Adria cried when Aunt Tilda told her she’d have to start sleeping in one of the hotel rooms up the stairs instead of the little room beside the kitchen. She liked being close where she could get up and help Aunt Tilda fix things to eat. Not only that, but Aunt Tilda let her wash dishes in the big sink. They didn’t have a sink like that at her house. Just pans of water. But Aunt Tilda’s sink had a drain hole where the water swooshed away with a few gurgles and nobody had to carry it out the back door to sling it away.
In the dark of the morning, she could lie in her bed and hug Callie close while she listened to Louis and Aunt Tilda talking before anybody else was moving around. Adria’s heart still hurt when she thought about her mother and father and little Eddie. It hurt so bad she tried not to think about them. That was easier to do when she was helping Aunt Tilda break green beans or chop up potatoes for soup.
Aunt Tilda had a way of putting her hand on Adria’s curls that made her believe somehow everything was going to be all right. She combed her hair for her too and never fussed once about all the curls. Sometimes Aunt Tilda braided it up quick as anything to keep it out of Adria’s eyes while she was helping cook.
Best of all, if she ever noticed Adria looking sad, she stopped whatever she was doing and pulled Adria right into her apron to hug her tight. She wasn’t Adria’s mama. Aunt Tilda’s hugs didn’t feel anything like her mother’s. Her mama was soft and smelled like purple flowers. Adria forgot which kind, but her mother always put that smell in their soap. But even if Aunt Tilda was bony and old and smelled like onions sometimes, Adria still liked being folded in tight to her middle.
But when people started coming back to town, Louis carried her few clothes up the stairs to where the white people stayed. Adria told him she wanted to stay in the room by the kitchen, but Louis said that was Florella’s room and things would be better if everybody stayed in their proper places.
“I don’t have a proper place,” Adria said.
“Now don’t you think like that, missy. The Lord is gonna help us figure out all that in his good time.”
Adria couldn’t figure out anything. Not since she’d gone to the cemetery where Louis put her family. That had been too hard to think about—them under the ground together. A family. And her up above ground with no family. Only Louis and Aunt Tilda.
Louis said her parents weren’t really there in the ground. Leastways not their spirits. She had to remember how they were in glory. That day as they stood by the grave, he’d asked her what she thought glory might be like.
“I don’t know,” she answered.
He looked down at her as they walked away from the cemetery. “You ain’t never thought about glory?”
“Not till you said Mama and Eddie went there.” She dragged her feet a little as she walked. She felt like she shouldn’t leave them. “I did think about going to heaven and wondered if it would be noisy up there when, well, before you came and got me. Do you think it’s noisy in glory?”
“In my mind glory is full of ev’ry good sound a body can imagine. Angels singing. Folks shoutin’ hallelujah. And it’s bright all the time with Jesus’ light a-shinin’ off those golden sidewalks and walls of jasper.”
“What is jasper?”
“I don’t rightly know, but I’m thinkin’ it must be something mighty pretty. Maybe like the sparkly jewels rich ladies wear pinned to their dresses. Did your mama have any of those kinds of things?”
“We weren’t rich. Mama said we weren’t.”
“Well then, missy, there’s all kinds of ways to be rich, and I’m thinkin’ afore your folks passed up to glory, you was plenty rich.”
Adria wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but she asked, “Are you rich, Louis?”
“Not by this old world’s standards. Not at all. I ain’t got nothing. Don’t even belong to myself what with how Massa George, he owns me. But I got them other kind of riches. Them kind the Lord hands out. You can have those too. Every livin’ soul can just for the askin’.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will when you’re older, missy. Till then, just you don’t worry your head about it and let the good Lord take care of you.”
“Will he? Will he take care of me?”
“Yes, indeed, he will. Don’t you never wonder about that.”
But Adria did wonder about that. Especially after she had to start sleeping in the room upstairs. It was lonesome up there. And scary when she heard steps in the hallway outside the door that she knew weren’t Aunt Tilda or Louis. At times like that, she hugged her doll close and hid under the covers, even if it did make her sweat in the summer heat.
Then Mr. George came back to the hotel. The man Louis called master. He wasn’t anything like Louis. Or Adria’s father. He looked bothered when he came in the kitchen. Louis was different with him in the room. Kept his eyes down the way he had that day at the cemetery when they saw the schoolteacher’s wife.
Aunt Tilda didn’t act any different than she always did. At least not that Adria could tell. She kept on stirring the pots hung over the fire. But then she did give Adria a look. She didn’t say a word, but Adria knew to sit still and not say anything. In fact, she wished she could just crawl under the big table and hide out till the master man went away. But she didn’t do that either. She sat in her chair quiet as a spider in a web up next to the ceiling and hoped she’d be too little to notice.
For a while the man didn’t seem to see her while he talked to Louis.
“You’ll be rewarded for what you did here in Springfield, Louis. Keeping the hotel going and watching over the other businesses too while people were away. Everybody in town is talking about how you buried all those people. It was a fine thing and one we won’t forget.”
Aunt Tilda dropped a pan lid with a clatter and then murmured how she was sorry for the noise. But her back looked stiff like something was hurting her. She did say she had rheumatism, so maybe that was what had her looking sort of twisted, but something about how Aunt Tilda was standing made Adria wish she had Callie to hold on to. Instead she twisted her hands up in the apron Aunt Tilda had fixed for her to wear in the kitchen and tried to breathe quiet like Aunt Tilda’s cat when it was ready to pounce on a mouse. Trouble was, Adria felt more like the mouse than the cat while she listened to Mr. George talk.
“And I understand completely how you had to let some of the sick people stay here at my hotel and why no rooms were rented. Nobody was going to come through here once they heard about the cholera.” Mr. George looked even more bothered than he had when he first came in the kitchen as he blew out a long breath. “I’ve talked with those still here and they’re willing enough to pay for the rooms they used. At least a portion of what they would owe. I guess that’s the best I can hope to get. A portion.”
Louis spoke then. “I didn’t feel right turnin’ anybody in need away, what with how things were.”
“Completely right of you. What you should have done. People will long remember that and thank me for my generosity.”
Aunt Tilda flashed a look around so quick Adria barely caught it. Then the old woman stirred the beans with a hard jerky motion that flipped some out on the hearth. She cleaned them up with her apron tail before they started smoking.
The man went on talking. “But now that the cholera has moved on, things will have to get back to normal with people paying full price for their rooms. Business will pick up. So we can’t be giving rooms away.”
That’s when the man’s eyes landed on Adria. He hadn’t not seen her at all. He was simply waiting. “We’ll have to find somewhere for the girl. She can’t stay here without a proper guardian.”
Adria wasn’t sure what a guardian was. She sort of hoped it had something to do with a garden, but she didn’t think it did. From the man’s face, she feared it might have more to do with her not having any family after the cholera. She opened her mouth to say something, but Louis gave her a quick look. Not a mean look. Just one that said she’d best keep quiet.
“Her folks died and we hasn’t been able to find out if she has more kinfolk around here.” Louis kept his eyes low. “You wouldn’t happen to know, would you, Massa? Her name is Adria Starr.”
“Starr.” The man rubbed his chin as he looked at Adria. “Seems I remember Edward Starr. Worked at the sawmill, didn’t he?”
“Yessir, he did. They had a nice little house over on Elm Street.”
“And he died?”
“Him and his wife and little boy. Missy Adria here is the only one to make it through the cholera, and she was sick awhile. Matilda took care of her, like as how she did some of the others.”
“We thank you for that, Matilda.”
“Weren’t nothin’ but what the Lord intended, Mr. George.” Aunt Tilda looked around with something like a smile on her face, but it wasn’t one Adria had seen before. She turned back to stir the beans again, but this time she didn’t spill out any.
“True.” The man let out another long breath.
Adria kept her head down and her gaze on the table, but she could feel the man’s stare. The kitchen got too quiet except for Aunt Tilda’s spoon stirring. The silence settled down on Adria the same as it had back at her house when the clock stopped ticking and her mother went to glory.
Finally the man started talking again. “I’ll check around and see if I can find anybody kin to her. Maybe the preacher will know. They went to the Baptist church, I’m thinking.”
“The Reverend Watkins, the cholera got him, but could be others in the church might know.”
“If they don’t, maybe one of them will have enough Christian charity to take her in. She’s a little thing, but I’m sure even at her age, she could find ways to make herself useful.”
Aunt Tilda spoke up then, her voice soft but determined somehow. “We’d want to make sure they were kindly.”
“They’ll be kindly if they take her in.” The man sounded cross. “She can talk, can’t she? She’s not deaf and dumb. Might make things harder if she is.”
“Oh, no sir, she’s a fine girl.” Louis smiled over at Adria. “Tell Massa George how you ’preciate him tryin’ to help you.”
She didn’t want to, but since Louis looked like it was important, she did. “I’m glad I could come here and get well. Thank you.” She hoped that sounded good enough.
He smiled at her then and put his hand on her head. She ducked away from his touch. She couldn’t help herself, but she did smile at him. A smile something like Aunt Tilda’s a little while ago. She didn’t want to be handed off to just anybody. She wanted family. Like she’d had. Or like Louis and Aunt Tilda, but Aunt Tilda had already told her she couldn’t stay with them. They were slaves. That meant they didn’t have any freedom. She wouldn’t have any freedom either if that man gave her to some family who took her in to do chores. She’d be an orphan slave until she got big enough to be on her own. How old would that be? Maybe she was old enough already. She had a house.
Nobody said anything for a good spell after the man left the kitchen. Aunt Tilda kept stirring the beans and Louis kept staring at the floor. Finally Adria said, “I want to go back to my house and stay there.”
Aunt Tilda turned away from the stove. “You is too young to be on your own.”
“I could sleep there and come over here every day to help you.” Adria really wished she had her doll to hold.
Louis and Aunt Tilda looked at each other and then they both sat down at the table on either side of Adria. Louis reached over and laid his hand over Adria’s. “That would be a fine thing if it could be, missy, but that ain’t somethin’ we can make happen. Massa George, he’ll see to findin’ you a place.”
“What if it’s a bad place? Somewhere I don’t want to go. I’d have to go anyway, wouldn’t I?” Adria looked at Louis.
“Now, that ain’t likely to happen. Most folks is good folks, especially to pretty little girls like you. They might take you in like one of their own.”
“And they might not.” Aunt Tilda slapped her hand down on the table. “We can’t just let this child go wherever. Better if we find a place for her our own selves. Like you’re always saying, Louis. The Lord will provide.”
Adria’s heart lifted a little. If the Lord provided it, then it would be good and not somewhere where’d she have to sleep in the barn. She didn’t know why she thought that. She never knew anybody who slept in the barn except the man who took care of the horses at the livery stable, and he had a regular room there with a bed and everything. She’d seen it once when she went with her daddy to borrow a horse and wagon to fetch home a table from her grandmother’s house. For a second, hope flared. She had a grandmother, but then she remembered she’d died. Everybody died.
Louis looked doubtful, but he said, “It could be we should think on it. Say a prayer and see where the Lord might lead us.”
“And do it quick.” Aunt Tilda’s voice was firm. She looked at Adria. “Tell me, child. Is there anybody you remember knowing? Anybody at all.”
Adria tried to think. She knew people. Mrs. Hostetter from next door. Carlton, the boy who liked to chase her around the schoolyard. Mr. Riley who sat in front of them at church. The schoolteacher, Mr. Harmon. But then he was dead. She’d seen the schoolteacher’s wife at the graveyard. The woman had been nice. She’d smiled at Adria through the tears she was shedding for her husband. She had been alone. Alone like Adria.
“The schoolteacher’s wife. I know her,” Adria said.
Louis looked over at Aunt Tilda. “We saw her at the cemetery the other day when I took the little missy to see where her family lay. The lady did look nice enough. Not much bigger than a minute, like she hadn’t had anything good to eat for a spell.”
“She looked all alone,” Adria said. “Like I’m going to be if I can’t stay here with you.”
Again Aunt Tilda and Louis stared at one another for a long moment. Then Louis bent his head.
Aunt Tilda shushed Adria when she started to say something. “Better let Louis pray it out, child. Or pray with him.”
Adria wasn’t sure what to pray, but she shut her eyes and pulled up the memory of the schoolteacher’s wife. She hadn’t been very tall and, like Louis said, slim as a reed. She had pretty blonde hair tucked up under a black hat. Adria almost smiled remembering the woman telling her she should keep some things under her hat. Things like Louis and Aunt Tilda trying to figure out what to do with her and not leaving it all up to Mr. George.
Adria didn’t say her prayer out loud. She didn’t even put it into words in her head. She just sent up a longing to the Lord to find her a home with the schoolteacher’s wife.
Then Louis looked up. “There’s words somewhere in the Bible that says the reason we don’t have is because we don’t ask. I’ve heard preachers expoundin’ on that very thing.” Louis looked up at the ceiling. “So I’m askin’, Lord.”
“It’s her, the schoolteacher’s wife, you need to be askin’,” Aunt Tilda said.
“What with both you and the Lord tellin’ me that, I best be givin’ it a try.” Louis patted Adria’s hand. “Run, get that doll of yours, missy, and we’ll walk on over that way.”