Calling Me Home (38 page)

Nell poured herself a cup, too, and pulled her chair close. The three of us sat there quietly awhile. The scent of strong coffee and relief that the funeral was finished settled around us, mingling with the sorrow that had weighed us down since we’d walked into the funeral home the day before.

After a few moments, Felicia, Pearl’s daughter-in-law, returned, having dropped her husband and little girl at home. She sat at Nell’s side while Nell explained everything that had happened. While compiling a list to make phone calls, Felicia had been the one to discover a name and number in Pearl’s address book—along with cryptic notes scribbled by Pearl. Felicia had questioned Nell about whether Isabelle Thomas was someone they should notify about her mother-in-law’s death.

Nell had reluctantly told Felicia the story of Isabelle and Robert, and, ultimately, about Pearl’s birth. Like so many from her generation, Nell had thought it best to leave well enough alone, to let the past be the past, where it could do no more harm. But Felicia persisted and Nell agreed Felicia should make the call. She had told Miss Isabelle very little over the phone—nearly two weeks earlier, I learned. They’d postponed Pearl’s burial until Miss Isabelle could be there, to give her a chance to absorb the shock, then make the journey. Bless her, but I still could hardly stand thinking about Miss Isabelle receiving that call, about her dealing with her grief alone in those days before she asked me to bring her to this place. How had she done it? And how had she kept herself together while we traveled, kept her chin so high, even to the point of being able to laugh at times?

Lord, have mercy. She was stronger than I’d ever imagined—even if she needed me, too.

“After Sallie Ames, the midwife, delivered you of Pearl,” Nell said, “she knew the baby was likely too tiny to survive. Your mother made her promise she’d carry her away, take her to the colored orphans home in Cincinnati. Shalerville was no place for a tiny black baby, of course, even if she survived. Sallie felt so sorry for you, Isabelle. She hated taking the baby from you, not giving you a chance to see her or hold her, even if only for a minute.

“But she found out where that baby belonged. Not at an orphanage, where after coming so early, she would surely die. Sallie came knocking at our door late that night. It was sweltering hot, deep of the summer—probably what kept Pearl alive those first few hours, along with her own little stubborn spirit. Sallie wasn’t alone by then.” Nell quieted, and Isabelle leaned toward her, desperate to learn who had accompanied Sallie. Nell seemed scared to continue. Waiting, my own breath hung in my chest.

“It was your father, honey. Your father … he followed along behind Sallie, watching her safely out of Shalerville in the dark; then he called to her, and the two of them hurried to our house with the baby. Sallie had helped with early babies before, of course, but Doc McAllister, he knew some things because of his journals, knew what they’d been doing, keeping babies that came too soon in incubators. People could even go to fair exhibits and see the babies behind glass in the incubators. The admittance fees paid for their medical care. He instructed Momma to keep her warm and close to a human body every single minute, how to feed her, a drop at a time, with a special formula he made up. We all took turns with her—Momma, Daddy, and me. He came by often to check on Pearl, to bring more formula and weigh her and watch for signs of trouble. It was touch-and-go those first weeks, but that baby girl, she held on, fighting with everything she had in her little bitty body to survive. And survive she did.”

Miss Isabelle’s face had gone pale as bone while Nell spoke, and I reached for her arm, afraid she might faint and topple from her chair. She spoke slowly, her words drawn out, gaping holes like questions between them. “My father? I can hardly take it in, Nell. I don’t know what to think.”

Nell nodded. “He did. He loved you, Isabelle, and he cared what happened to that baby—his own grandchild—even if he couldn’t figure a way for you to have her. He was a good man, Doc McAllister. But he had one big flaw: He was scared to stand up to your mother.”

I wondered who
hadn’t
been scared of Miss Isabelle’s mother. I had no sympathy to waste on that woman. But now, I found a sliver of respect for her father—even if he’d refused to do his good where all the world could see. Where his own daughter could see.

“Why didn’t he tell me?” Miss Isabelle asked. “Why did he keep it from me that she’d lived? No matter how hard it was for him to stand up to my mother, he should have told me.”

Nell had gone very still. “That she’d lived?” she asked. “Who told you she died?”

Miss Isabelle sat for a moment, thinking back through her memories. “I remember clearly. Mother said, ‘It was so early.… It was for the best.’”

“Oh, honey,” Nell said. She stood, moving slowly, coming around the table until she was touching Miss Isabelle’s arm. “We believed you didn’t want her.” Her eyes seemed almost frantic as they sought Miss Isabelle’s out.

I’d just lifted my coffee to my lips, and I set the cup back down so hard, it clinked and liquid sloshed over the side. I forced myself to reach for a napkin, to stop the spreading stain from running over the edge of the table, though I could hardly move my arm. Miss Isabelle rocked in her chair, her eyes burning holes in her lap, obviously struggling to keep her composure. Nell stayed close, and I saw now that, before, she’d been holding something back. All her reserve was gone in an instant, and in its place was only sorrow.

Felicia pulled Nell’s chair next to Miss Isabelle and pressed Nell’s shoulder until she sat. Nell’s voice shook as she continued.

“Before Sallie left your house, your mother gave her a sealed note, said to deliver it with the baby. Sallie had tucked the note inside the blanket she’d wrapped around Pearl, and we didn’t find it until later. It said, ‘I do not want this child. Please do not try to contact me.’”

They had all believed she didn’t want Pearl. I thought of the time Miss Isabelle had seen Nell in the market, how cool and indifferent she had been. Miss Isabelle assumed it was only because of the trouble she’d caused. It was so much more than that.

“I wanted her. Oh, how I wanted her.” Miss Isabelle’s voice trembled “And my father knew better. Why didn’t he tell me?”

“He never saw that note, but if he had, I suppose he would have been afraid you’d try to go off after her, and between you and me, Isabelle, if you had, I think your mother would have made life even more miserable for all of us. We’d already lost our jobs, though we were doing okay by then—Daddy had gotten a raise, and I was newly married and starting a family myself. But I think your father wasn’t just afraid of your mother. He was truly afraid for Robert. It was bad enough, what your brothers got away with, but I believe he felt they would have killed Robert if they could have found a way around the law. It wasn’t hard in those days. Black boys and men died for lesser things.
Looking
at a white girl or woman the wrong way was considered a crime. Fathering a white woman’s baby? That would have been too much. They’d have had a group of folks lining up to lynch him. We could hardly believe you didn’t want her. That nearly killed Momma and me. But, honey, I guess we accepted that in the long run, it was all for the best.”

“Did she know about me, growing up? My name, it was in her address book.…”

Pearl. Miss Isabelle wanted to know what her little girl knew of her mother.

“We never spoke of it openly as long as Momma was alive. There didn’t seem any point. And, of course, we just didn’t in those days—that kind of thing happened more than you’d ever believe. The story went that Sallie Ames delivered an early baby in another community and the mother died in childbirth. That she’d brought her to us because Momma was out of work and could care for her better than anyone else around. Your daddy, he brought money for a long time, making sure Momma had enough to provide what Pearl needed—extra food for our table, clothing, so on—even after Momma went back to work and I started keeping Pearl days. Up until he died, little envelopes showed up under the door, filled with cash, no name or anything, but we knew who’d left it and knew who it was for. Before he died, one big pile of money—enough to send Pearl through college. So Momma was able to raise that little girl as if our home was Pearl’s own home, and Momma was her mother.”

“I know she did,” Miss Isabelle said. “Cora was a better mother to me than my own. I’m grateful to her. But I wish I’d known about my baby. All those years, I thought she was dead. And Robert? Did he know?”

“It’s hard to say, but I think he probably did. Robert never moved home after the two of you ran away together, only stayed for a few days that once when he was … injured. He worked in Cincy until he went back to school that fall. After he joined up, when he came home on leave, he told Momma he’d found you, that he wanted to bring you to her to wait out the war. I think she would have admitted the truth about Pearl then—she was two or three years old and the spitting image of the both of you—but Momma knew he needed to go, to serve his country. I suppose she thought she couldn’t tell half the truth—that Pearl was his—without telling the rest—that you’d given her up, or so we believed. It would have killed him. And then, of course, you never came. We assumed you wouldn’t, in spite of what he said.”

But if Miss Isabelle had gone with Robert, she would have gone to where her baby girl lived with everyone who loved her—except for that baby’s own mother. I understood Nell’s reasoning in how dangerous it would have been at first, but by then, would it have mattered?

Who would ever know? It was such a mess, and so far in the past, nothing could fix it now. But I think Miss Isabelle was about to boil over with emotion inside. I was worried for her heart, both figuratively and literally. She held her hands to her collarbone and breathed in and out carefully. The grief in her eyes seemed to dull them and reveal her pain all at once.

“After Momma died, though,” Nell continued, “when Pearl was grown, I did tell her about you and Robert. She said she’d always suspected there was more to the story than what Momma had told her, but she’d been afraid to dig. She suspected, as light as her skin and eyes were, that one of her parents was white. She looked enough like us, she’d long wondered if Robert had been her father. She used to study his pictures, matching up his features with hers.

“I never told her you didn’t want her. I thought that was too cruel, though I worried about that all along—whether it would be a mistake. I’m thankful for that now. I left it up to her how to deal with it then, Isabelle. It was her choice. Pearl said she’d tracked you down to Texas. She told me she’d started to call you a few times—went so far as to dial your number and wait for an answer. But when you answered, she didn’t have the courage to speak. I guess she was afraid you’d reject her—a white woman who suddenly discovered her black daughter was still alive? She worried about your family, too. Your husband. Any other children you’d had with him. She was happy enough in her life, with her son, with the things she did and how she was able to mentor her students. I think she was mainly curious about you, and in the end, she decided not to trouble the waters.”

“I remember,” Miss Isabelle said, her eyes focusing on something Nell and I and Felicia couldn’t see. “For about a year, the phone would ring, and I’d answer and there would be silence on the other end, but I knew someone was there. I never dreamed it was her, though. I had crazy ideas—that Robert hadn’t died after all. That he was calling to say he was coming for me.”

“He was, in a way,” Nell said, and Miss Isabelle’s expression took my breath away.

“I wish she’d spoken. Oh, how I wish she’d spoken. I would have given anything to know my daughter.” Nell pulled Miss Isabelle’s hands close to her and held them while they wept silently, together.

We sat for a while, Miss Isabelle and Nell thinking of the past and how they might have changed it. Me, waiting and hoping that Miss Isabelle could survive this one last blow. Felicia stood and began to tidy up the kitchen, wiping the counters and rinsing and stacking our coffee cups when we turned down refills.

As we prepared to leave, Miss Isabelle and Nell hugged for the longest time. I think she knew Nell had always had her best interests at heart—had always wanted to protect her and Robert and Pearl from the danger of the truth. Times were different then. What a burden Nell must have lived with all those years.

At the door, Miss Isabelle grasped Felicia’s hand between hers and gazed into her eyes, thanking her for bringing everything to light, making her promise to send photos of the precious little girl who had already stolen her heart, maybe even to come visit her in Texas, though I wondered if that would ever happen. How hard would it be to jump-start those relationships, at this late date, with no history to build upon? Though he was kind and polite to Miss Isabelle, Pearl’s son didn’t seem to know how to act or what to think. Their brief conversations had been stilted, trailing off in so many unspoken and unanswered questions. But I think Miss Isabelle was happy to know that in that man, and in that beautiful girl child and any others yet to come, the love she and Robert had shared finally had a legacy. In spite of everything, it really was meant to be.

As I started the car, I asked Miss Isabelle the question that had been bothering me ever since we’d arrived at the funeral home. “Why didn’t you tell me it was your daughter, Miss Isabelle? Why didn’t you tell me before we set out?”

“I just couldn’t talk about it at first, Dorrie. All I could do was tell my story as much as I knew so far. Then things started happening at home—your mess with Stevie, your worries about Teague—and I was afraid if you knew about Pearl, you’d refuse to return home even if you really needed to. You’d feel like you had to stay on the road, with me.”

“Oh, Miss Isabelle,” I said, shaking my head. “Sometimes you just have to ask for what you need. But thank you.”

We drove away from Nell’s house, and Miss Isabelle gazed into the dusk as night fell around us.