The Sleeping Night (29 page)

Dawn had not yet fully edged into the night when Isaiah left Angel with a last, lingering kiss, and headed home under cover of darkness. She had wrapped his ankle tightly and then he put on his boot and laced it up, as they’d done in combat many a time. She scrounged up a cane and he hobbled out the back door.

The river was too high from the storm the night before for him to cross the water so, despite the struggle, he walked the mile down to the bridge, hobbling along, and not minding in the least. His blood sang a chant,
Angel Angel Angel.
His arms carried the imprint of her small form curled up next to him all night. All night. He awakened to find her there, over and over, and every time it was like a miracle, and he would kiss her shoulder, her hair, cover her breasts with his hands, press his belly into her back.

She loved him.

He had known it on some level, but her tears had shattered him. Tears of longing, of release, tears of joy. She had put his letters under her pillow and thought of him lying next to her, just as he had imagined her a thousand times, a million.

She loved him.

He reached the bridge and hobbled across, making plans. They would go away, north or maybe west, where he’d heard there was plenty of work and no segregation. It would not, he knew, be an easy life for either of them, or for their children. Even without Jim Crow, theirs would be a union many would find tainted.

He had not been sure, before this, that Angel would have what it took to face that down. And yet, now as he ambled like a lovesick pup down the dirt road to his mama’s house, he had no idea why. She was her father’s daughter. She could stand the heat.

They would marry. They would have children. He wanted to weep with the joy of it, with the love of her, filling every rushing blood cell in his being, filling his heart, his mind, his soul. “Thank you, Jesus,” he whispered, and for a little while, he could believe again.

As he passed the white frame church he’d been raised in, he paused. Church of God in Christ, the sign read, and he went inside, and stood before the altar, thinking of the churches he’d seen in his travels, the grand cathedrals, the bombed village churches.

“Get us outta here alive,” he said, “and I’ll do whatever you want. Hear?”

Geraldine was reading her bible
on the porch when Isaiah came strolling down the road like he had not a care in the world. She shook her head as he came up the steps. “You been with that woman.”

He waved a hand. “None of your business, Mama.” With a grunt, he hobbled up the steps, and she saw there was a cut on his head.

“What’d you do to yourself?”

“No big thing. Fell off the ladder in that storm last night.”

“Ahh-uh.” Geraldine saw it all too clearly. Angel offering kindly ministrations. Isaiah falling under her spell. “Boy, you a fool. A fool.”

He gave her a long look, full of bristling pride, and went inside.

Filled with anger and fear—yes, love—she followed him. “You think they won’t kill you? They will. And that woman with you. Just givin’ them an excuse to get rid o’ you both.”

“That woman,” he said. “You mean Angel Corey, whose been tending to your needs every morning for the last fifteen years? That woman?”

Tears welled in her eyes, wretched and weak, and she swallowed hard. “I’d have given you up to the war, ’Saiah, and I’d have mourned you, but known you did what’s right. Don’t ask me to let you go like your daddy did. Don’t ask it.”

“Mama.” He crossed the room and took her worn hands in his.

“It’s time things changed,” he said quietly. “People keep being quiet, we’ll get somebody like Hitler in power and end up dead like all those Jews. You think a lynching’s bad, you oughta see one of those camps—all those people dumped and starved and gassed. Children, Mama, so hungry they’d eat bugs, dying for some little piece of fruit I had in my pocket. All they people gone, nobody left.” He pressed his thumbs to the fan of bones in her hand. “Not just time for me and Angel, but for all of us to have to have a different life. I can’t go back to what I knew.”

“Sounds good, Isaiah,” she said, her voice hard and skeptical. “That’s a real pretty speech. But you don’t care about anything but having that woman. That’s all. Rest of the world rot in hell long as you get what you want.”

“Say her name, Mama. Use her name.”

Geraldine yanked her hands away. “You don’t care about anything as long as you have Angel Corey.”

He bowed his head, pulled his lower lip into his mouth. Then he shook his head. “It shouldn’t be so hard, Mama. It’s not like she’s a cat and I’m dog. You hear me?”

She stared at him, jaw hard.

“I ain’t a preacher like my daddy was, or a crusader like Parker. I can’t talk and make people act on their behalf.” He smiled. “You got to have charisma if you gonna change the world. All I’ve ever wanted is to build things, and marry Angel.”

Geraldine let him talk.

“Angel is my heart, Mama. She always has been,” His eyes glowed, his features softened. “And she loves me.”

Geraldine tore her hands from his. “How do you know that? How can you know? You wouldn’t be the first black man to hang for the curiosity of a white woman, dabbling and tasting and then getting scared.”

“You know better.” He crossed the room to wash his face, putting his back to her.

Her words were low and hot. “You’re a fool, Isaiah. Never thought, as long as I lived, that I’d see the day you’d let her get killed with you. And they just waitin’ for a reason. And when they get her, the only blessing will be that you won’t have long to live with it.”

She turned and left him.

Geraldine considered passing
by the store by this morning. But as she neared the worn wooden building with the brave morning glories giving it its only lick of color, she found she couldn’t walk by.

As she came up the steps and pulled open the screen door, she smelled the heady scent of coffee hanging in the air. There were biscuits on the counter, and some jam she’d put up last summer.

Angel swept the floor, humming softly as she worked,
The Old Rugged Cross.
It pierced Geraldine’s heart. She had loved this girl. When Jordan died, Angel had carried over the bridge a huge bouquet of wildflowers for her, walking by herself into Lower Gideon with her daddy’s permission to deliver them. Then with an uncanny sense for such a young girl, she gave Geraldine a hug and said only, “I’m sorry.”

Now, she thought fiercely, won’t anyone defend her? But no one could.

She spoke. “Don’t you think it’s time to get out of here, Angel?’’

Angel let go of a little startled cry, whirling. When she saw Geraldine, a bright flush brightened her cheeks. “Good morning, Miss Geraldine. Coffee’s not quite done yet.

“I’m not here for coffee this morning.” She leveled her gaze at the woman—no longer a girl, had not been a girl for a long time. Angel’s skin was thin and pale, like a membrane, showing every little bump and scratch she got. A bruise lingered on her cheek from a few days before, but Geraldine had already seen that.

There were other things this morning, a reddened place on her jaw, a mark of hunger on her neck, lips over-full and a little bruised. And in her eyes, a glowing, living thing. As if Angel had finally donned the mantle of her womanhood. As if—the word came back to her—Angel was finally free. The lecture she had meant to deliver died on her lips.

Instead, very quietly, she said, “You have to go. Both of you.”

Angel faced her, mouth sober. “I know.” She swallowed. “I’m trying to find somebody to take the store, not even buy, just take it. Somebody who’s gonna be fair and be able to stand up to the Walkers.’’

“Once you’re gone, Angel, Edwin Walker won’t give a hoot about this store anymore.” She
tsked
. “And if you’re dead, it isn’t gonna matter who’s got the store, now, is it?”

“No, ma’am. You’re right about that.”

At four, Angel gave up
and closed the store, heading for town. She had made Isaiah promise not to walk today, to stay home and rest his ankle. After looking at it this morning, she really wondered if he’d chipped a bone in there or something. It was bad, no matter how brave he wanted to pretend to be.

She needed him strong.

As she walked, she noted the late afternoon sunlight and bluebonnets beginning to bloom in the fields. Birds and crickets, bees and flies filled the air with a busy buzzing noise. Beautiful, she thought, everything was so beautiful.

Because Isaiah was in every second of her day. That dimple lighting up his face, making him look so whimsical. His low groaning sounds of release against her mouth or throat. His laughter this morning.

She felt saturated with light. All those years of waiting, all those years of longing and denial. It was worth the struggles and the dark times and the eternal, restless longing for the things she had not dared name, all under a single umbrella.

Isaiah.

She knocked on Mrs. Pierson’s big house. Her maid, Mrs. Reed, answered her knock. Her dark eyes met Angel’s warily for a moment, then she stepped aside. “Mrs. Pierson’s in the garden. Come on through here.”

“That’s all right. You go ahead with what you were doing. I’ll find my way.”

Mrs. Reed nodded. As Angel headed down the polished hallway, she said, “Miss Angel, I’m real sorry about your store.”

“He hasn’t won yet.”

Mrs. Reed lifted her chin. Without a single word she managed to convey her opinion:
he will
. “I’ll bring you a glass of sweet tea directly.”

In the back yard, Mrs. Pierson was settled in one of the wicker chairs she favored, under the spreading boughs of the pecan tree. Gudren trimmed roses and daisies from the borders, laying them carefully in a basket by her knee. Seeing Angel, she waved. “I will be finished soon,” she called. “It is wonderful to see you!”

“Take your time.” Angel settled in the chair next to Mrs. Pierson, and took the older woman’s hand. She seemed so much more fragile lately, Angel thought, suddenly alarmed. “Hello,” she forced herself to say cheerfully.

“Angel.” She smiled. “Isn’t it a work day?”

“I knocked off a little early.”

“I see.” Mrs. Pierson moved her hands, captured one of Angel’s fingers. “I have been worried about you, my dear.”

“Whatever for? I’m fine.”

“No. There is grumbling, Angel. From quarters that surprise me.”

A slither of fear snaked through her throat. Edwin she could manage. He was, at least, a known enemy. “Like who?”

Mrs. Pierson turned her face toward Angel, her sightless eyes seeming to fix Angel where she stood. “Church people, who should know better.”

“My church?”

“Yes.”

“I already knew about them, too. Don’t worry—the pastor is a good man. He’ll keep them in line.”

“Perhaps.” Her rose-colored silk dress fluttered around her knees on a wisp of wind. “Perhaps he cannot.”

She thought of her Sunday School class, and the pastor’s angry sermon about loving your neighbor. The never-distant sense of fear flooded through her again. “I hate feeling so scared all the time,” she said fiercely. “I’m just tired of it.”

“Parker would be proud, Angel.” Mrs. Pierson covered her hand gently. “Proud and afraid.”

“I know.” She plucked a leaf from the shrub nearby, watching Gudren clip flowers. “My daddy should have died three years ago. But he had to see how that war would come out. Had to.

“I hated,” she continued, “to listen to all those radio reports of all the bombs. It was awful—I was so worried about Isaiah it almost made me sick. But Daddy had to listen every single day. Blow. By. Blow.”

“Angel—”

“No, let me finish.” She swallowed. “What was the point of all that fighting, all that dying, if nothing ever changes?” Emotion filled her throat, choking off her words, and she put the back of her wrist against her mouth.