ATLANTA, 1873
THE TWELFTH NIGHT CARNIVAL CAME TO ATLANTA IN A BLAZE OF bonfires and fireworks that first week of the New Year, with a fancy masque ball at the Kimball House Hotel and a gaslight parade through the streets of the city. But for good Catholics like Mattie’s family, Twelfth Night was also a holy day of obligation, honoring the arrival of the wise men in Bethlehem twelve days after Christmas. “Epiphany” they called it, and spent the day in prayer and oblation, and though Mattie could have been excused for missing Mass so soon after the bereavement of her family, she wanted to offer her prayers in church. With all the rush to find the priest before her father’s death and the hurried burial after, there had been no time for a proper requiem mass to be spoken. So with John Henry as her traveling companion, she hurried back to Atlanta to take her place among the communicants at the Church of the Immaculate Conception that Epiphany morning, attending mass in honor of her beloved father.
It was an odd atmosphere for a church service, John Henry thought, with the noise and the revelry in the streets outside and the hushed reverence of the sacraments inside. As the main sanctuary of the church was still being completed, mass was held in the chilly basement chapel and the parishioners stayed bundled in coats and scarves and tried not to notice the stone paver floor, hard and cold against reverent bended knees. Along the brick foundation walls, heavy candles in brass sconces gave off a shadowy, flickering light and filled the room with smoke that mingled with the incense on the cloth-covered altar to make a pungent perfume. There were no stained-glass windows in that dark basement chapel, no soaring vaulted ceilings as there would be when the rest of the church was completed, yet there was something supernal about that little gathering of worshippers sharing the Eucharist in dark simplicity. They seemed to John Henry like a congregation of early Christians, hiding in the cata-combs while all of Rome made merry outside.
But there was nothing merry in Mattie’s prayerful worship that morning. She was still crying over the loss of her father, her voice breaking as she repeated the words of the prayers:
“Pater Noster qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum, adveniat regum tuum, fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra . . .”
John Henry repeated the words along with her in a voice still hoarse from his recent illness. He was proud that he’d learned enough Latin in school to understand the Lord’s Prayer, at least, though there would be much more to learn when he converted to Catholicism, as he would most certainly need to do to marry Mattie. He’d convert right away if that would make her happy. He would do anything to make her happy again, but he felt helpless against the tide of her grief. Her mourning was as dark as the black crepe that veiled her face, like a shadow that separated her from him. Deep mourning, Sarah Fitzgerald had called it, and there would be six more months of it before he saw the light of her smile again.
With the chill and smoke of the basement chapel and the cold of the January morning outside, his cough started back up again, and by the time he and Mattie returned to Forrest Avenue following Mass, he was ready for a rest. But rest would not be allowed him, for before he could even take off his heavy wool coat and hat, Sophie handed him a telegram.
“Just arrived,” she said. “Hope it ain’t bad news. Seems like this family’s had nothin’ but bad news, lately.”
The telegram was from Martha Hidalgo, and the words were tragically simple:
Francisco dying. Come soon.
There was no milagro for Francisco. The cold winter had brought the pneumonia with it, like it had to Uncle Rob, and Francisco’s consumption-ravaged lungs couldn’t overcome the effects of two diseases, though in the end it was the consumption that killed him. John Henry had never seen the final hours of a consumptive, having been too young at his mother’s death to be allowed into the sick room. But he saw more than he wanted to now. Francisco’s lungs, scarred by the disease, slowly filled with water from his own breathing, and the lack of oxygen left him delirious as he slipped in and out of a pain-ridden consciousness. He called for Martha, then didn’t know her. He asked for water, then couldn’t drink. He struggled against the end, tossing and moaning and gasping for breath. And at the last, his breath gurgled out as he lay drowning in his own bed. John Henry had seen wounded animals struggle to live, downed by his own gunshot, though after the struggle there seemed to be an accepting peace in the death. But there was no peace here. Francisco died with his eyes wide open, sheer terror in them, more awful than the death of any hunted animal.
John Henry would have been happy to leave right then, going back to Atlanta and forgetting the whole awful ordeal. But Francisco had asked him to watch over the family, and he had an obligation to fulfill. So while Martha Hidalgo prepared for the laying out of her husband’s body and the funeral and burial that would follow, John Henry rode back into Griffin to deliver the news of his death. If Francisco had been a man of substance instead of a struggling farmer, there would have been etiquette to follow: funeral announcements printed on vellum paper edged with black ink, notices written to the local papers, telegrams sent to distant family and friends. As it was, the best John Henry could do was make calls on the businesses along Hill Street and Solomon Street, inviting all who had known him to pay their respects to Francisco Hidalgo at his funeral at County Line Baptist Church in Jenkinsburg. It was amazing how many said they would attend; Francisco’s years working as a barber in Griffin had earned him many friends. And though John Henry knew that his father wouldn’t come, he sent a wire to Henry as well—Francisco would have wanted it that way.
But there was one last thing that Francisco would have wanted that wasn’t so easy to accomplish. Francisco had asked him to watch over his children, to make sure they were not left orphaned as he had been, and John Henry had promised that he would. He had made the promise lightly, not understanding until later how Francisco had suffered as a child and how much he wanted to save his children from the same suffering. But lightly made or not, a promise was a promise, and he was bound to keep it. And now that he saw the state into which Francisco’s death had flung his family—husbandless, fatherless, close to hopeless—he knew he had to do whatever he could to help. But how? He was too far away, living in Atlanta, to make more than occasional visits, and even so, all the traveling back and forth was wearing him out. There was no other choice but to leave his Uncle John’s house and move to Griffin where he could practice dentistry, yet be a reasonable ride away from Francisco’s family in Jenkinsburg should they need him.
Of course, moving would mean leaving Mattie behind, but in her state of mourning, being near her was almost harder than being without her. Living down the hall from her, spending his nights so close without being able to be closer, was tormenting. Moving away for a while was clearly the right thing to do, but funding such a move would be a problem. His monthly rents from the Iron Front Building would only be enough to pay for a boarding house room, not to purchase the dental equipment he would need to outfit an office. But the Iron Front could yield enough for all that and more—if he sold it.
He was chilled already from hours of walking through downtown Griffin in the icy January afternoon, and with the thin light fading into dusk, he was only going to get colder. A drink would help to warm him some and bolster his courage enough for what he knew he had to do, and there was one place where he could probably find a drink and sell his property, too. But before he pushed open the door to N.G. Phillips’ liquor store, he stood back to take a final look at his inheritance. It was a fine house, the Iron Front Building, red brick all around and solidly built to last a lifetime. With care, it would still be standing in a hundred years, long windows looking out onto Solomon Street. But at least with his inheritance property turned into cash money, the gambler Hyram Neil could never come find it. He took a deep breath, coughing on the cold dry air, and stepped into the store.
“Mr. Phillips,” he said slowly, letting his eyes adjust to the even dimmer light inside. “I’d like to reconsider your offer to buy my building.”
“Reconsider? Why, Dr. Holliday, I thought you had your heart dead set on holding onto it!”
“I had my heart dead set on a lot of things. Is your offer still good?”
“Eighteen-hundred dollars.”
“Then why don’t you open us up a bottle of that Tennessee and we’ll get down to business.”
Phillips pulled two glasses from under the sales counter and popped the cork off an amber whiskey bottle. “Mind if I ask what changed your thinkin’?”
“Mi hermano,” John Henry said, though he knew that Phillips would never understand.
County Line Baptist Church had been founded just after the start of the War, with Martha and Francisco Hidalgo among the nineteen original members. And though the church had grown some since then, services were still held in the old schoolhouse that was the congregation’s first chapel. The building was set in a grove of pine and sweetgum trees just past the main road of Jenkinsburg, and if it hadn’t been for the rows of gravestones in the churchyard cemetery, the chapel would still look like nothing more than a schoolhouse. But that was fine with the members of the County Line congregation. Church was a school, after all, where God-fearing Christians learned from the Good Book and sinners were taught to repent.
The funeral was as simple as the little church building in which it was held. The plain wooden coffin stood at the head of the main aisle, unadorned with flowers or even the usual black crape drapings—Francisco’s family had no money for such a show of bereavement. But the family’s mourning was clear enough to see, even without yards of crape and arrangements of funeral flowers. Martha, her face veiled, was surrounded by her six older children all dressed in their most somber clothing and sitting huddled together on the first row of the straight-backed pews. The four boys were solemn-faced, but the girls were weeping out loud, a sound made even more pitiable by baby Nita’s happy cooing. She was just three months old and would never know the father who had worried so over her future.
But desolate as the family was, they were far from deserted. The little church was full to overflowing with Francisco’s friends and acquaintances from as close by as Jenkinsburg and as far off as Fayetteville. Even Doc Whitehead, the physician from over at Indian Springs, had closed his office for the day to pay his respects. It seemed that, for a poor man, Francisco had been rich in some ways.
All those mourners must be some consolation to Martha Hidalgo, John Henry thought—but they were no consolation to him. He’d had too much of dying and burying in the past few weeks, and even Pastor Kimbell’s hopeful obsequies couldn’t lift his own mournful spirits.
“They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength,” the pastor quoted as he read from the Holy Book, “they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint. . . ”
The familiar cadence of the scripture reminded John Henry of his mother and the way her musical voice had made the ancient words come alive.
“In the world ye shall have tribulations; but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world . . .I am the resurrection, and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live . . .”
But there was no cheer in the words for John Henry today; his mother was gone, his uncle was gone, and now Francisco was gone, too. And as far as he could see, the resurrection was a long ways off.
It wasn’t until the funeral service ended and the congregation moved outside for the burial that he saw his father standing solemnly just inside the church door. He shouldn’t have been surprised to see his father there, as he sent the news himself. But he’d never really expected Henry to make the long journey up from Valdosta just to watch Francisco’s remains go into the ground. It was, after all, a three-day’s train ride with the usual stopovers for food and sleep, and Henry would have had to ride straight through to get to Jenkinsburg in time for the funeral. There was no figuring him out, that was for sure. He hadn’t been around to bury Uncle Rob the month before, his own younger brother, but now he appeared out of nowhere for a servant boy he hadn’t seen in years. But there was no avoiding him either, now that he was here, and John Henry made his way to his father’s side.
“Mornin’, Pa,” he said under his breath as the mourners shuffled past. “I reckon you got my wire.”
Henry nodded. “I had some business up in Atlanta, and figured I’d stop by to pay my respects.”
John Henry didn’t comment on the fact that his father’s business seemed surprisingly convenient, demanding his arrival in North Georgia just when Francisco was being eulogized. But then, irony was not one of Henry’s strong points.
“And how did you happen to be around to send the wire, anyhow?” Henry asked.
“Martha sent me word that Francisco was dyin’. Helpin’ out with the funeral seemed to be about all I could do. She’s had her hands full with that new baby of theirs.”
“Fool thing to do, bringing a new baby into the world, sick as he was,” Henry commented.
“I reckon they were thinkin’ more of life than death,” John Henry replied, remembering Francisco’s hope for a miracle .
“Well, they should have been thinkin’ about who’d be needin’ food and shelter when Francisco passed. I don’t suppose those boys of his are big enough yet to run a farm alone. Rueben’s not sixteen yet, and he’s the oldest. And little Finney’s only six, for hell’s sake.”
It wasn’t his father’s language that surprised John Henry, even within the sacred walls of the church house, but the fact that he knew the ages of Francisco’s children. Who would have thought that Henry would even remember their names?
“Martha’s figurin’ on hirin’ some help until the boys get bigger,” John Henry said. “But it’s not all that much of a farm, anyhow.”
It was the wrong thing to say, he discovered too late.
“And what makes you a judge of a man’s farm, John Henry?” his father said in an angry whisper.
“I was just makin’ an observation . . .”
“Francisco had two-hundred acres on that place, all turned over by himself and those boys. Slave work, in the old days, but they done it. And likely more work than you’ll ever know.”
And all at once, John Henry felt like a child again trying to please his hero-father. “I know farm work, Pa,” he said, defending himself. “I grew up at Cat Creek, remember? And I worked in the Pecan orchard, too, before comin’ up here.”
But Henry turned steel-blue eyes on him, and said coolly:
“I remember workin’ the farm while you practiced your piano lessons. And as I recall, you only spent a couple of weekends in the orchard before you took a sudden notion to make a visit to Atlanta. I don’t believe you ever worked hard enough in your whole life to wear a callus on your hand, John Henry.”
He couldn’t have been more hurt if Henry had slapped him across the face, humiliation and pain altogether. Try as he might, he was never good enough for his father. But he wasn’t a child any longer and he couldn’t let Henry see the anguish his words had caused.
“No, Pa, I don’t believe I ever have. But that doesn’t mean I don’t work hard, anyhow. Why, there’s been days I’ve left Dr. Ford’s office so tired I can hardly walk home . . .”
“Your home, John Henry, is in Valdosta. But that is another matter. Right now, I’ve got a boy to bury.”
And as his father turned on his boot heel and walked out into the graveyard, John Henry watched him in stunned silence. For there was such an unexpected sadness in Henry’s words that instead of calling Francisco “boy,” he might as well have called him “son.”
In the little graveyard next to the church, the mourners were already gathered around the open chasm of Francisco’s waiting grave. The formal religious service was over and all that remained were the singing of a final hymn and the last prayer before the red dirt was shoveled over the lowered coffin. The placing of a proper gravestone would come later. For now, the only grave marker would be the new mound of freshly turned red Georgia clay.
Tara, John Henry thought, remembering Sarah Fitzgerald’s fanciful words. This, too, was Tara, except that Francisco was Mexican, not Irish, and this was no consecrated Catholic plot. But Francisco had loved the Georgia soil that was soon to be his final home, and maybe that was enough to make this a Tara for him.
Then the hymn singing began and John Henry’s thoughts turned sharply from Irish legends. The song was so familiar that he could almost sing the words from memory.
“Abide with me: fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide!
When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.”
He had sung that song in church services when he was just a boy, sitting restless by his mother at the old Presbyterian Church in Griffin. But there was something more than restlessness in his memory of it, something more like sadness and shame mixed together . . .
And then he remembered when he’d last heard that song. It was on the long road from Fayetteville to Griffin, riding home from his Grandpa Holliday’s funeral, as his mother sang and he sat in the back of the wagon, holding the heavy knowledge that he knew she was going to die.
“Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;
Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see;
O Thou, who changest not, abide with me . . .”
He looked up at his father, standing beside Martha Hidalgo at the head of the grave, and had a sudden longing to reach out to him, to put aside the pain of the past and somehow grab ahold of the childhood he had lost. He sniffed back a surprise of unmanly tears, took two steps toward Henry, put out a hand to touch his father’s shoulder . . .
Then Henry’s words made him freeze in his tracks.
“There’s an inheritance, Martha,” Henry was saying. “It came from his mother’s folks, a business house over in Griffin. I’ll see what I can do about having him deed it over to you, for the children. He won’t be needin’ it. He’s got a position waitin’ for him back in Valdosta, and God knows he’s got no sense for handling property. I should have arranged for it to go to Francisco years ago. He’d have appreciated it more than John Henry ever will. He was a good boy, Francisco. He was always a good boy . . .”
Then Henry stopped to clear his throat and wipe something from his eye, and Martha smiled and nodded.
“I know, Major, I know. And Francisco always did love you, too. He always thought of you as a father.”
Henry cleared his throat again and said in a voice hardly audible: “Well, I’d have been proud to have had a son like him . . .”
John Henry drew a quick hard breath of the cold January air, barely noticing the pain as it filled his aching lungs. There was a bigger ache inside of him, buried deep in his chest, where his heart felt like it was breaking.
“Your father loves you,” his mother had said, “more than he even knows . . .”
But he’d loved Francisco more.