The Wilful Daughter (17 page)

“
That’s right Mama, I don’t have a job. And if I saved all the money you gave me for sodas at the pharmacist’s counter and candy at the fair, I would be as old as Minnelsa before I could afford a dress like this.

“
I have smarts, though,” she hissed. “I can make money just like papa. I can barter and trade.” The Blacksmith pulled away from his wife. He slapped June again and she landed on the table holding on for support. The sisters jumped back, their mother just stood there staring blankly at her youngest daughter.

“
Oh, Papa. I’m sorry you have no faith in me. You think one of your precious daughters would actual give herself to a man for a mere dress?” She laughed and the Blacksmith’s face changed.

To Bira he said: “Is she crazy? She must be crazy. That could be the only explanation for her behavior.”

The dress sparkled as it moved about her. “Why would I sleep with a man for a dress?” She ran her hands over the fine bead work. “I’m not crazy, papa. Besides, no man in Atlanta would touch the Blacksmith’s daughters without his permission. A Blacksmith as big and strong as you could kill them with one hand. Or ,with all his money, have them killed.”

“
Watch your tongue, girl.”

She gave him her best smile. “Why would a man sleep with one of us when, if he played his cards right and courted us, he might get a handsome dowry of 50 acres and some of that money you’ve been hording for years.”

The sisters looked at June and then at their father.

“
You old fools. So you really didn’t know.” She moved close to them. Fawn stepped back as if her sister carried the plague. “The men who darken our door to call on us don’t want you dried up old women. They want the money. They want the land. Papa wants the men who get his money and his land to be men he can control. So they come here to call on you dried up old spinsters who have never lived one day without the blessing of the Blacksmith.”

The daughters backed away from her not raising their eyes to look at their father. June didn’t care. She turned to the powerful big man. “I traded one of Willie’s paintings for this dress. He gave it to me and I bartered it. Just like trading fixing a carriage wheel for a half a hog, Papa. Fair trade. So there. I’m not a slut and I’m not stupid.”

William Brown pulled away from his wife and passed his other daughters and headed for his bedroom as he said: “Tomorrow she goes to stay with the family in Tyson, Alabama. I won’t have. . .”

“
You won’t send me away, Papa. Not tomorrow. Tonight you’ll think about it. Not two months after I just started Spelman. The rumors will fly, Papa. The Blacksmith’s daughter is pregnant. One of those boys from Morehouse got to her. You don’t want anyone thinking that about your precious daughters.”

At the door he stopped and turned to look at her.

“
Why can’t you ever be like your sisters? They are ladies, responsible, educated women. Haven’t we given you everything?”

“
You gave me everything I needed to be tied down like an old woman, Papa. Old women is what my sisters are. They have never seen the world, never seen what’s beyond those books you read, never been past Tyson, Alabama. In fact they’ve never been anywhere except with you and mama. I am not going to be like them. Stuck in this house for the rest of my youth because my father is the biggest, richest, most feared, colored man in Atlanta. I will not sit here and wait for you to find me a husband. No Papa. You’re right. I’m not like them. I never was and was never meant to be.” She paused before she said: “Maybe I was meant to be a boy.”

She turned to look at her mother whom she loved and adored. The Blacksmith called out to Bira: “What is she talking about?”

“
William, let it be. Brother is. . .” was all Bira could get out as June interrupted.

“
My brother is what, Mama? A cripple. Sometimes I think you treat me like an after thought, just the way you treat him. Look where our rooms are. Off the kitchen. Isn’t that where the servants sleep in the rich white folks’ houses, Papa?” The Blacksmith was too shocked to speak.

“
When you found out Willie could paint you didn’t see to it that he got special teachers. You could have any teacher come to this house and work with him. It’s not like you don’t have the money. It could be his trade. He could be famous. But you ignored his talent, you ignored him because you hoped one day he would die and go away.”

The sisters verbally complained.

Bira put her hand to her mouth as the tears began to flow.

“
That’s all we ever got from you, Papa. Ignored. Look what you did to me. When I was seven and the choir master said I had a voice like an angel you took me out of the choir. Said singing was not going to get me a better life or a good husband. You didn’t want me to sing in the house. You’ve never wanted me.”

“
I am your father,” he shouted. “I am the reason you are here.”

“
Mama is the reason I am here. The reason Willie is here. Looking good to the rest of this town is why we’re here. Wouldn’t look right for the Blacksmith, the big healthy Blacksmith, to have two weak babies die from some unknown disease two years apart now, would it?”

Minnelsa, whose soft voice cracked the anger-filled air, spoke. “You have no right to say that.”

“
You think I made it up?” June said directly to her sister. “You were here when Willie was born. You saw what happened. You think I made it up?”

“
You have no idea what went on in this house the night Willie was born.” Minnelsa told her.

June cut her eyes to her father. “Oh yes I do. People talk behind our backs, they say things; truths, lies, anything they can about us. But it’s more than any of you have told me so I listen.

“
I know papa was angry about Willie being born the way he is. Papa didn’t know for a few days what was wrong. He just knew he had a son. Had the name for him and the shop was gonna be his. I know Mama wasn’t supposed to have no more babies after Willie. The doctor said it might kill her. Our mother almost died that night. You were here, Minnelsa. You know better than anyone else.”

Minnelsa went to her mother and put her arm around her. “It’s best not to bring it up, June.”

“
Why? Aren’t we all family here?” When no one answered she kept talking.

“
When papa found out about Willie. . . Well, let’s just say on the night I was born our father was told two things by the doctor. One that the new born son he had hoped for was a daughter and that his wife couldn’t have any more children.” She looked at Bira. “Mama, I love you and I know you almost died giving birth to me, but he didn’t care. He just wanted a son. You almost died trying to give him another son.” June was pointing at her father with tears in her eyes. “He didn’t even hold me or touch me. The midwife told me. He didn’t see me because he left the house. He didn’t come back for days. Had to send the preacher to find him.”

“
Stop this!” Minnelsa shouted trying to sound firm.

“
Minnelsa ,you were here. The rest of you were sent away ‘cause Mama didn’t want you all to see her suffer. But Minnelsa. . . She’s known, she’s always known. Papa, you were going to leave a wife with two babies, one a cripple, just cause you couldn’t have a son that could follow in your footsteps.”

Tears rolled down June’s cheek. She turned to look at her mother. “And she still loves you.

“
Minnelsa’s always known and she still loves you. She made the Preacher find you. She brought you home.” June wiped her tears and pulled herself up straight and tall. The red dress spangles began shaking with her fury. “But I don’t love you. I don’t have to love you because you never loved me. I hate you. I have always hated you and you have always . . .”

“
Stop it!” They turned to see Willie leaning on the door of his room. His eyes were rheumy, his shirt soaked with perspiration, his voice weak and failing. “June, you promised never to tell we knew. You promised.”

With those words he collapsed to the kitchen floor.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Wasn’t much colored Atlanta talked about for the next few days but how they all missed the sound of the Blacksmith’s hammer in the morning. Rumors spread faster than storm winds but the truth beat it at every turn.

William Brown the Second, Willie to his sister June, Brother to his family and a smattering of friends, was dying. His sister Rosa, the nurse, tried to take him to the hospital but he refused to go saying he wanted to be in his own bed. His sister June, the closest person to him in the whole world, never left his side. In fact one of the most popular rumors was about the red dress June wore the dawn the doctor came to see Willie. A red sparkly, shiny dress like the flappers wore that clung to her like hard earned sweat.

Business was called off at the smithy. Gentleman callers didn’t come by the house at all. Only people allowed to cross the Blacksmith’s door were the minister and the doctor.

And the Piano Man.

Truth was Willie liked to lie in his bed and listen to the music the Piano Man played in the parlor. The music would fill the house with hope and the neighborhood with despair. Some said Willie was picking what song he wanted played at his funeral. And not some old Gospel song either. Something nice and fancy from Europe like the Piano Man played in the parlor night after night.

The Blacksmith still woke at dawn and the family ate with him except for June. It was she who fed her brother each meal, she who changed his bed linens once the Blacksmith lifted him. She who washed him and cared for him night and day. Word spread that she slept on the floor beside his bed. Truth was she slept in the bed with him. Warming his chills, wiping his sweats and bathing herself just before dawn so that the dying boy would awake and see her with fresh skin and clean, brushed hair.

Willie would tell her: “You look just like the dancing princess. Where did you dance last night?”

She would smile and tell him: “Why, Willie, don’t you remember? We were dancing together in your dreams.”

It took eight days for Willie to die. But it was eight days that his family belonged to him and him alone. The Blacksmith read to him from his many books occasionally carrying the boy into his big room with its healthy fire and sitting him in the most comfortable chair, the Blacksmith’s chair. June would sing to him accompanied by Rosa on the piano. The Piano Man would play tunes the boy had never heard on his Victrola.

The rest of the family would do what they could to make things nice for him. Fawn brought him flowers from the garden and bushes outside that he could no longer sit near and smell, and Minnelsa told him about the bad little children in the school, which made him laugh. Jewel baked bread endlessly for he said the smell made him feel good. Rosa washed his hair in jasmine scented soap that she had purchased from a white owned store the Blacksmith didn’t like. When William Brown asked his daughter where she had gotten such an item, she boldly replied: “I got it for Willie.”

June smiled at her sister for giving this treat to her brother.

During those eight days June would not go near the Piano Man. And the Piano Man stayed in the house only long enough to play. He took each meal at Mrs. Maples (to her delight) and only spoke to the woman he courted when he was in her father’s presence.

June would stay in the room when her father read to her brother. Not that she didn’t trust him, for the Blacksmith was showing a different side to his son. June would watch them as the old man read and the boy listened and asked questions. She had no idea her father had such patience. He had never shown any with her.

The truth was she wished she had the courage and the strength to put her brother out of his suffering. She could hardly stand to watch him cough, to wince in pain when all she could do was change the bed clothes when he soiled himself. She held his hand for hours when he went on and on about things they had done as children.

“
Remember when. . .” He forgot some piece of the story of pulling themselves up into the tree by rope, or each eating two hundred pecans one afternoon and vomiting all night.

“
Remember when. . .” She would remember for him and fill in the blanks.

“
Remember when. . .” What she couldn’t remember as she held his hand trying to give him her life force, she made up.

Bira Brown sat on the floor in her son’s room and called on the Great Spirit to protect her son. June had never seen her mother do this but the older sisters remembered family deaths when Bira put aside any knowledge of the Christian faith and turned into a Blackfoot Indian and did what could only be called the most unchristian of things. She sang chants that only the spirits could understand. She burned leaves and bark in the room and the scent floated in and around the house. Those that passed the house would see the dark thin smoke and swore it was the Angel of Death taking residence until the boy was gone. Bira ground herbs and roots into poultices and said incantations as she rubbed them on her son’s chest. The boy never complained of the smell or the rubbing that left his pale skin reddened. He enjoyed his mother’s touch.

No one said a word, not the minister, not the doctor, not the Blacksmith. For his mother’s humble and soft rumblings seemed to ease the coughing that came from deep in his chest. “There is nothing anyone can do,” the minister once said to the doctor, “but leave him to Jesus.”

If the Blacksmith heard this or not, he didn’t say. Each night when he knew the rest of the family was sleep he would go to check on his son. To stand and watch him breathe, to hope he wouldn’t die.