East of Orleans (28 page)

The clock had struck midnight when Jules entered the bedroom. He looked at the dresser and saw the strand of pearls Isabella had on earlier, now broken and spread across the dresser. Isabella pretended to be asleep, but she knew that since she was to leaving the next day, Jules would want her that night.
Why
don’t
he
just
go
over
to
Oglethorpe
?
He
must
know
I
don’t
want
him
. It seemed to her a man would be better off with a woman who wanted him, but she also knew that they always wanted the ones that didn’t. Or at least those seemed to excite them more.

“Are you gonna miss me while you’re gone?”

Isabella thought not only is he drunk, he’s crazy.

“I want you to love me,” Jules said. “Why do you think I bought you this house and took you out of that tavern?”

“Jules, this is the whiskey talking, not you. Of course, you don’t love me; you’ve told me so yourself.” She started to mention the whore, but stopped herself.

Jules kissed her on the back of her neck. There was something exciting about it, but Isabella didn’t want to admit it. He turned her over and put his hand under her chin. “Sometimes love takes a while. It isn’t always as it seems. Now, it is what it is. You and I are alike. We don’t try to make it into something it ain’t, but that don’t mean that it never will be that way.”

“But if it’s a lie, then why do people go through the motions?” asked Isabella.

“Cause, darling, sometimes that’s all there is. You could have married into a much worse family, you know. My mother was a good woman. I know she wondered many a time what happened to me. I didn’t used to be this way, but life changed me. After the war, I just wasn’t the same man. You think that after a while things will go back to the way they were. But they never do, and a man is left with who he is, but that ain’t to say that he don’t cry for who he was.”

Isabella had never heard Jules talk like this. This was a kind side of him that she had never seen. Maybe it was the whisky, but tonight she felt connected to him in a way she had never felt before. Jules was right: sometimes all you have is the moment. This night, amidst a longing for home and the
Georgia
rain, Isabella McGinnis let her husband make love to her while the storm clouds roared. But the rain and Jules’s love could not wash away her thoughts of Tom Slaughter.

She nodded and held Elora tightly.

When the train pulled into the station in
Atlanta
, a weary and pale Livie, along with Henry, picked the three of them up. Livie was excited to see Elora and fussed over her all the way to Shakerag.

As Isabella stepped onto the ground and looked at the house, her mama was coming toward her. Isabella was dressed simply, but in high fashion. A light breeze billowed the skirts around her ankles. Her bonnet was not tied under her chin and its loose ribbons blew in the wind. Isabella clutched her little daughter’s hand and hurried up the steps to the front door.

Lila McCoy lifted her tow-haired granddaughter into her arms and kissed her daughter’s cheek.

“Oh, sweet Jesus, oh my baby, it’s so wonderful to have you home,” Lila said through her tears. “And look at this precious angel. Isn’t she beautiful? Oh lord, I can’t wait for Granny, to see her.”

“How is she?”

“I thought her hope was all but gone. Then she found out you were coming home and bringing the baby and she perked up and was able to sit up a spell. When we got your letter and found out that you married Jules, she ain’t done nothing but worry herself sick.”

Jesse’s eyes turned to Isabella as he stepped inside the little wooden house.
“I wanna see her, Mama.”

Lila nodded. “She’s weak, but she’ll know who you are. She ain’t been knowing everybody; she didn’t know Henry this morning, but she’ll know you. You may have to talk a little loud, her hearing’s not so good.” Lila looked at Jesse with tender eyes. “Go on in there with her, son. She’ll be happy to see you. All she’s done is talk about what a fine boy you’ve turned out to be, taking care of our Isabella like you have.”

Jesse choked up. “She’s a good woman. A mighty good woman.”

Lila turned and left Isabella and Jesse in the room alone with Granny. She lay propped up against two feather pillows, dressed in a high neck cotton gown, her breathing slow and labored.

“Hello, Granny,” Isabella said, leaning down and touching Granny’s face.

“Oh darling, don’t you look pretty. I’ve worried about you—it’s a mighty cold day for you to be out.”

Isabella gave Jesse a quizzical look. She took Granny’s icy-cold hands into hers.

Granny looked at Jesse with weak eyes. “Son.” She reached for him and said, “Did you see the patch of cotton we planted?”

Jesse hesitated and looked down at the floor. “I shure did. I reckon it’s as fine a patch of cotton as I ever seen.”

Isabella didn’t remember seeing any cotton outside. “What cot—

Jesse shot Isabella a look. “You must of worked awful hard to get cotton to look as good as dat. As a matter of fact, Granny, I don‘t remember in all my days ever seeing any cotton dat looks as fine as yours.”

Granny smiled with pride. Then she turned to her granddaughter and gave Isabella a scolding look. Her voice had a renewed vigor to it.
“Rollins Hartwell is as mean as a black snake and Jules McGinnis ain’t no better. For over two years you’ve been gone, we ain’t done a thing but worry ourselves sick.” Granny raised herself up in the bed. “I told your mama when we got your letter that it would be easier to baptize a cat than to get you hitched to the likes of Jules McGinnis!”

Jesse cackled. Isabella blushed and glanced at Jesse with narrowed eyes.

“You know you would never have to do a thing like that,” Granny went on. “Why, we planted this cotton and I believe that it’s gonna fetch enough to pay this place off. To think that you’d have to offer yourself to an old goat like McGinnis.”

Isabella sat down on the edge of Granny’s bed and their eyes met. “Granny, I did marry Jules and he’s made me a good husband. Why, he said that he wanted to pay off the farm because he loves me so much. He said that if it weren’t for you and mama, he would have never had me and that was a way to show his appreciation. He really ain’t the man people thinks he is; he’s a good man.”

Something twinkled behind Granny’s eyes. “A good man, my behind!”

Isabella turned to Jesse, desperate for help.

Jesse nodded and said, “Wait a minute, Granny, what makes you think she don’t love him? Mister Jules is as good to her as I ever seen a man be to any woman.”

“What he do—give the two of you a pile of money?” Granny asked. Isabella suddenly felt humiliated. She knew that she had to convince Granny that she was in love with Jules. Even if she had to convince herself.

“What about Elora, Granny? Don’t you want her to have a daddy? Jules is a good daddy to her. All little girls deserve a daddy.”

Isabella turned and went to get Elora from her mother, who headed to the kitchen. She carried the toddler in her arms, took her to the edge of Granny’s bed, and sat her down.

“Lord, have mercy. Look at this sweet angel.” Granny hugged Elora and kissed her on the face. “She’s a pretty thing, but she ain’t got a head full of curly red hair like you did when you were her age. You know you were always my favorite.” Granny looked at Jesse. “Right after she was born, we kept her in a hope chest. She was early and Miles hadn’t finished her crib, so I folded up a quilt and we made her a bed in the hope chest.”

Jesse smiled and glanced warmly at Isabella.

Granny’s eyes searched Jesse’s face. “You got that harmonica with you, son?”

“Yessum.”

She lay back for a moment. “Play something for me.”

“What you want me to play?”

“Can you play
Amazing
Grace
?”

Jesse nodded and placed the harmonica to his lips. Granny closed her eyes and hummed the melody. Isabella smiled at the lovely sounds of her favorite hymn. When Jesse finished playing, Granny said, “I’ve got something I want to give you, son.” Granny called out for Lila, and asked her to bring Miles’s gold pocket watch and a brown cardboard box. She gave the watch to Jesse and took out a pair of new shoes from the brown box. “Miles never got to wear these shoes,” Granny said to Jesse. “But now you’ll wear em.” Jesse leaned over and kissed Granny on the forehead.

Isabella looked around the old house. Even in all this grief, there was love in this house, and it was here that Isabella first knew she was loved. Isabella closed her eyes and remembered the way her daddy smelled when he came in from the barn; the horses, the hay, the smell of new leather when he had just returned from the tannery in Buford. A kettle of beans boiling on the stove in the coldest of winter, hot cornbread with cool butter served by the white-haired woman that lay in the bed before her, who always called her “darling girl”, “sweet child”, and most often “my gal.”

Granny asked for a few minutes alone with Jesse.

Over the next few days, family and friends visited with Granny. Despite the old woman’s discomfort and difficulty breathing, Isabella felt that she had never seen Granny happier.

Within the week, Granny died quietly in her sleep. Isabella sat in Granny’s room, holding the old woman’s stiff hand.

In the afternoon, Tom Slaughter came by to try to talk her into leaving.

Tom patted Isabella on the shoulder. “She’s gone on to a much better place. Come on, it’s time to let her go, they need to prepare her body.”

“Can we go to the church cemetery?” asked Isabella.

“Sure we can. You want to go to your daddy’s grave?”

Isabella nodded.

The ride to the cemetery was silent. They did not exchange a word until Isabella climbed out of the buggy.

“Isabella, I still can’t believe you’re gone. I see you everywhere I go. Sometimes I think I’m losing my mind.”

“Tom, please let’s not talk about this now.”

“Not now? Then when, Bella? After you’ve been gone a couple more years and had another kid or two? What happened? Did you change your dreams? Was I not good enough for you?”

“It wasn’t that. Please, not now.”

“You know, Bella, this may sound crazy to you, but it’s like you just ripped the pages out and threw them all away.”

“My life ain’t a fairy tale, Tom. Don’t you think this is hard for me?”

Isabella walked over to her daddy’s grave, knelt down and kissed the earth that entombed him. “I don’t know why I came here. Until I find out who killed my daddy, I never want to come here again,” she said as she ran back to the buggy.

When Isabella and Tom arrived back at the house, it was filled with people. Isabella pulled back. “I don’t want to go in there and have to face them.”

“Let’s take a walk,” said Tom.

They went down to the river. It was serene there; just the familiar sound of the river rushing.