Speak Through the Wind (39 page)

“I was thinking tonight that if I go through with it, it won’t change anything. I don’t think I could ever love him—or even like him any more than I do right now. I will just be sharing his bed. Every night. I just won’t be getting paid for it.”

“Oh, you’ll be gettin’ paid all right, missy,” Jewell said, “an’ a fine sight moren what you’re gettin’ now. Think of it. A house. Carriage. Whatever that heart of yours desires. Plus a good daddy for your baby. I think women like me would be flat out of business if all these girls grew up with a good daddy.”

“I grew up with a wonderful father.” Kassandra looked up at the moon, a wide gray smear behind a haze of clouds.

“He know you’re here?”

“I don’t know.” He was on the other side of the country looking up at the same moon, wondering why she had left her newborn daughter in the arms of a relative stranger.

“I bet he don’t,” Jewell said. “If he’s as good a daddy as you say, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself knowin’ you’re here.”

“He was not exactly a daddy.”

“Then what exactly was he?”

“If I knew that, I don’t think I would be here.”

Jewell chuckled. “I think we can pretty much all say that.”

“How did you get here?”

Jewell took another long drag on her cigarette, grimaced, picked a fleck of tobacco off her lip, and flicked it away before answering. “That’s too big a question to answer in any one night.”

“You know,” Kassandra said after a few minutes of silence broken only by the creaking of the swing, “he might not want me.”

“He wants you now ‘most every night.”

“There is a big difference between being a mistress and a wife.”

“Mistress?” Jewell tossed the remnant of her cigarette out into the street. “Don’t flatter yourself, missy.”

“If he refuses me, will you still make me leave?”

“I ain’t one for makin’ promises. When’re you plannin’ to spring the good news on him?”

“I have not decided. Maybe to—”

The word was lost as Kassandra became distracted by a pain that seemed to be knotting her very core.

“Sadie? You all right?”

“I’m not sure.”

Kassandra closed her eyes and held her breath, trying to relax. Her ears began to ring, and she felt her entire body grow cold and clammy. She shivered against the breeze, pulled the shawl even tighter against her, and tried to find a more comfortable position.

That’s when she felt it. Wet and sticky between her legs.

Please, God! No!

“Sadie! What’s wrong, girl? You’re white as a ghost.”

“I—I—”

But she couldn’t bring herself to say a thing. Surely God wouldn’t take this child from her. Not when she had already lost so much. Given up so much. Not when she intended such a sacrifice of herself to provide for it. To surrender her life to a man she didn’t love to see that it was cared for.

“Let’s get you upstairs.”

Kassandra lurched with the swing as Jewell stood up. She opened her eyes and saw Jewell looming over her, taking her arm and helping her stand. The pain increased, keeping hçr from being able to stand upright, making her face level with Jewell’s—so close she could smell the stale tobacco and gin on the woman’s breath.

“Oh, Sadie.”

Kassandra looked down and saw three drops of blood fall between her bare feet. She felt her nightgown, wet and cold, slap against the back of her legs.

“Jewell?” Kassandra grasped the woman’s hand. “What have I done? What have I done?”

They bypassed the parlor and went directly into the kitchen, taking the back stairs up to Jewell’s room. The girls were rarely allowed in here—the gentlemen even less frequently. Compared to this chamber, the other rooms in the house, lush and lavish as they were, may as well have been convent cells. In here the carpet was thick, the walls were pink, the lampshades covered in lavender silk, the chairs upholstered in a red velvet that matched the voluminous drapes held back from the window by gilded tassels. On one wall was an enormous painting titled “Lovers’ Embrace” featuring a nude man and woman under a fruit tree. The bed was low to the ground and wide.

“Can you stand there for just a second?” Jewell said.

Kassandra nodded and held to the post for support as Jewell opened a trunk at the foot of the bed and took out a thick, dark quilt. In one large gesture, she swiped the silk coverings off the bed and spread out the quilt. Then, with a tenderness and concern that spoke to just how grave the circumstances must be, Jewell took the shawl from around Kassandra’s shoulders and helped her into bed.

“How’re you feelin‘?” Jewell asked, wiping Kassandra’s brow with a soft cloth wrung in the silver washbowl.

The pain was duller now. “Maybe it will be all right.”

Jewell continued to stroke her brow. “It ain’t gonna be all right, girl. You know that.”

“I know …”

Kassandra’s eyes filled with tears that ran down her face. Jewell caught what she could with the cloth, but soon Kassandra’s entire body was heaving with pain and sobs. Jewell set the cloth beside Kassandra’s head and held her hand.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Make it stop,” Kassandra said.

“I wish I could.”

“That sounds like something a friend would say.”

“Yes, it does.”

Jewell gave Kassandra’s hand a few friendly pats before releasing it. She walked over to the washstand, knelt down, and opened the cabinet beneath. After a little rummaging, she came out with a black leather bag. She groaned a bit getting back to her feet, then returned to the bed and set the bag down at the foot of it.

“What is in there?” Kassandra asked.

“Somethin’ to help you.”

Jewell took a small bottle full of a clear liquid, then walked over to her bureau to take a clean white handkerchief out of the top drawer. She placed the handkerchief over the bottle’s open mouth and quickly tipped it, holding both the bottle and the handkerchief away from her face as she reapplied the cap and set the bottle on the bureau.

Kassandra watched all of this in wonder, but as Jewell came closer, the odor from the soaked handkerchief grew familiar, and she turned her head violently.

“No!”

“Let me help you through this, girl.”

“Last time someone made me breathe that … they took my baby.”

“This baby’s gone. Now, I don’t know why it’s happenin’, but it is. There’s no need for you to suffer any more’n you have to.”

Kassandra reached up and knocked the hand that held the handkerchief away. “Get it away from me. You have no right—”

Jewell dropped the handkerchief. Bitter fumes drifted up, burning Kassandra’s nose and eyes.

“I want to keep this baby” she cried, clutching Jewell’s hand.

“There’s nothin’ to keep,” Jewell said, squeezing back.

“Because God is punishing me.”

“Shucks to that. God’s got lots more important things to do.”

“He knows—” She closed her eyes, crying out against the pain, and turned to her side facing Jewell, still clutching her hand. “He knows my sins, Jewell. He is punishing me, making me pay—”

“Shh, shh now” Jewell stroked Kassandra’s hair, then settled on the bed beside her and reached a hand around to rub her back. “Now, I ain’t been in a church for quite some time, but I don’t remember it workin’ like that. God don’t have to punish us for our sins, girl. We do enough of that ourselves.”

Kassandra continued to sob—deep, loud cries that seemed to be pulled from her very soul. Her body, from the moment she stood on the porch, was one continuous twist of pain, and at the same time, she felt almost nothing. She contracted her muscles, wanting to hold on—to hold the child in, keep it just a while longer—but when the cramping pain subsided, she relaxed and fell limp against the mattress.

“Let me take a look,” Jewell said.

She helped Kassandra roll to her back and positioned her legs, lifting Kassandra’s gown over her knees.

“We got to be careful, or you’re gonna bleed to death.”

“I don’t care.”

“Well, I do. No sense losin’ two lives here tonight.”

Jewell reached over to the black leather bag and took out a long metal instrument. The handle appeared to be ivory; the lamplight flickered off the silver hook.

“What is that?” Kassandra whispered, drawing her body up close again.

“You ain’t the only one that has sins to answer for.”

“But you can’t mean—”

“It’s all we can do now.”

“You don’t think there’s a chance …”

Jewell shook her head slowly “The only question now is whether or not you’re goin’ to live through this. Why don’t you let me put you under? Ease up the pain a little. You can wake up—or not. Either way it’ll all be over.”

“No,” Kassandra said, gritting her teeth. “I deserve to feel this. To remember this.”

Jewell sighed. “Suit yourself.” She moved a pillow within Kassandra’s reach. “But if you got to scream, scream into this. Don’t need nobody thinkin’ I’m killin’ you in here.”

he didn’t leave Jewell’s bed for nearly a month. A raging fever brought nearly daily visits from a doctor, who more often than not took his fee from the woman in the next room. In the early days, when Kassandra was aware of little more than the occasional voice and an insatiable thirst, it was Jewell who sat by her side, her pudgy hand on Kassandra’s, her cigarette smoke wafting through some ever-present darkness.

Later, when she began to sit up and was able to talk, there was at least one girl from the house who came by and played a round of cards or brought in the latest fashion magazine. And even after she was feeling relatively fine, when she was able to walk across the room unassisted, when she could wake up in the morning and relieve herself without crying, she still crept back to the comfort of this bed, refusing to open the curtains, keeping the room dark and close.

“Get up outta there,” Jewell would say, throwing back the covers, yanking open the curtains, and shoving the window open as far as she could reach. “There ain’t nothin’ you can do for yourself lyin’ in here all day.”

“Tomorrow,” Kassandra would say, burrowing under the sheets, trying to lose herself in the thick feather ticking. “Tomorrow, I promise.”

Then somebody would come upstairs with tea and toast. Kassandra wouldn’t eat. Another would come with a small plate of sandwiches and milk. Kassandra refused it. Finally, in the evening, someone would bring up a tray with a cooled bowl of soup, which Kassandra would slurp hungrily—to the last drop—before curling down into the darkness to try to get through another night.

Jimmy came one more time. He stood outside Kassandra’s door, twirling a new summer boater hat in his hands, refusing to go away no matter how many times he was told that Kassandra just wasn’t fit to see him. Finally, after listening to hours of muffled conversations on the other side of the door, Kassandra sat herself upright, gathered her hair it into a loose knot at the nape of her neck, and beckoned the man to come inside.

He was smaller than she remembered, less grotesquely fat. He seemed sad, humble, and terrified of what he was facing.

“Miss Sadie,” he muttered, trying to find some comfortable place for his eyes to land. He glanced at the washstand, saw the chamber pot, zipped over to the bed, saw Kassandra, roved over to the wall, saw the nude painting, and finally stared at the ceiling. “Miss Sadie, I’m glad to see you looking so—”

She remained silent, feeling something between amusement at his ineptitude and annoyance at his intrusion.

“Well … fine. You’re looking just fine.”

“Thank you, Jimmy,” she said, surprised at the kindness in her voice. “I am feeling much better.”

He crumpled a little then, smiling shyly. The room remained cast in shadows, but knowing Jimmy, he was blushing clear across the top of his bald head. He dropped his eyes to look at her, and she motioned to the chair near the foot of the bed, inviting him to sit down.

“Jewell told me what you’ve been through,” he said. “Do you think … was it really my child?”

Now it was she who looked away.

“Because I would’ve married you, you know I would’ve been proud to have you as my wife.”

“That is very sweet of you. You are a good man.”

“I’d still take you, you know,” he said, fidgeting with the hat in his lap. “That is, I mean, if you’d let me.”