twenty-three
Detroit, August 1963
Nora’s steps on the gray tile floor echoed off the bare walls. She tried to see past the cosmetic failings to the potential that might lie beneath. Torn wallpaper, water-stained ceiling, gouged door frames, dirty carpet in the next room. The place smelled like an ashtray left out in the rain. William tapped her on the shoulder and, with an almost imperceptible shake of his head, expressed the same sentiment she felt. This won’t work. This isn’t for us.
They weren’t quite out of options yet. There were other apartments in other neighborhoods. Though it seemed to Nora that she’d been in this same apartment a dozen times already. Why should the next one be any better?
“And this is the kitchen,” came the voice of Mrs. Wendell from down the hall. “The appliances are in working order, and I think you’ll like the spice rack.”
William leaned in close to Nora’s ear. “Let’s get out of here. She’s just wasting our time. We can’t live here. It’s a terrible neighborhood. No insurance company is going to cover us here.”
The overly coiffed head of their Realtor appeared in a doorway. “Come, come, we haven’t time to dillydally.”
William pushed ahead of Nora and into the kitchen. “When are you going to show us some places in Southfield or Warren?”
Mrs. Wendell offered a condescending smile. “That’s not in your budget, I’m afraid.”
“Okay, fine, but there’s better neighborhoods in Detroit. What about the East Side?”
Mrs. Wendell’s mouth became a hard line. “I don’t think so.”
“You’d show it to my wife if it was just her.”
“But it isn’t just her, is it?”
William took a step back. “I’m out of here,” he mumbled. In the next moment he was gone, and Nora stood looking at Mrs. Wendell’s disapproving scowl.
“You see, that’s why I can’t show you places in white neighborhoods. Colored people are just too emotional. No one wants a neighbor who will fly off the handle at every little thing.”
“Thank you,” Nora said. “I don’t think we’ll be needing your services anymore.” She spun on her heels and caught up with William, who was pacing up and down the hallway outside the apartment. “Let’s go.”
On the long ride back to Seward Avenue, Nora stared out the window and fiddled with an errant thread on the skirt she had hemmed the night before. The scene at her parents’ house two months earlier played back in her mind. A slack-jawed Wanda had pointed to the veranda, where Nora found her parents with drinks in hand, her father reading the paper, her mother staring into the trees. William waited in the house as Nora painstakingly paved the way for the revelation, leaving out any mention of the photo of her father that had started it all.
“I met him when Diane and I were volunteering at the Detroit Artists Market back in the spring. He told me his camera had been damaged, and I could see that he had a lot of talent but not a lot of extra money—I mean, he does have a job, but you know good cameras are so expensive—so I offered to buy him a new one.”
“That was very generous,” Mallory said with eyebrows raised.
“Important to support the arts,” Daniel said without looking up from the newspaper, “though I’d prefer you did so through some decent acquisitions.”
“He took some photos of me to test it out,” Nora continued, “and then I met up with him to see them when they were developed.”
Her mother frowned, guessing at the trajectory of the story. “And?”
“And we hit it off, of course. He’s charming and intelligent and loves his family. I’ve spent quite a bit of time with his mother and sister. They’re very nice people. His father was killed in France during the war.”
From behind the newspaper, Daniel nodded his approval of this sacrifice.
“They’re not as well-off as we are, but they are polite and well-mannered and hardworking people.”
“Then they will go far in life,” her father declared. “Our family was not always so well-off. We had to work for it. That’s what makes this country great.”
“We’ll have to meet this William someday,” her mother said noncommittally.
“Actually, he’s here now.”
Her father finally looked over the top of his paper. “Where?”
“In the kitchen. I wanted to tell you a little about him before I sprung him on you.”
“The kitchen?” Mallory said. “Why on earth did you leave him waiting there? Call him outside, Nora.”
Nora walked back into the kitchen to beckon William from the cool shadows of the house into the soft light of the perfect June evening.
As they walked hand in hand onto the veranda, Nora examined her father’s face to see if he recognized William. He didn’t seem to. But the matching expressions of shock on her parents’ faces told Nora that the next twenty minutes would be painful anyway.
William walked up to the man who had attacked him in the street and held out his hand. “Good evening, sir. I’m William Rich.”
Daniel Balsam struggled past his incredulity, got to his feet, and shook William’s hand. Nora would have taken this as a good sign had it not been for the steady change in the color of her father’s face. She had no sooner opened her mouth to preempt whatever he might say than her mother’s strangled gasp stopped her short.
“Oh, Nora! What have you done?”
Nora covered her left hand, but it was too late.
“What?” Daniel asked.
“Mom, don’t get hysterical.”
But the snowball was already rolling down the hill, and nothing could stop the avalanche of angry words that followed.
“How could you do this to us?”
“What is wrong with you?”
“You can get it annulled.”
“Where will you live?”
“Does he even have a job?”
“Are you pregnant?”
“Why would you go and pull such an idiotic stunt?”
“You have ruined your life.”
Nora weathered the barrage of disapproval, gritting her teeth like someone receiving surgery with no local anesthetic. At her side, William stood stoic and silent.
When the comments slowed enough that she could get a word in, all she could think to say was, “You seemed to like him just fine before you saw the color of his skin. And it shouldn’t matter. We’re in love.”
“No you’re not,” her father said. “You’re just trying to make some stupid statement. All you kids, all brought up with everything you could ever want. Most ungrateful bunch of idiots I’ve ever seen. Marching around town creating problems where there were none.”
“I hope it does make a statement,” Nora said with more boldness than she felt. William squeezed her hand in support. “There are problems. Real problems that can’t be ignored. And I’ll have you know I was in that march. I saw Martin Luther King speak at Cobo Hall, and he was amazing.”
“Amazing? I guess any huckster can amaze an audience of simpletons.”
“He’s a well-respected minister.”
“He’s a Baptist.”
Nora threw up her hands. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Nora, I’ll give you my solemn blessing on this farce if you can name one Presbyterian minister other than our own.”
Silence grew between them.
“You know why you can’t do it? Because we know how to mind our own business.”
Nora’s stomach turned as her own words to William rushed back.
“Francis Schaeffer,” William said in an even tone.
“No one’s talking to you, boy,” Daniel spat.
“Watch it!” Nora practically shouted. She caught the look of shock on her mother’s face at this and said in a more respectful tone, “Ending segregation is everyone’s business.”
“No it isn’t. That’s the South’s business. We were on the right side of the war. A black man can do whatever he wants up here.” He looked at William. “And he obviously does.”
Nora let out a mirthless laugh. “Maybe our ancestors were on the right side a hundred years ago, but it seems pretty obvious whose side you’re on now.”
Daniel’s eyes snapped back to his daughter. “I’ll tell you what side I’m on. I’m on the side of folks who don’t skulk around behind people’s backs and fill their daughters’ heads with propaganda. I’m on the side of decent people who do their jobs, earn their keep, and don’t rabble-rouse. And it’s apparent you’re not.”
“Maybe not. But I’m on the right side.” Nora looked at William, who nodded his support. Then she had an idea. “What about Ray?”
“Ray?” her father said incredulously. “The groundskeeper? What does he have to do with any of this?”
“You like Ray.”
“Ray is not trying to sleep with my daughter!” Daniel appeared on the verge of erupting. He closed the gap between them, stopping a few inches from Nora’s face. “Black people already ruined this family once, young lady.”
Nora’s breath caught. “What?”
“You will get this marriage annulled.”
“I most certainly will not!”
Daniel clenched his fists, white knuckles delineating the end of every bone. His cheeks trembled in what seemed to be a herculean effort to keep from exploding. “Fine. I want nothing to do with you or him.” He raised a finger and began to wave it at her face. “No more apartment. No more clothes. No more restaurants. No more money to waste on junk art. And you can leave the Corvette here and call a cab to get back to whatever slum this guy’s been living in. He won’t get his grubby paws on even a cent of Balsam money. Not a cent. Now get out of my house.”
Whatever cold reception she had anticipated from her father, Nora had not been prepared for this. The magnitude of her hasty marriage began to accumulate like a great weight on her chest. Her mother sat in stony silence, her face an emotionless mask.
Stunned, Nora led William into the house. She veered off to the kitchen as he kept going out the front door. She picked up the phone to call a cab. Her mother appeared in the doorway and took it out of her hand. “I’ll take you.”
The long drive was silent beyond the giving of directions. When they pulled up to the Rich house, William got out of the car without a word and went inside.
Nora hung back, fighting tears. “Mom, I wish you would be happy for me.”
Mallory looked at her daughter, her own eyes shining with unshed tears. “How could I be happy for you when I know what your life will be like now? What was wrong with Michael Kresge? Or Kenneth Lowe? Or any of the others?”
Nora shook her head. “How can you even ask me that?” She started to open the car door, but her mother squeezed her hand.
“Call me when you’re settled and give me your new address.”
That night and all the next day Nora and William emptied out her apartment, shoving her clothes and shoes and coats into every closet in the Rich house until they spilled out onto the floors. Boxes of her books and keepsakes filled the basement. Her makeup, brushes, and curlers littered the bathroom counter and jammed the drawers. The house she had admired for its cleanliness and spare ornamentation had been inundated with the clutter that came from a life where money was no object.
Though Mrs. Rich was welcoming, Nora could tell she was uncomfortable with the situation. Bianca too was courteous, but sighed constantly and closed curtains whenever she found them open. Even William seemed on edge, and Nora wondered if he regretted their decision to get married.
But J.J. was the worst. Nora began to suspect that he was sabotaging her. An expensive shoe turned up missing. A favorite blouse had an unidentifiable stain. A lipstick was smashed. A coat lining was torn. One night at dinner, Nora pondered aloud the disappearance of a diamond-studded bracelet, and J.J. said what everyone must have been thinking.
“Man, I wish you would disappear. Just get outta here. This ain’t your house.”
“J.J.!” Bianca whacked him on the back of his head.
Everyone looked at their plates, but Nora could see the truth in their faces. She and William needed to find a place of their own. Fast.
Yet two tedious months later they were no closer to success.
As she and William neared the house, Nora was stunned to see her mother’s car on the street in front of it. She was even more surprised to see Mallory Balsam sitting next to Mrs. Rich on the couch, sipping a cup of tea.
“What are you doing here?” Nora asked.
“Hello to you too. I came to see what happened to you. You were going to call when you found an apartment.”
“We’re still looking.”
“So Louise tells me.”
Mrs. Rich rose. “Give me a hand in the kitchen, Will.”
They left Nora staring at the empty spot next to her mother.
“Are you going to sit down?”
Nora rounded the coffee table and sat. “Don’t say I told you so.”
“That’s not why I’m here, Nora.” Mallory folded her hands. “I’m sorry about what happened. We were both quite shocked. You can’t pretend that we shouldn’t have been. But I want you to know that I don’t share your father’s view on cutting ties. That’s why I’m here.”
They were silent a moment. Nora felt herself begin to unravel like the hem of her skirt.
“Anywhere they’ll even show us an apartment it’s horrible.” She took a slow breath and stifled the tears that threatened to spill forth.
Her mother said nothing.
Nora stared out the front window and tried to understand. Why did people care about what she did with her own life? How did her marriage affect anyone else? How was it any of their business at all? Then she voiced the question she had been brooding over for the past two months. “What did Daddy mean when he said black people ruined this family?”
Mallory shook her head. “I don’t know, honey. You’d have to ask him.”
“I’ll do that,” Nora said bitterly. “On our next golf outing, perhaps.”
Mallory ignored this. “I do have a possible solution to your problem of where to live. It would mean a lot of changes. But perhaps that would be a good thing.”
Nora gave her mother a quizzical look.
“There is a house that has been in the family for generations. A big house. Your Grandma Rose told me about it not long before she died. There’s no mortgage. Your father and Uncle David have kept up on the taxes. All the furniture is still there, though I’m not sure what shape it’s in. It hasn’t been lived in for thirty years, so it may need some work.”
Hope rose in Nora’s heart. “Where is it?”
“That’s the catch. It’s not in town.”
“So where is it?”
Mallory sipped at her tea. “Up north a ways, just outside of Lapeer.”
“Lapeer! We can’t move to Lapeer. What about William’s job?”
“I said it would mean changes. But you said yourself that you don’t have many options here. If you lived out in the country, at least you wouldn’t be bothered every day by people on the street.”
“But what is William supposed to do? Become a farmer?”
Mallory shrugged. “It’s not far from Flint. I’m sure he could find another job. He does have a car, doesn’t he?”
“Of course he has a car.”
“Okay, okay. No need to get defensive.”
They were both quiet a moment.
“You could make some extra money sewing if you needed to,” Mallory suggested.
Nora’s heart sank at the thought of having to take in sewing for other people. It was just something she did for fun. “Does Dad know you’re here offering this house to me?”
“No. And there’s no reason for it to concern him. If he’s intent on pretending this whole situation doesn’t exist, then he won’t go looking into where you’re living.”
Slowly, the thought of being where prying eyes would not see her—where no one would even know she was there—caught hold of Nora. A house just for her and William. And their children. Children who would never need hear their parents jeered at. A yard for them to play in away from the dangerous streets. Just their own little family, insulated from the world. Protected. Secluded. Safe.
“I’ll think about it.”
But she didn’t need to. In her heart, she was already there.