Cottonwood, Georgia
1939
It didn’t matter, really, what the rest of the world thought; Valentine knew the truth. Stella’s sudden departure from Cottonwood— her sister Lottie’s need for help with the young’uns over in Rome while she recuperated from the flu or some such nonsense—was nothing more than an excuse to hide Stella’s condition.
Soon, if his figuring was right, she’d deliver her baby. His baby. And there wasn’t a day that went by but what he didn’t wonder what she’d do about it after that. Maybe give it to one of those orphanages where women who couldn’t have babies of their own went and bought themselves one from girls like Stella.
His father had him working hard in what was now the “family business,” as he called it. Valentine was learning a lot from the elder Bach; that kept his mind off things most of the day. But early in the mornings and late in the evenings when he walked from and to the house he now shared with Lilly Beth and over to the home of his parents, he thought about Stella.
She wasn’t a girl a man could quick forget. Large dark eyes, wide set on either side of a slender upturned nose. They’d always seemed to see to the core of his soul. Her lips, full and pink with a deep Cupid’s bow, turned slightly at the corners, giving her the appearance of a young woman holding a shimmer of a secret. Her skin, white and creamy as fresh milk, was marked by a splattering of freckles across her back. Her scent; even in the heat she smelled of soap and vanilla.
He closed his eyes and winced against the memory of first love. He had to—with God’s help, he decided—put all thoughts of her behind him. He was married to Lilly Beth now, and he was slowly falling in love with her too. One day, he supposed, he’d love her more than he loved—had loved—Stella.
How could he help himself ? Lilly Beth was everything and more a man could want in a wife. She kept his house clean, his stomach filled, and his bed warm. A tiny bit of a girl, she was pretty to look at. Maybe not as pretty as Stella, but then again, who was? All in all, Lilly Beth Bach was growing on him. The only thing she hadn’t yet done for him was give him the beginnings of a child, in spite of the regularity of their lovemaking.
He could sense that she was worried about it. As the middle of each month approached, he’d see the anticipation growing in her eyes. Then the little bag where she kept her monthly rags would come out of her underwear drawer and a glimmer of the expectation would fade. Sometimes, as he walked up the short drive from the side road to their back door, he’d spot them, washed and hanging on the line, and he’d know that when he went inside, he’d find her lying on their bed, crying. It nearly broke his heart for her, but it gnawed at his insides knowing that somewhere out there was a girl with a swollen belly, ready to burst a new life into the world, and that new life was half his.
He avoided Mr. Conroy’s store like the plague, not knowing how much Stella’s older brother knew about her condition and the man who’d gotten her that way. A few times Lilly Beth said she needed something right bad from there and he’d go in, but he kept his eyes on his feet and his mind on his purpose. Mr. Conroy was always nice to him; Valentine wondered if that was just his nature.
It had been an odd Thanksgiving season. President Roosevelt had tried to change the date of the celebrated Thursday. No one in Cottonwood was going along with it, and Valentine had heard the rest of the country felt the same way. This time, Mr. Roosevelt was alone in his thinking.
In early December, after the last of the Thanksgiving decorations had been taken from the storefront windows and the Christmas garland and red and green lights had been strung from pole to pole along Main Street, Valentine finished a day’s work with his father and, gathering up his lunch pail, said, “Daddy, I’m going to walk home now so as to stop over at Wright’s Department Store. I saw something pretty in there I’d like to get Lilly Beth for Christmas.”
His father—a stern man, but a good man—had given him a half smile. “Your mama said Lilly Beth had put up a right nice tree for your first Christmas as man and wife.”
Valentine blushed. He still wasn’t comfortable talking to his father about life as a married man. “Yes, sir,” was all he said.
“What do you have in mind for buying her?”
Valentine watched as his father pulled his work gloves from his hands, shoved them into a pocket of his overalls, then reached into the front pocket for his pack of Camels and a box of matches. He lit an unfiltered cigarette, then handed the pack to his son, who repeated his father’s action. Valentine exhaled the first draw from his lungs and spit a tiny tobacco stem from his tongue. “I thought a scarf. We don’t have much money, and she’s not a girl who asks for much.”
His father nodded. “Scarf’ll be nice.”
Valentine took another draw from the cigarette. “What about you? What are you getting Mama?”
“Hadn’t thought about it much.”
Valentine chuckled. “I gotta go, Daddy. If I don’t leave now, I won’t make it before the store closes.”
He made it to Wright’s with only ten minutes to spare. He purchased the powder pink delicate material embellished with white satin rosebuds, had Mrs. Wright wrap it special for him to lay under Lilly Beth’s tree on Christmas Eve, then slipped it between his chest and coat for safekeeping.
He stepped out of the store then and into the bitter cold of the evening, burrowed his chin into the wool wrap at his throat, and set his course for home.