CHAPTER 45

Monday brought heavy thunderstorms to Unionville, and that evening as the Arkansas-side council members waited for the mayor to arrive so they could hold their monthly meeting, lightning flashed across the town hall windows and thunder rumbled far off somewhere.

“Hey, Mr. Tate!”Art Nelson said, when he noticed Sam staring blankly. “You going to sleep on us over there?”

“No,” Sam lied, “I’m just thinking about our finances.” In truth, he had been thinking all day about how badly dinner with Becky went. As soon as the meeting ended, he intended either to go knock on her door or go to the Otasco store, where he could have some privacy, and call her to apologize again. So far, he had been unable to decide which would be better.

Before Art could reply, the mayor arrived, and Neal O’Brien called the meeting to order. He said Jesse Culpepper had accepted the marshal’s job on condition that they provide benefits, call him chief of police, and let him fire Crow Hicks as soon as he could find a new night man. Sam mentioned Doc’s idea of offering that job to Mr. Claude, and the other members agreed to suggest it to Jesse when he took over. First, though, he had to give the county sheriff two weeks’ notice.

“Just a minute,” Becky called in response to the knocking. She raked the photographs she had been looking at into the shirt box and slipped it under the sofa. Then she straightened her bathrobe and started for the door, but it sprang open before she got there.

“When I heard you call out, I just used my pass key,” Hazel Brantley said, closing the door behind her. “I guess I should have waited,” she added, when she saw Becky’s face. “You been crying, hon? What’s the matter?”

“No, Hazel,” Becky fibbed, “I just have a runny nose. I think I’m coming down with something.”

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier? I got all kinds of medicine over at my place. We ought to be able to find something that’ll fix you up.”

“No, that’s okay. I’ll take some aspirin before I go to sleep. First, I have a lot more work to do for class tomorrow.” Becky gestured toward papers lying on the writing desk.

“All right, hon, but you holler if you need anything. And soon as you’re up to it, I want to hear all about dinner over at the Tates.”

As Hazel started for the door, Becky’s phone rang, and the landlady paused.

“Excuse me a minute, Hazel,” Becky said, going to the desk to answer. She said hello then after a moment said, “Yes, Sam, I’m fine, but I can’t talk now. Hazel’s here with me.” After a pause she said, “No, tomorrow night I’ll have a huge batch of papers to grade.” In another moment or two, she ended the conversation with,“Well, I guess Wednesday will be all right. I’ll see you sometime after supper. Good night.”

“Are you sure everything’s all right, hon?” Hazel asked.“I know it ain’t none of my business but that didn’t sound just right to me.”

“Oh, Hazel, you read too much into things. Like I told you, I’m just not feeling very well.”

Becky put her arm around her landlady and walked her to the door. Hazel shivered as she crossed the porch to her own apartment and the damp night air was not the only reason why.

Inside, Becky went back to her sofa, took a tissue from a nearby carton, and reached for the box of photographs.

On Tuesday morning, Ollie Mae Green did not ask how Gran’s dinner had gone on Sunday. Emma Lou MacDonald and Almalee Jolly did, however. Even though Gran had said nothing about the Tate’s dinner plans at church on Sunday, Becky’s green Plymouth sitting in the driveway had signaled gossipers all over town, and the quilters came loaded with questions, each hoping for different answers.

“Gosh almighty, Ida Belle!” Emma Lou said, as soon as she got through the front door. “How come you didn’t tell us Becky Reeves was coming for dinner?”

“Yeah, Ida Belle, how come?” Almalee asked. She was right on Emma Lou’s heels. Both wore blue dresses, one flowered and one striped, and Gran used them to fend off the question.

“Y’all trying to look like twins today?” she asked, as they all filed into her sitting room.

“Come on, out with it,” Emma Lou said, as she sat down and started unloading her stuff. “I want to know what happened. I bet you found out she’s a sweet girl, didn’t you?” When she looked up and saw Gran’s pained expression, she said, “Uh oh, don’t tell me it went bad.”

“I ain’t gon’ talk about that woman,” Gran said, taking her chair. “I ain’t got nothing on my mind but quilting. I only got two more blocks to make then I’m gon’ be ready to put my sampler together.” She reached for her basket but could not hold back her anger. “She said runaway slaves and abolitionists used blocks like mine. Of all the nerve! These patterns have been in my family a hundred years. I told y’all she didn’t know nothing about the South.”

“I bet she was just awful, wasn’t she, Ida Belle?”Almalee said. This was just the sort of thing she had hoped to hear. “It’s like I been saying all along. What Sam needs is a nice southern girl with good breeding.”

“Oh, hon, I sure am sorry,” Emma Lou said to Gran.

“You heard Ida Belle,” Almalee said. “That woman’s dumb and mean. There ain’t no need to be sorry about it.”

“Aw, Almalee,” Emma Lou said,“why don’t you just keep quiet?”

“Lordy! If you’re gon’ get all huffy about it, I’ll do just that.”

For a long while, the friends sat quilting in silence broken only by deep breathing, loud sighs, and scissor snips.

“Where’s Mary Jane?”Almalee asked after a while.“I brought her a new doll dress.”

“She’s in her room,” Gran said. “She’s coming down with something. I pinned a Vicks rag to her nightgown and let her stay in bed.”

“Aw, that poor baby,” Almalee said. “I’m gon’ go cheer her up.” She fished her gift out of her bag and left the room.

“Ida Belle,” Emma Lou said, glancing up after a minute, worry deepening the wrinkles on her round face, “did you throw a fit in front of Miss Reeves Sunday?”

“I told you I don’t want to talk about that.”

“You did, didn’t you? Did you insult her?”

“No,” Gran said, keeping her eyes on her stitches. “I just came in here and left her alone.”

“Aw, Ida Belle, that was rude.” Emma Lou leaned back, took a deep breath, and just looked at Gran.

“It wasn’t near as rude as her talking about my quilt patterns like that,” Gran said. “I tell you, I don’t want nothing to do with her and I done told Sam that too. You ought to seen them young’uns hanging all over her. They’re too little to know she ain’t no good influence.”

“Ida Belle, I think you’re making a big mistake. Can’t you see Sam’s in love with her? When has he ever brought a woman over here for dinner before? And you just said the children like her. You better do some more thinking about this, hon. Besides, she may be right about those quilt patterns. Your family didn’t invent them, you know. They’re everywhere.”

“You done now?”

“Yeah, I’m done.”

“Good.”

“Sam, I’m very fond of you,” Becky said, taking his hands in hers as they sat on her sofa Wednesday night. “The times we’ve had together these past several weeks have been among the most enjoyable of my life.”

Sam’s throat leaped into his mouth. This did not sound like it was leading to anything good. He had come to make things right in some way or other, but now dread washed away all the words he had rehearsed. Becky was wearing the same white blouse and blue skirt she had on when he first saw her, and he wanted to take her into his arms and stop whatever was coming next. Somehow, though, he knew he should not. He wished he had insisted on coming over Monday night after the council meeting. After she told him not to, he convinced himself that maybe waiting was better. It gave him more time to figure out the right thing to say and a chance to put on his dress slacks and a good shirt and look his best. Now none of that seemed to matter. He squeezed Becky’s hands and struggled to clear his head and concentrate on what she was saying.

“But I don’t believe things can work between us,” Becky said, “and I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”

“I don’t understand,” Sam said, “especially if you’ve been having a good time. Please don’t let Momma come between us. I’m sorry about Sunday and I won’t ever put you in a position like that again. We can work around her some way. I don’t know how right now but I’m sure we can. Besides, while I don’t like saying it, she’s old and she’s not gon’ be here much longer.” He knew that sounded awful but he was desperate.

“Sam, wait,” Becky said. She started to put her fingers on his lips but stopped. “There’s something you don’t know about me, and I haven’t slept for three nights trying to decide whether to tell you. I’m going to, though, because I love you, because I believe you love me, because I don’t believe you’ll agree with me any other way, and because I believe if you know this, you’ll be hurt less. You may even hate me. I wanted to believe it didn’t matter but now I know it does.”

She paused and slid her hand gently along his arm.

“Okay, go ahead and tell me,” he said, putting his hand on hers, “but nothing you say is gon’ change the way I feel about you.”

She looked in his eyes, pulled her hand away, and struggled to get her breath.

“Sam, my Great-grandmother Charlene was one-half Negro, and by the way most people define race, I’m a Negro too. Even the Census Bureau says so.”

Nothing Becky could have said would have surprised Sam more. Blood drained from his face, his mind whirled, and fear swept over him. He sat thunderstruck, struggling to breathe, unable to speak or move. Part of him wanted to reach out, pull Becky close, feel her warmth, make love to her, and tell her it did not matter. And part of him fought to grasp the full weight of what she had said. He wanted to say it had nothing to do with how they felt about each other and did not change anything about their being together, but like her, he knew it did. Maybe, he thought, he had not heard her right, or maybe her facts were wrong.

“Becky,” he finally blurted, “are you sure?” It was a stupid and thoughtless response and he knew it as soon as he said it. It had just come out, like some sort of reflex. He knew he loved her and he knew he wanted to be with her. He knew he should have said that was all that mattered and he wished desperately that he had. While he tried to think of some way to erase what he had asked and replace it with what he felt, a litany of outside obstacles that were bound to stand between them filled his mind, all in an instant. If people found out—and they would—his mother, his friends, his customers, his church, the school, the whole town, and even his children would be caught up in an inescapable whirlwind. Images of other people’s scorn and hate flashed before him, slipping in and out of focus and competing with images of the beautiful woman he loved. Time seemed to stand still as he thought about the two of them trying to make a life in the face of it all. The room spun and he could not stop it. He sat frozen.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Becky said. She reached over to the coffee table, took the lid off the shirt box, and laid out two photographs. “These are pictures of my grandmother and my great-grandmother. I never knew either of them, but my mother told me about them when I finished high school.”

Sam looked at the pictures, then at Becky, and back at the pictures. Tears filled his eyes and words failed him.

Becky knew it was dangerous to tell her secret to anyone, even Sam, but that mattered less to her than her love for him. She hated hurting him, but she knew she had to tell him, and she had thought long and hard about what to say. She saw the disbelief in his face and watched him search for resemblance in the photographs and wrestle with both the suddenness of her revelation and the complexity of the entire situation, and although nothing in his reaction surprised her, it hurt to see him hesitate and wonder. She longed for him to reach out and take hold of her but she was glad he did not. She knew she had made the right choice for both of them. They could not be together, not here, not now, not ever.