon they were halfway to Carnton.

  “You have any kind of family, Mr. Tole?”

  “You need to call me Tole, ma’am.”

  “Tole, then. Any kind of family?”

  “Can’t say I have much left anymore,” he said. “I believe I have a great-uncle still
kickin’ around in Albany, but he might as well be as dead as all the others.”

  “No wife and children back in New York?”

  And there it was, the question, so simple, one of the first questions people asked him, the one he had previously found impossible to answer. But now he found the words.

  “I had a wife and a son, but they dead now.”

  Mariah’s stride shifted imperceptibly, like a stagger. She said, softer, “Lord. Sorry to hear that.”

  “Happened a few years ago. It’s all right.”

  “Doubt any parent’s ever ‘all right’ once their child has passed on,” she said, looking over at him.

  “You’re probably right. But I get by.”

  She didn’t ask how it happened, as people usually did. Instead: “What was his name?” And Tole said, “My wife named him Miles, after her daddy,” and Mariah said, “Well that’s a real nice name.”

  The silence fell between them again—rough with unspoken questions, unanswered thoughts.

  A few moments later he saw a pair of brick pillars, and a sign, damaged and weather-beaten: Carnton, painted in simple black script on a white board. She said, “This is Carnton, where I was, once. Like you said. Thank you for the walk.”

  “Good to walk with you, Missus Reddick.”