Blessed Assurance (8 page)

Inhaling the clean fragrance of fresh starch, Jessie shrank from taking a long-dreaded step today.
But it must be today
. “Your grandmother stays.” Jessie punctuated her sentence by snapping off the stems from a handful of garden string beans, dropped them into a large pot in her lap. Snap. Snap.

Standing at the ironing board, Susan began pressing Linc's white Sunday shirt, the iron hissing on the damp fabric. “But the neighbors—”

“My hiring a cook is none of their business.” The cloying heat and quiet of the afternoon wrapped around Jessie. “Susan, are you sure you should be ironing in this heat?”

“I used to pick cotton on hotter days. Don't be trying to turn me. We just ain't got enough room,” Susan protested.

Jessie's stomach tightened at this reminder. “Leave that to me.”

Susan slid a black blouse of Jessie's onto the board. “When are you gone get out of mourning?”

“Don't
you
try to turn me.” Jessie pointed a string bean at Susan. “Ruby's staying.”

Susan paused, holding the iron in the air. “You're too good for your own good.”

“You mean stubborn, don't you?” Jessie grinned.

Susan snorted. “I wish everybody stubborn like you.”

Jessie snorted in turn.

In the overpowering heat, the two of them fell silent.

To the homey beat of the iron as Susan worked, Jessie's mind drifted. Her mother's siding with her husband against Jessie on Linc's birthday still stung. Not even Susan's nearness prevented a stunning loneliness from sweeping through her.
He always made certain I came last with my mother and I always will.
Setting the pot of beans on the table, she stood up before she could give way to
tears. Besides she shouldn't put what she must do off any longer. “I'll go tell Miss Wright—”

“Tell me what?” the old woman, drooping over her cane, asked from the doorway.

Jessie, wiping her hands on her apron, walked to Miss Wright. “Let's go into the parlor. It should be cooler on the east side of the house by now.”

Though the spinster scowled, Jessie drew her into the parlor and helped the older woman to sit down on the rose-sprigged sofa by the front window. “We have to make a change. I am going to move you downstairs into the parlor—”

“Where anyone can walk in or look in from the entryway.”

“I'll keep the pocket door to the foyer closed from now on.” Jessie pressed her hankie to her perspiring face.

“You're doing this because you're taking in that girl's grandmother. How can I make you understand? Susan's people belong in Africa where God put them. Some are smart enough to go where they belong.”

Jessie had anticipated Miss Wright's objections. But just as the day's heat and humidity, these successive waves of opposition were wearing her down. She tried to sound patient. “How can I send Ruby to live apart from Susan? I know I would give anything to have Margaret here again.”

“I'm not saying you should send the woman far—”

Jessie's forbearance snapped. “Ruby isn't the only reason I'm making this change. Soon you won't be able to get up and down the steps and you know it.”

Miss Wright flushed red at Jessie's blunt words. “If Margaret were here—”

“You know Margaret would never turn Ruby or anyone else away if they needed help.”
Margaret didn't turn you away.

The elderly spinster blinked back tears.

Jessie regretted upsetting her.
But what must be said must be said.

Miss Wright looked away while dabbing a handkerchief at her eyes. “You didn't know Margaret as long or as well as I did.”

“Every time I do something
you
don't want me to do, you use Margaret against me.”

“I'm trying to make you see reason.” The spinster's voice was thick with unshed tears.

Jessie couldn't keep the anger from her voice. “Why am I the one who must see reason? Is it reasonable for my neighbors to call out the police merely because my guests have dark skin?”

“You don't seem to understand the boundaries of accepted conduct—”

But in her anger, Jessie continued, “Is it reasonable for doctors to refuse patients merely because of the color of their skin? If these things are reasonable, then I'm glad to be thought unreasonable.”

Miss Wright crimped her lips and said in a tight, voice, “What will you use for a parlor, then?”

“The dining room. It's warmer in the winter and I think I can fit a few of these chairs at one end.”

Suddenly aware of the tension in her neck, Jessie rotated her head to loosen the taut muscles. “I will help you move your things down as soon as I have the curtain sewed and Ben to help me move the furniture.”

“What curtain? You already have curtains on the windows.”

“It will be a privacy curtain, dividing the parlor into two rooms.”

“Who
is going to share this room with me?” Miss Wright's chin lifted.

“Linc and I.”

“Why?”

Jessie took a deep breath. “Ruby can't climb two flights of steps to the attic, so Susan will give her grandmother her own little room off the pantry and Susan will take my attic room. Linc and I will move into the other half of the parlor with you. I need to rent out your room. Linc is getting older and I don't want him to have to leave school early to go out to work.”

“And if I don't want to share the parlor with you and Linc?”

Jessie would not say the words they both dreaded:
It will make it easier to care for you when you can no longer walk at all
. “Moving you
downstairs will be better for you.” Their eyes met and held with tacit understanding.

Miss Wright stood up, grunted with pain. “I'll go and sit on the porch.”

Impulsively Jessie stood up and reached out to touch the old woman, but stopped just shy of her sleeve. Hands at her sides, Jessie watched the old woman shuffle out of the room.

Jessie folded her arms over her breast.
I'll keep my promise to Margaret and care for Miss Wright for the rest of her life. Miss Wright has forgotten how kind Margaret was.

 

The bright Saturday sunshine made Lee pull the brim of his hat farther forward as he walked along the side of Jessie's house.

“You're a liar!” A childish voice shouted from the backyard.

“Am not!” Linc insisted.

“Are too!”

“Am not!”

Linc's pup began barking and the unmistakable grunts of boyish fisticuffs made Lee hurry into the backyard. “Lincoln!”

Startled, the boys parted, but the acrimony between them blazed on their sweat and dirt-smudged faces.

“Explain yourselves,” Lee said in a stern tone.

“He said I lied,” Linc declared, his expression stormy.

Lee spoke to the other boy. “Who are you, young man?”

The boy said, “I'm Tom. Live next door.”

“Well, Tom, what do you think Linc was lying about?”

“He said you played ball with the Knickerbockers.”

“Yes, while visiting friends in New York, I did get to play an inning of a practice game with that famous team.” Lee had to keep from grinning. The way Tom eyed him left no doubt that he didn't believe Lee either. “Tom, I wouldn't lie to you or Linc.”

Yes, I would. I did.
Lee had to close his lips firmly to hold back these words from pouring forth. The more time he spent with Linc, the harder it became to conceal the truth from the boy. “Now, you two shake hands like gentlemen.”

Reluctantly the boys shook once. Tom dug his hands into his pockets and turned to leave.

“Hold on, Tom,” Lee suggested nonchalantly, “Why don't you stay and we'll toss the ball a while?”

“You mean it?” Tom's face glowed.

“Sure.”
Perhaps I can't tell the truth, but I can do some things right.
The events of the Sunday before still lingered vividly in his mind. He hadn't wanted to end up helping Jessie's “cause” by escorting the black congregation home. He wouldn't let anything like it happen again. Jessie's crusade would stay hers alone, he told himself firmly.
That wasn't my promise to Will
.

Jessie overheard the voices. She walked out and sat on the back porch railing to watch. Lee and the boys tossed the ball in a game of catch while Butch scampered, yipping cheerfully.

Outwardly calm, Jessie fanned herself. Her confusion over Lee's place in their lives made her bubble inside. Mr. Smith hadn't yet tired of spending time with Linc as she had expected. And with his gift of a pup, he'd taken Linc's heart completely. Some intuition told her there was something about Lee that didn't ring true. Was it just his cynical streak or something more?

“It's time to go, Mother!” Linc tied yapping Butch to the porch railing near the doghouse. The look of joy on her son's face meant more to her than pure gold dust.

Jessie stood and brushed back her son's hair. “Have a good time at your ball game.”

Mr. Smith strolled up behind Linc. “I'll have him home before supper.”

Jessie nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Smith.”

“I thought you dropped the ‘mister' last Sunday, Jess.” He smiled a wicked, teasing smile at her.

She folded her hands together. The man never stopped pushing.

 

Lee brought Linc home from the ballpark, then stayed for supper. While Susan left to help Linc, Miss Wright, then her own grandmother to bed, Lee followed Jessie out to the back porch. Lee knew
he should go. But the temptation to spend time with Jess alone drew him against his will. “Mrs. Wagstaff!” Caleb hailed Jessie from the walk.

Jessie sat up straighter. “What's wrong?”

“My father can hardly breathe. Will you come?”

Jessie stood. “It's his heart.” She hurried inside and started gathering various herbs into a basket.

Lee pursued her. “What can you do if it's his heart?”

“I'll do what I can.” Fastening her bonnet, she started out the door.

The sudden destruction of their private moment irritated him; he hurried after her. “Caleb, why did you come here? This woman is not a doctor.”

Caleb clenched and unclenched his fists as if he'd like to punch Lee. “Don't you think I know that? He's my father. I have to do something.”

Lee was going to turn away. This wasn't his business.

“Caleb,” Jessie said, “why don't you try to find Dr. Gooden?”

“He won't come,” Caleb put voice to Lee's opinion.

“He said he would come if it were life-and-death,” Jessie said.

Caleb turned and stalked off without a word. Lee couldn't decide whether it was pique or he was going to do Jessie's bidding. Jessie started off and Lee hurried to keep up with her. He knew he could not persuade her to stay home, but he couldn't persuade himself to not escort her.

In due time, Jessie led him into a small house. The sky had been darkening steadily and his eyes adjusted to the low light of one feeble lamp on the table. He heard Reverend Mitchell's labored breathing before he saw him.

“Good evening.” Jess set her basket on the table and began removing her hat and gloves. “Are you experiencing pain in your chest again?”

“And in his arm,” Ruth, who sat by the bed, answered.

When Lee accompanied Jess to the narrow bed, he recognized the clear signs of dropsy. The thin man's feet, legs, and abdomen
were swollen. “I'll try a stronger dose of Margaret's heart tea,” she said.

Lee fell back. As Jessie brewed tea, he felt like a pale wraith in a murky netherworld. Lee did not want to look death in the face again.

He turned to leave. “Will you help me?” Jessie asked. Her simple question in the dark held him in place. Oh, how he wanted to leave. But he could not let Jessie face death alone.

Soon with Lee supporting the pastor from behind, Jessie lifted the cup to the old man's grayish white lips. His whole body strained with each breath.

He stopped breathing.

Jessie cried out. The tea cup fell from her hands and shattered at her feet.

Lee's heart pounded so violently that he felt nauseated. He bent his head to draw up his strength.
Breathe, breathe.

Then the old man gasped, choked. He took a shallow breath. Lee realized he'd stopped breathing too.
I can't do this.
He moved to lay the pastor back down, but was stopped by Jessie's hand. “Support him while I make more tea.”

He wanted to shout at her that no tea in the world would help repair this worn-out heart.

“Please,” she whispered.

Lee found himself nodding. There was that same buzzing in his ears…the buzzing that had driven him to drink.
The war is over. This is an old man, dying of an old man's disease. It isn't the same.

Jessie brewed tea; Lee helped her administer it. Then he paced back and forth and listened to each breath the old pastor drew. As each ended, he waited for, urged the next to come. Time passed, measured breath by breath.

In the humid night breeze, mosquitoes buzzed around Lee's ears till he tied a handkerchief around his head. He remembered how death drew flies. Adrenaline pumped through him. He wanted to run away. But Jessie hovered nearby and he couldn't leave her to face death alone.

She kept going to the door, looking out. He heard her praying and the words, “Dr. Gooden,” were loud enough for him to hear. “He's not coming,” Lee said, bitterness gnawing him. Lee's nerves had become taut, an overtightened wire. Would it snap again?

“Caleb hasn't yet returned,” was her reply.

He muffled the sound of disgust he could not hold back. In spite of nightfall, the stifling heat refused to relent. Jessie discreetly unbuttoned her collar and her cuffs and Lee shed his coat on the back of the chair as he finally sat down. Head bent, elbows propped on knees, hands folded, he forced himself to sit still and hold on.