Delilah Greathouse put some letters bound with a rubber band on the coffee table. She pulled down the shades in the living room as if someone would look in and see what she was reading. Then she turned on a lamp and sat on the sofa, avoiding the places where the cushions sagged. The letters had been sent to Tamar from Asher years ago. There were a lot more in the box where she stored them. Tamar received a letter almost every day for at least three or four months. Delilah had never known a man to write like that. She wondered what Asher could think up to say to do that much writing. At first Tamar wrote back almost as often, but by the time she ran away, she wasn’t writing him more than once a week.
Asher’s letters kept coming after Tamar went away. Delilah never did write to tell him what happened, that Tamar was gone, but Cornelius must have written him instead. The letters stopped coming and Asher never came back. Delilah clasped her hands in her lap and looked at the letters for a while. Tamar went away June 17th. She was doing day work by then and left that Friday morning the same as she always did, wearing her work clothes and carrying a bag with some clothes she could change into after work. It was payday. Tamar always went out with her girlfriends, spent $4.00 on dinner and a movie, or maybe makeup or a new dress, then came home and, except for a few dollars, gave the rest of her money to Delilah. That night she didn’t come home. In the morning, when Delilah went to her room, there was a note on her bed. All it said was, “I love you too much to disappoint you, but I cannot marry Asher.”
It was a long while before she read Asher’s letters. Tamar’s wedding day came and went, then Thanksgiving and Christmas. It was New Year’s Eve when she took the box of letters off the shelf in Tamar’s closet. Tamar hadn’t sent so much as a postcard in all that time. Getting those letters down was like closing a book, except there was no way to do that. Tamar was her only child.
The first letter in the stack was the one she showed Cornelius.
Yes honey, I’m taking good care of myself and I’m fully trusting in my Lord and Savior for Strength, health and Joy and peace as he is the giver of all.
There were six or seven of us who took the examination for the Army but none of us made the grade. They called us in like cattle and undress all of us together then we paraded into another room and was examined all together then they looked us over and marked on a slip of paper if there were any ailments. They put on my slip intermittent heart and vericose veins in the legs. Then we had to take that slip to Lieut. Barnos and he asked if I knew what that meant. I said no. Then he said the heart skipped a beat once in a while and that the blood veins in my legs were too large. So he said I don’t want to scare you but I’d see a doctor and have that corrected. Anyway now when I get some money coming in I’m going to a Dr. here and have him give me a thorough examination and if there is some ailment, then a correction can be made.
Even though Asher was Cornelius’s boarder, Cornelius’s wife was barren and he took to Asher like he was his own son. When Asher never returned, Cornelius decided there must have been something seriously wrong with his heart. He really did believe that Asher was dead.
The next letter was one of those she set aside because they showed her how wrong she had been to all but force Tamar into agreeing to marry Asher. She was the one who set the date, not Tamar. Long before she read these letters she knew the marriage would never happen if she waited too long.
Dearest Sweetheart,
I was glad to get your letter oj the 4th yesterday morning so I was so glad to hear from you. I am more than please to hear that you got to bed real early on Monday, that’s a good, good, girl.
I haven’t as yet received any mail from you my sweetheart today yet but maybe I’ll get one this afternoon. If I don’t I’ll be patient until tomorrow and then I’m sure I’ll have some more.
Glad to hear the Services are good and that the Lord is present Glad to hear souls are won and that they have Victory in Him. Glad to hear Joe Edwards was present. May we trust the Lord also for his conviction and repentance?
And Tobias feels a little timid. Well poor fellow. God has good use for a Soul that feels unworthy, and if the controls are turned over to the Lord.
So Miss Rand isn’t satisfied with the compleckson the Lord gave her. What a woman won’t do sometimes in order to make herself attractive to others.
Yes Honey, I’m taking good care of myself, and I’m fully trusting in my Lord and Savior for Strength, health and joy and peace as he is the Giver of All.
Well Dearie when I think about that I’m all alone I just get sick at heart but I’ll soon be with you forever. I don’t like to be alone like this. It’s just like nothing to live for. I understand now why the Lord gave us women He knew we need a Pal here on earth. And I am so glad He has given Me a Dear Pal and that’s only you. You’re the only one who can satisfy the lonesomeness in my heart. Well dear I’ll close for this time. May the lord bless you and be with you. Take good care of yourself sweetheart.
Delilah knew as soon as she read that letter how wrong she had been about Tamar and Asher. Tamar was not a churchgoing young woman. She went more frequently when Asher was courting her, but she hardly went at all once he left. Tamar liked honky-tonk music and those Delta blues. She could dance for hours without once sitting down. Tamar was not a fast woman. But she enjoyed life, and life, for her, would never be lived in the church.
Delilah also knew why Cornelius, the son of a preacher, wanted so badly to be the father of a preacher as well, if not by birth, then by some kind of adoption. Cornelius had looked at Asher and saw the son he never had, and looked at Tamar and saw the daughter he thought she could become.
As for her, she had married the old man her mother chose for her, birthed Tamar, and buried him. All what she had left was their girl child, Tamar, so alive, so full of joy, so full of life. And she had feared for Tamar. She was too outspoken, didn’t know her place in the white folks world. She was always getting into trouble in school for saying what she couldn’t, asking questions what she shouldn’t. She did bite her tongue working for that woman who called her “you” and ordered her around like slavery hadn’t been abolished, but she got paid for doing that. A little money can seem like a lot when you’re young. Tamar had a spirit that had to be stilled before it really got her into trouble. Asher had been the balm she thought would calm the wildness in Tamar’s soul. But these letters only proved to Tamar how much he would have bound her soul and so she left.
In her own youth, Delilah had always been an obedient child. She did not understand Tamar’s need, not to be bound but to be free. Had they lived in the South she would have feared for Tamar’s life. Safer here, she only wanted to protect her from herself until age and wisdom tamed her.
Asher wanted a woman Tamar could never be. It would have been better had she given in to that longing to love Tamar as she was, a filly running free in a pasture without fences. Better for all of them if she had just left well enough alone. Now Delilah would never know the woman Tamar became or what had happened to her as she grew into her grown-up self. Now she had nothing at all.