Chapter Sixteen

SARAH, AGE 17

Sarah bundled up her two skirts, three shirts, two dresses, pair of church shoes, and two weeks’ worth of underwear into the borrowed satchel. She tiptoed to the bathroom for her toothbrush, deodorant, and feminine napkins. She didn’t have money to buy more. All she had was twenty-seven dollars, enough to get her to New York on the Greyhound bus.

But not enough to come back.

Was that a squeak? Sarah froze. Here, nothing squeaked unless it was supposed to. She wasted precious minutes determining whether it was a rare trick of the wind before she slipped back to her room, stuffed her sweater into the bag, and shimmied to the window she’d wedged open earlier. Departure at 1:30 a.m. sharp. She dropped the bag to the ground and looked back one last time.

There she saw Milton, Thomas, Mary, Ruthena, Little Ed, and Elisabeth huddled around “marbles,” stones of different colors, shapes, and sizes that Thomas had taken months to collect, smooth, and polish. He was showing them how to shoot just so, but most of all, how to do it without too much excitement and alert Mama. Seventeen-year-old Sarah wished she could go back to scoop up baby Milton out of harm’s way. If only—

“If you gon’ git, then git. Don’t be breakin’ my sash wit yo’ big be-hind.”

Sarah immediately returned to the present, but not quickly enough to avoid falling out the window. Fortunately, she landed on the padded satchel. Unfortunately, she sprawled right in front of worn slippers that, like Mama, had seen better days.

“Better. Yo’ feet belong on the ground and not up in my winda.”

Numb and dumb, Sarah brushed herself off.

“So where you headed?” Mama bent down and retrieved Sarah’s bag. She took her daughter’s right hand and placed the handle in it.

Out of instinct, Sarah grasped the curved wood tightly.

“It look like you got all yo’ stuff in there. Better not be none of mine.”

Sarah finally mustered the strength to speak. “No, ma’am.”

“You best be tellin’ the truth. I ain’t got the kinda money to be fundin’ nobody’s world tour.” Mama took in Sarah’s jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers. “So where you headed?”

“New York.”

“Well, take care. I hear ’bout strange thangs from up thataway. I hope you got more’n what you got on if you hope to make it up there.” Mama shook her head wisely as if she knew all about the dangers and mysteries of a big northern city. “You got somethin’ lined up?”

“My friend up there will help me get into secretary school. Then I can get a job.”

“But where you gon’ stay in the meantime?”

“She’s got an extra room.”

“Well, I know she ain’t gon’ let you stay there for nuthin’. You ain’t got money to pay no rent. She liable to slam the do’ right in yo’ face the minute you show up on her stoop.”

“No, Mama. It’s not like that! I can stay there for free. At least until I start making money. She needs a roommate, but she doesn’t trust just anybody. She figures my being there will help her as much as it will help me.”

“You got this all figured out, aintcha?” Mama asked quietly, lethally. “You got school lined up, even a place to stay. You been plannin’ this fo’ how long, this run fo’ freedom? You was just gon’ let us wake up and find you gone. Is that so?”

It was then Sarah saw the trap. “No, Mama—”

“Then I s’pose you tried to wake us, but we was just sleepin’ too heavy. ’Course, if you looked fo’ me, I wan’t there ’cause I was waitin’ for you out here.” Mama stared at her. “What? Was we just s’posed to hope you warn’t dead somewhere?”

Sarah had a bus to catch. And she was even more determined now to make it. “Mama. I didn’t want you to try and stop me. This is something I’ve gotta do. I was going to let you know when I got settled.”

“Oh, ain’t that nice. But don’t worry, I wouldn’ta tried to stop you. Nobody stopped me when I got it in my fool head to do some runnin’.” Mama shook her head. “But how you s’posed to make it in New York if you cain’t even stand up to yo’ own mama?”

Sarah wasn’t sure how to answer the question, so she kept her mouth shut.

Mama watched Sarah for a moment before she sighed. “Well, it’s late, and I guess now I got yo’ chores to do in the mornin’.”

“Look, Mama. I’ve got to go. I’m gonna miss my bus.” She thought about reaching out for a hug or a kiss, but she thought better of it and instead grasped her mother’s dry hand. Surprised, she looked down at what had been pressed into her own. “Mama? Your Bible?”

“You gon’ need it more’n you need those newfound friends of yo’s.”

“But your mama gave you—”

“My mam gave me lots of thangs, includin’ yo’ name. And you ain’t got no problem takin’ that wit’ you to New York. You got a long road ’head of you.” Beatrice stared into the darkness.

Sarah did hug her mother quickly then, before she backed away. “Like I said, Mama, don’t worry about me. It’s New York you need to worry about. You watch and see.”

Sarah retreated a few more steps as Mama continued to stare at her with that look of hers. “I love you, Mama. Really.” But she wouldn’t miss her. Sarah clasped the Bible to her chest and withdrew another step before she turned and ran. The dark soon swallowed her.

——————

Sarah panted heavily as her run slowed to a trot and then to a walk. Finally she stood still, thinking back to the day she’d made her great escape—what her husband, Samuel, called her long-ago trek to the city. Sarah never did make it back to Spring Hope. Not to stay. But after reading her mother’s letter in the bright sunshine of a Manhattan summer morning, she wished that she could go back. Today. Right now. Sarah stepped off the treadmill and picked up the letter again. She skipped past the introduction and read.

So you made it in the big city. You should know how all the people here in Spring Hope talk about you and your fancy life with the doctor. They think you something right out the television—remember The Jeffersons? Those folks on that show didn’t seem all that happy to me, but you know how people is with their money. As long as they got that, they think everything’s all right. Is everything all right with you? I hope you got more than money keeping you warm at night in that big old apartment. At least when y’all was young, we was warm here in this little house even if you wasn’t always happy.

Well, I been doing some running of my own, girl. The doctors say I don’t have much time, and believe me, I wanted to run away when I heard it. Not because I’m afraid of death. I just figured I had more to do here than I do over there. But I’ve stopped running. God says it’s ’bout time to come home. I know your husband might have a better understanding than the rest, so I’m leaving word with my doctor to tell Samuel the particulars.

Sarah, I been thinking a lot about that night you left here. I bet you almost peed in your drawers when you fell out the window and seen me. I didn’t tell you, but I understood your leaving. I was much younger than you when I left my own mam and pap. Sometimes I wish I had hopped on a bus to some big city instead of hitching up with your daddy to come here to Spring Hope. There really ain’t been that much hope here for me.

You did what you needed to, and I guess it turned out all right. I know you expected me to drag you back inside, but to tell you the truth, it’s good you made the decision to get on with your life. I didn’t have money to give, but I gave you all I had. I just wanted you to think about what you was doing, what you was getting into, and I wanted you to have the best of me with you.

Nobody did that for me when I had it in my head to get, so I wanted to do that for you. You really didn’t need me to hug you or kiss you. That might have led you to think you shouldn’t go, that your home needed you. But you was like our Abraham, sent out from all his peoples, and just like him you got what God promised you. And at last count of that family of yours, you off to a good start.

Sarah, we both knew you needed to go, that you had to go. And you knew you could have come back if you wanted to, not that you’d have wanted to. I didn’t have that choice. Much as I might have wanted to, I couldn’t never go back. Just as much as I knew what you needed then, I feel like I know what you need now, at least from me.

If you was here, I would put my arms round you. Really, I would. I’d tell you, you done a good job, but that you still got some traveling to do on that road of yours. You got six children to care for and a husband to look after. And you got some work to do for yourself. That’s the important part I don’t want you to forget. Don’t get so wrapped up in what others need for you to do that you leave out that most important part. I didn’t do such a good job of that, and I have to live with it.

Pray on what that is and get back on the bus, girl. You got my Bible and you got plenty of money, so you can afford to ride a good long time. I love you.

Your mama

Sarah tucked her mother’s letter back into the envelope and set it in the tray atop the treadmill, covering up the number of calories she had burned, her pace, and the miles she had run that morning. Sarah considered the words to the Frost poem—“. . . and miles to go before I sleep . . .”—until the activity inside the brownstone captured her attention.

Even at this early hour, the boys were at it again: Nicholas and Sam Jr., tussling on her Aubusson rug over some insult or misdeed, real or imagined. Grace and Victoria, wide-eyed, omelets forgotten. Sarah grabbed the handle of the French door, intent on breaking up the commotion before they woke four-year-old twins Evangeline and Benjamin, but then she stopped herself. “He’s the one who says he wants to do this, so let him handle it.” Sarah stretched, focusing on the view beyond their sunroom to tune out the hullabaloo inside.

After a few moments Sarah was ready for the rest of what her mother had to say. She positioned herself in the sun that rebelliously beamed through the tinted glass, the farthest point away from the growing din inside—ah, there go the twins!—and took extra care withdrawing the second letter. It crackled as she flattened it. The faded words leaped from the page:

Saragirl,

You dont member me, I spose. You only called me daddy wonse in yo year of livin wit me. I member the firs time you sed my name I was seein to the truck. You came up hind me and like to scard me to deth. I jumped a mile and you cried so. I was the won sorry makin you cry like that. Jus like Im sorry now littel Sarah. I wonder if you dun much cryin over my leavin, but you probly dun wit it by now. Yeh I magin you got yo own reasons to cry now that dont hav nuthin to do wit me. I can still see you runnin roun bare butt with B tryin to git you in the tub. You was so yung and still had that free hart. Milton jus layin ther cooin and goin on. Nether yall new wat life was realy like. Not like the rest of us. I hope you still runnin free werever you is. Even if you got to do it in yo hed like I did.

I ben thinkin bout all I had to leav. All I got in Jasper is work. No woman. No kids. No home to call mine. Jus this job and a room over the sto. The woman who hired me is like yo ma. She dont take no mess and I can trus her. But she also trus me wit her bisness. B dint never trus me wit nuthin speshally you chillun. She probly thank I proved her rite in the end. But I kep secrets. Dint never tell nobody but I the won payin for it. And that aint fare to me or my boy. I hope yall unnerstan somday. If you see roun it come see me at 23 Reedy Creek. Im here. War Im gon go now? Take care of yoself.

Henton Agnew

Daddy! He wrote me. He missed me! He hadn’t wiped the dust off his feet and forgotten them. He’d taken the time to write that he wanted to see her. Wait! Is he still alive somewhere? Did he send this letter to contact—?

With an almost-audible thump, Sarah landed on earth. Daddy’s dead. If not, the Social Security Administration had screwed up ten years ago. Sarah squeezed her eyes shut, feeling like she had lost her father yet again. Her right hand curled into a fist.

“Sarah?”

She answered her husband absently. “What is it, Sam?”

“The little ones are up and . . . I’m not sure. They’re kind of cranky. What do you usually do when you’re teaching the others?”

Sarah looked up into Henton’s face, at least how she remembered it. She pictured him in his clunky boots, a toolbox in one hand and his gray hat in the other. Behind Henton she saw her brothers and sisters playing on the floor, their fight resolved.

“Henton” cleared his throat. “Hon?”

Sarah blinked and her vision cleared. Of course, those were her own rambunctious bunch, not her siblings. And Sam was holding a wailing four-year-old, not a toolbox or a hat. Her husband, the brilliant doctor who commanded an emergency room. The faithful provider who had bought her this beautiful brownstone and whisked her away from a life as a waitress and a tiny walk-up in Brooklyn. The struggling father who had saved others’ lives but was woefully out of place in his own family’s.

For a painful moment she considered letting him suffer.

“Excuse me, Sarah, but a little help here?”

“Of course, Sam.” Sarah reached for Benjamin, who was still half-asleep, and she snuggled his pillow-soft cheek. She gave Evangeline the eye, and immediately the child’s screeching quieted to a whimper, then finally rolled over and died.

“How do you do that?”

“Well, dear, it’s not brain surgery.” Her lips hinted at a smile. “Are you sure you’re up for this?”

This—Evangeline, whose copious tears and runny nose had left wet spots all over his Brooks Brothers dry-clean-only shirt. Homeschooling, running the household, the sports, the lunches, the baths. Her life Samuel had decided to take over for the foreseeable future until he could call her family their family. The relinquishing of the life he loved at the hospital, the patients who adored him, their fast-paced, well-to-do urban lifestyle.

“Of course.” Sam met her gaze unflinchingly. He used his shirttail to wipe Evangeline’s nose. He promised her a cookie and his iPad once she had breakfast and read Dick and Jane. Then he scooped her up, and she tucked her head under her father’s chin, mirroring her minutes-older brother. He turned and stepped into their family room, completely out of his element.

But not for long, she prayed, she believed. Sarah loved him, this anti-Henton who’d left everything else behind for his family instead of the other way around. She knew that ten, twenty, thirty years down the road, her own children would be safe from reading their own “Dear John” letters from an absentee father, and she was grateful for God’s grace in sending her this man. When she stepped into the family room and beheld the stain on her antique rug, she held on to that prayer and looked the other way. Now was not the time to fuss about the incomplete English lessons, the mess, the broken naps, or the crying. It wasn’t the time to look at the past and mourn what once was. She had a new life ahead of her, perhaps a new career, something other—not more—than orchestra, soccer games, textbooks, and playdates.

Her heart filled with hope, her brain with newfound resolve, and a squirming armload, Sarah mentally tucked away her mother’s letter for the moment and put Henton’s in cold storage. Smiling internally, she murmured, “‘War Im gon go now?’”