Authors: Kibler Julie
I ignored my friends’ titters and my teacher’s glare. “Mr. Bird? I know you need to go to college, but what must you know to be an attorney?”
He seemed taken aback by my question, which was not simple, and which came, of all things, from a girl. Finally, he recovered. “Well, Miss…”
“McAllister. Isabelle McAllister.”
“Miss McAllister, when your young men here enroll in various fine law schools after completing their baccalaureate degrees, they will read and study more than they ever imagined while sitting here in class, so spoiled have you all been.”
I doubted my teacher appreciated his remark or the scare tactic—it likely negated any effect she and her colleagues hoped for in motivating the lazy boys. But I voiced another question before she could distract him. “Reading and studying what, sir?”
“The law.” He said it simply and ominously, as though referring to the Bible. As though every conclusion could be drawn from his short answer.
“The law?” I said, hoping he would elaborate.
“You, child, have no idea how many volumes reside in the libraries of the best law schools in the United States. Trained reporters painstakingly record the details of each case—the facts, the issues, the precedents, and the decisions.”
“And in order to know what the law is, you’d have to read every one of these books?”
I wasn’t sure I understood. But I’d piqued the visiting attorney’s curiosity by then. I didn’t suppose a girl had ever questioned him this way, and he seemed determined now to give me a satisfactory answer. “We start with the U.S. Constitution. It has jurisdiction over every American state and city. But what is not defined in the Constitution is defined by individual states and municipalities. I suppose you could go to any local government office and request a copy of its laws. You might even find constitutional and local law in a public library—if it’s a fairly large one. But, my dear, the trick lies in interpreting the law. That’s what attorneys and judges do. We learn the laws, then try to apply them fairly. In the process, new laws are created.”
He had no idea that, curious as I was, I’d tuned him out by the time he reached the end of his answer. I needed only a simple answer to a simple question: if and where Robert and I could legally marry. His lengthy explanation contained the one detail I’d hoped for. We’d learned the Constitution in school, and it said nothing about marriage.
Before that day, I suppose I knew on an intellectual level that each state made its own rules about many things. But it had never occurred to me that while marriage between a Negro and a white was illegal in Kentucky, it might not be elsewhere.
My teacher eyed me as I gathered my books and schoolwork at the end of the day, then shook her head and went back to cleaning the blackboard.
Later that week, I forged a note to the school office, saying I’d miss classes the following day to accompany Mother on out-of-town family business. The secretary hardly glanced at it before sending it on to my teacher.
The next morning, I started for school as always, but when I reached downtown, I turned the other direction, boarded a streetcar that would connect me to another that would carry me into Cincinnati proper, where I’d visit the office that issued marriage licenses. I had a question.
16
Dorrie, Present Day
I
WAS TOO
embarrassed to call Teague after all. I texted him, crossing my fingers he’d confirm he received my message right away. If he didn’t, I’d have no choice but to talk to him.
“Teague. Big mistake. Please tell police never mind. Don’t want to press charges.”
The message was like an old-fashioned telegram. I didn’t have time or energy for more.
He tried to call me back immediately, but I ignored Marvin Gaye’s sultry voice. I couldn’t face Teague, even over the phone. I knew once I explained what happened, he’d take off as fast as his never-ending legs could carry him. Volunteering to help me with the sorry actions of a stranger was one thing. Dragging him into my mess of a son’s new career in crime was altogether different.
Pretty soon, the text messages started.
“Um … okay?” said the first.
Then: “Dorrie, what happened? I did what you asked, but I don’t get it.”
“You still want me to fix the door, right?”
“Dorrie. Call me. Please? I’m worried about you.”
“Dorrie?”
They piled up, one after another. Miss Isabelle pulled a couple of tissues out of her purse and spread them out along the bench before she joined me there. Her face said she’d heard enough to understand what had happened, and that I needn’t elaborate unless or until I was ready.
I sat there and snuffled away. I swatted the stupid tears rolling down my face, not sure if I was angrier with my son for what he’d done or because he’d made me cry for the first time in who knew how many years. Miss Isabelle’s only nod to my tears was passing me another tissue she dragged out of that bottomless handbag without a word when I couldn’t catch any more salt water with my hands and my nose was dripping, too. She understood.
Eventually, she rose and walked farther down the sidewalk, tiny, careful steps. I sighed and followed her, thinking I might as well get my mind off myself for a minute. We’d stopped for a reason, so I turned my attention to her as we made our way a half block or so.
I reached the marker about when she did—I walked faster even when I wasn’t trying. But I hung back while she studied the inscription. Then we both moved closer. A large stone sign marked the entrance to one of the campus buildings. The sign was etched with the weatherworn image of a kneeling soldier who supported the head of a fallen soldier and held a stethoscope to his heart. Below the etching, fifty or so names were carved into the stone’s surface and labeled
Murray Medical College Wartime Class of 1946.
Miss Isabelle traced her finger down a column of names until she paused on one and smiled up at me, tears shimmering in her eyes now.
Robert S. Prewitt.
I looked from her to the name and back again. Tilted my head and asked a question with my eyes, then whispered, “Oh, Miss Isabelle, that’s him? Your Robert?”
She straightened. “Attending med school at Murray was his biggest dream.”
Whatever trouble Robert and Miss Isabelle had experienced together—and I still didn’t know the whole story—he’d achieved his dream after all.
Back in the car, we nested among the drink cups and crossword puzzle books and all our other traveling detritus (or twenty-seven across). I turned the ignition, though I was almost too drained to back out of the visitor’s space. Miss Isabelle watched me shore up my energy. “Oh, Dorrie. This is too much. You have to go home.” She waited for me to respond. “I mean it. Let’s turn around now.”
Bless Miss Isabelle. Here we were on the way to a funeral, and she’d forget it all so I could go clean up the mess waiting for me at home. And I knew it made some sense to take her up on the offer. Things were falling apart without me while I was on some kind of mystery trip, driving toward a funeral for someone I’d never even met—someone whose identity was still unclear, though my suspicions were growing stronger.
“Miss Isabelle … this funeral … it’s pretty important to you, right? It’s someone special?”
She didn’t answer immediately, as though she was really thinking through my question. “It’s important, of course it is. But Dorrie, nothing—
nothing
—is more important than a mother’s responsibility. I’m telling you, if we need to—”
“No,” I said, interrupting her. Her statement made everything crystal clear. “It’s better for me to be anywhere but home right now.
That’s
taking care of Stevie Junior. My son’s right. If I saw him right now, I’d surely do things—
say
things—I’d regret. Teague told the police not to bother with the burglary. Burglary…” I laughed bitterly. Was it still burglary when your own child robbed you? Seemed like there ought to be a more serious classification for this kind of crime. And it sounded like Bailey was going to do what she was going to do no matter what—but not with
my
money. “Let’s go, Miss Isabelle. I’ll deal with Stevie Junior when I get home.”
I’d never answered Teague’s text about fixing the door, but knowing him, he’d handle it anyway. I hoped I could count on Stevie Junior to go by and check on things after I spoke to him next. It was the least he could do to start making up for his official worst choice ever.
17
Isabelle, 1939
I
JUMPED DOWN
from the streetcar onto air, so light I felt I could run forever and never deplete the energy that pulsed through my veins, my muscles, my bones—from head to toe and back again. The leaves were changing, and I dragged my fingers through them as I ran; their pungence delighted me and their varying shades seemed translucent, brighter, and more hopeful than any I’d seen before, even as they prepared to return to the earth.
Robert and I could be together. Forever. It was simpler than I’d imagined. It was across a river. A wide river, but one with plenty of bridges.
Ohio had no statute against intermarriage. It had been legal for whites and Negroes to marry there since 1887. In fact, it had only been illegal for a few years at the beginning of the Civil War. Kentucky’s law against intermarriage, on the other hand, had been in effect since the state was constituted. Who could have imagined that less than one mile across water could make such a difference? I was both astonished and amazed.
And I was assuming that Robert would want to marry me. I was only seventeen, having celebrated my birthday that fall, and he was eighteen by then, but it wasn’t uncommon to marry young. Folks our age were considered grown for all practical purposes. Several of my friends had left school early, were already a year or two married, and more than a few of the girls we knew—especially those from less fortunate circumstances—had one or more little ones clinging to their skirts.
I hadn’t planned on being a child bride; my original goals, however unclear, had placed marriage farther down my time line, a few ticks after doing something important with my life.
But understand this: When you fall in love, every kind of reason flies out the newly opened window of your brain.
I was confident I could convince Robert it made sense.
After all, if we were legally married, who could keep us apart? Perhaps we wouldn’t get to court as long as we wanted, to take time to learn each other’s qualities—and foibles—thoroughly before taking such a final step. Perhaps I wouldn’t know Robert as thoroughly as I might have had our circumstances been different and we’d been allowed that privilege.
But I knew one thing: I loved him, and I couldn’t imagine that anything or anyone could change my mind. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Robert. If that took marrying immediately instead of meandering toward wedded bliss, I’d do it.
I prayed he’d feel the same.
I savored the knowledge, unblemished, as long as I could stand it before putting pen to paper to write my first letter to Robert in nearly a month. I waited through dinner, where I choked on creamed peas when Father inquired how my research had gone that afternoon. In the midst of my euphoria, I’d forgotten my excuse for being late—staying after school to find sources for a term paper. For a moment, I feared I’d been discovered—maybe spied by a colleague of my father’s while I pored over the fine print in the instructions to apply for an Ohio marriage license. Finding nothing that spelled a dead end in them, I’d asked the clerk to be sure. Her expression was unreadable, but her silence was telling. Finally, she’d replied, “Well, I don’t suppose there is any law against it, no.” She sniffed. “Not that I’ve seen.”
“So, if these two people I’ve described wanted to fill out this application and receive a license to marry, it would be permitted here?” She’d shrugged and returned to her work, as though she couldn’t bear to acknowledge it aloud. I hoped for another clerk when Robert and I returned—though I supposed another could be horrified rather than stymied or might even refuse the application for other reasons.
“My studies are swell, Daddy,” I answered once I regained control over the unfortunate wedding of oxygen and peas in my windpipe.
When the day’s small talk died down, I asked to be excused. In my room, I sat against the wall next to my bed and chewed my pen while I contemplated how to inform Robert of our impending nuptials.
“My love,” I began. No. It seemed too precious, in spite of my overflowing heart.
I settled on a straightforward approach: “Dear Robert.” Anything else would paint me as a child, immature and floating in the clouds, instead of a grown woman who was down-to-earth and dead serious.
At my signal the next morning, Nell stopped short in the middle of polishing the hat tree in the hallway. She tugged her ear, but with such a questioning expression, I tapped my chin again to be sure she understood. I’m sure she’d wondered why weeks had passed with no exchange of letters, but she’d never questioned it. Later, in my room, she greeted me with an apprehensive expression. I wondered if Robert had repeated my ultimatum in the woods.
“You must take extra care with this, Nell,” I whispered. “Nobody can see it but Robert. If anyone did, there would be trouble.” I hated to worry her more, but my letter had to go straight from my hands to his, with hers the only others touching it.
She sighed and tucked it into her pocket. “You scare me with talk like this. I feel like I started something maybe I shouldn’t have. I only meant for you two to—”
I cut her off. “This means the world to me, and to Robert.” For me to speak for Robert must have seemed odd to Nell. She was the one who’d grown up with him, so close in age they were often mistaken for twins. I patted the side of her apron that hid the letter, but I also felt dismayed at the mantle of wariness that shrouded her face again.
“Best get back to my work,” she said, and turned away.
* * *