Part 12 (2/2)
Mrs. Macon nodded.
”Now I can't say how I would feel if it were my own Lily, but you know what I mean. n.o.body outside 435 Fayetville loved that child more than me.”
Ophelia Macon added a high sound of her own breathing, whistling up her nose.
”Wasn't I her G.o.dmother? Didn't I go to every birthday, every church play, every little thing they had at school?”
Mrs. Macon again showed agreement, lifting her chest so that her whole upper body shuddered. The two women sat at opposite ends of the beige and blue couch Mrs. Baldridge had had recovered only a month before. They sat in almost identical poses: their hands folded in their laps, large upper torsos perched precariously atop narrowly proportioned waists, hips, and legs, lips momentarily pursed against the torrent of words each always carried in her mouth. Mrs. Baldridge sat to the right, near the entrance to her dining room, her feet flat and even on the floor. Mrs. Macon sat to the left, near the archway to the front hall, her legs crossed at the ankles. On the low mahogany table in front of them sat two gla.s.ses of iced tea, with a sprig of fresh mint in each. The two women had had their hair dyed the day before, Mrs. Macon's a dark red, Mrs. Baldridge's a paler red, like new mahogany finished with clear resin.
”Have you seen them? Do you know how they're holding up?” Mrs. Macon asked, leaning in Mrs. Baldridge's direction.
”I've given them privacy, of course,” Etta answered, thinking of her calls to Sirus, how he had ignored her hints for an invitation to come over. ”I called, but there'll be time enough for them to lean on their friends. In the meantime I've been praying to the Lord to fill my bosom with comfort.”
Mrs. Macon looked as if she too had been filling her bosom.
Mrs. Baldridge continued, ”There're the days right through now, of course. Holding up Aileen. Being a post for Sirus so he can carry out his duties. But what grieves me to think about is later.”
Mrs. Macon bowed her head.
”Remember Fran Farmer, her poor daughter, lost to TB?”
Mrs. Macon looked up, her eyes wide. ”Oh, yes. Poor Fran Farmer.”
”And remember how we took turns sitting with her? I mean her with no family, and only here in Durham five years.”
”Oh, yes, she had no one.”
”And we all kept coming, till a week after the funeral I think it was, and then someone said, 'Maybe we shouldn't intrude.' Why, I think it was Evelyn Knight who said it first.”
”Was it Evelyn? Oh, mercy.”
”I believe it was. I can't think who else would say something like that, can you?”
”No, I'm sure you're right. I'm sure it was Evelyn.”
”Yes, I know it was. But we have to share the blame, too. Didn't we take what she was saying to heart? I mean, she put it so well. 'Who really knows her?' she said. And she had a point. She kept to herself pretty much all those years.”
”But all and still,” Mrs. Macon interjected.
”Yes, that's just what I was saying,” continued Etta Baldridge, ”but all and still. We should have kept going but we didn't, and who's to say if we had, why, that poor Fran might not have gone and followed her baby.”
The women gasped simultaneously, as if the horror of Fran Farmer, found lying with her head resting-”like on a pillow,” the preacher said-on the door of her stove, had suddenly pressed itself, for an instant, against them, and then, as quickly, had retreated, leaving them just that one image and a story to tell.
”You don't think?” Mrs. Macon began after a respectful silence.
”No, no, don't even mention such a thing.”
But for a few long minutes both women imagined the worst. For Mrs. Macon it was one sorrowful scene after another: the wailing sound of the ambulance from Lincoln Hospital, ladies at the church wailing and fainting, the large, beautiful house on Fayetville once again draped in black and empty. For Mrs. Baldridge the images were much more far-ranging. She saw herself and her daughter Lily not exactly ostracized, but no longer occupying a place of importance. No more parties for Lily with the daughters of the other leading colored families of Durham: the McDougalds, the Gants, the Wilsons, the Gerards. She imagined a pall settling over the families, over all their hard work and their dreams of ”progress for the race,” until the whole fragile structure wilted and lay dead. She imagined an edgy despair spreading through the town, so that when someone fell on hard times people turned away instead of coming by with a pot of greens or a pile of carefully folded clothes. No one lending money to anyone anymore. No eligible young men, with the right education and the right family connections, coming by for Lily when the time was right. In Mrs. Baldridge's mind, Sirus was the knotted thread that bound them together. As you ringed salt around a stain or st.i.tched a wound with pig gut, you relied on Sirus to be the stanch, to keep the tear from spreading. Driving past his house today, Etta had asked Albert to slow down so that she could concentrate on this. She had seen it clearly, how he had to hold together, not just avoiding the way of Fran Farmer, but going beyond, going from bad to good. Sirus had to redeem this tragedy; that was how she saw it. He had to swallow it whole like a bitter root, not alone, but with the a.s.sistance of his friends and neighbors. And after the sweating from the poison was over and the shaking stilled, he had to rise up and be new. Mrs. Baldridge was as sure of this as she had been that her husband would die before fifty, and he'd died abruptly, as she had predicted, just two years before.
”Sirus will be strong,” she said. ”And with his strength Aileen will find her own. We just have to help him know his own resilience.”
Mrs. Macon showed her agreement, staring at Mrs. Baldridge.
”I think we should arrive early. Not at the same time, of course, but within the half hour.”
Mrs. Macon took a large swallow of her iced tea. ”Are you going to read a prayer?” she asked.
”Well, nothing planned.” Mrs. Baldridge let her shoulders fall against the back of the couch. ”Of course I'll bring my Bible, and some subject may present itself.”
”There are so many pa.s.sages that bring comfort,” Mrs. Macon observed.
In response, Mrs. Baldridge suddenly bellowed, ”'And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see G.o.d.'”
”Oh, my goodness, yes. Amen,” Mrs. Macon replied.
”'I will lay me down and take my rest,'” continued Mrs. Baldridge.
”Blessed be the Lord,” echoed Mrs. Macon.
”'The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?'”
”Praise the Lord.”
”'Weeping may endure for a night,'” Mrs. Baldridge nearly yelled, lifting her hands from her lap, palms lifted. ”'But joy cometh in the morning.'” She dropped her hands back into her lap with a loud clap.
”Joy, oh, joy, oh, joy,” Mrs. Macon said softly, clasping her hands.
”Yes, joy,” Mrs. Baldridge concluded, staring ahead as if the word were printed in the air.
Upstairs, in her room, Lily heard the word joy erupt like a dissonant chord. Oh, G.o.d, what was her mother bellowing about now? She sat at her desk and looked at the words she had written so far: Mattie was my friend so dear
Her face so full of grace
And now that she has left us here
No one can take her place.
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