Daddy told Ray and me that he was going over to Adrian to pay a visit to Mama. That she’d asked him to come when they’d talked the night before.
His eyes were bright like he’d gotten a good night’s sleep for once, and he sat up straighter in his chair at the table. Seeing Daddy almost back to himself was good for my heart. I tried holding out hope that we might just be okay after all, but it wasn’t too easy after how Mama talked to me on the telephone the night before.
His smile was quicker to pull up the corners of his mouth. I wondered if that was the way Wilhelm from Aunt Carrie’s story had looked after finding the pearl that would heal up Marta’s heart.
“Opal’s going to stay the night with you,” Daddy said to Ray and me over his morning cup of coffee. “I expect you both to help her out, hear?”
“Won’t you come home?” I asked.
“Well, of course I will.” He took a gulp of coffee. “But in case it’s real late by the time I get back, I’ll just have Opal here.”
“Can we go?” I asked. “Ray and me? We’d be good, wouldn’t we, Ray?”
Ray looked from me to Daddy and nodded his head.
“We don’t got school tomorrow,” Ray said.
“I promise, we’d stay out of the way,” I added. “Please, Daddy.”
Daddy had a way of sighing when he was thinking of how to say no in a gentle or kind way. He would push the breath out of his nose and make a deep humming sound and sometimes rub at his chin, making a scratching noise of calloused hand against stubble. When he did that, I knew I wasn’t about to get my way.
Still, I had to give it a try.
“I want to see Mama too,” I said.
“Not this time, darlin’,” Daddy said.
“May I be excused?” Ray asked.
“Sure,” Daddy said.
After Ray took off, Daddy finished his coffee and looked at me from across the table.
“What’s on your mind, Pearlie?” he asked.
“Mama said she wasn’t coming back,” I told him. “When I talked to her last night. She said it wasn’t that easy.”
He breathed in deep through his nose and blew it out his mouth. He rolled his head from one side to the other like his neck was stiff.
The hope had faded right off his face and all because of me.
“Well, that may be,” he said. “It’s not what I’d like, but she might just stay away, I guess.”
“Is she going to ask you for a divorce?”
I’d never said that word before, and it sounded like a curse coming out from between my lips. I’d heard it plenty of times from Pastor down in Red River, saying that God hated divorce. The Lord Himself had said as much to Moses when they were carving the Commandments into those two tablets of stone.
God hated divorce, that was Bible truth and I knew it. I wondered if He hated the folks that got them, too. If God ever decided He didn’t love my daddy anymore, it would’ve broken my heart.
“Pearlie, I don’t want you worrying about that,” Daddy said. “We can’t be worrying about something that might not even happen.”
“What if she wants to?” I asked. “Do you have to do it?”
He ran both hands through his hair, pushing all of it back off his forehead.
“How about we don’t borrow worry?” he said, his voice smooth. “We don’t have to even think on that just yet. All right, darlin’?”
I nodded.
“When’re you going?” I asked.
“Just as soon as I can.”
“Course I will, darlin’. Wouldn’t stay away for all the world.”
Bert had asked Ray to stay the night at his house. I knew it never would’ve been right, me sleeping over at the Barnetts’ with the two of them on account I was a girl. Still, it stung, not getting invited even to come visit with the pigeon or tell scary stories like I knew they’d do.
Opal had promised she’d play cards with me. I’d never seen her play so much as a hand of poker before and I thought it was because she wasn’t much for games. Seemed to me she’d agreed to play with me out of pity. That was all right by me, though. I didn’t mind pity just so long as she didn’t beat me too many times.
We’d had our supper in the kitchen because it was just the two of us. All she fixed was fried eggs and a couple slices of bread. It was the kind of supper Mama would’ve snubbed her nose at. She’d have said breakfast was only to be had in the morning. But Opal said she’d not wanted to fuss.
I didn’t mind. Besides, she’d left my yokes runny so I could swab it up with my bread.
“I’ll do the dishes,” Opal said. “You go on in and find something good on the radio. I’ll be right in.”
I did as she said, turning the dial slower than Ray would ever have patience for until I found a song I knew right away. I pulled my hand back so I wouldn’t turn it by accident and lose the song. Sitting flat on my behind, I even tried breathing without making a sound. I wanted to hear every word and every note.
Back when I was real young, Mama’d sing that song to Beanie and me sometimes before bed. She’d tuck us in and kiss us on our foreheads before starting in on the melody.
“Stars twinkling up above you,” she’d sing. Then she’d whisper, “Make a wish.”
I’d close my eyes, thinking of what I wished for more than anything in the world.
“They flicker and I whisper—” She’d stop, waiting for me to finish the line.
“I love you,” I’d say in a whisper.
“I love you, too,” she would answer, touching Beanie and me both on the tips of our noses with her fingers. “Bird sing a song so pretty and new.”
She’d raise her eyebrows and wait for me to make a chirping sound.
“All I ever dream of is you,” she’d sing. “I get a thrill when you kiss me.”
Lowering her face, she would wait for Beanie and me to kiss her on either check.
“Say once again how if I left you’d miss me,” she’d sing. “I’ll never go as I love you so, all I ever dream of is you.”
I didn’t realize I’d started crying, sitting there in front of the radio, until I felt the warm drops streaking down my cheeks.
For as much as I only let myself remember the bad times with Mama, there were plenty of memories that reminded me of who she’d really been. She’d been a good mother. She had loved me.
“Oh, what’s wrong, baby? Why are you crying?” Opal asked, coming in the room.
I felt her hands, dried but still warm from the dishwater, wrapping around my arms. Opening my eyes I saw she was stooped down beside me. She pulled me to her and held me close.
“What happened?” she asked. “Did you hurt yourself?”
I lifted my hands to cover over my face, feeling the wet tears and my hot breath on my palms. “Nothing,” I managed to say. “Nothing happened.”
“Then why are you crying?” she asked, pulling back from me and pushing my hair away from my face.
“I miss her.”
She didn’t say anything and I thought that was because she understood.
Holding my wrists, she moved my hands away from my face and I felt the worn-soft cotton of her apron dabbing under my eyes and wiping at my cheeks. She was so gentle with me and that helped me to get a good breath in and stop my hiccup-coughing.
“You miss your mama?” she asked.
I opened my eyes and nodded.
“I know how that feels,” she told me. “Sometimes I miss my mother, too. And my dad. It’s hard, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I answered. “Where’s your mama?”
“Up in Detroit.”
It never had occurred to me that Opal had a family somewhere and that she might miss them. All I thought of about Opal was how she took good care of us and knew how to make me smile most days.
“Your daddy, too?” I asked.
“Uh-huh,” she answered. “And my brothers and sister. Three brothers and a sister.”
“They’re younger than you?”
She nodded. “Yup. I’m the oldest.”
“Why don’t you live with them anymore?” I asked.
“Come on and get up off that cold floor, huh?” She took my hand and led me to the davenport.
The song ended and another started, one with a singer of warbled voice so I couldn’t have understood the words even if I was paying close attention.
“I left home when I was fifteen,” Opal said. “My parents, they couldn’t feed all of us and I was the only one old enough to find work. So I packed my bags and left.”
She told me how she had hitched rides, hoping to get all the way to Toledo. But after a while she couldn’t find anybody else to pick her up. That landed her in Bliss.
“I didn’t realize until later on that I was close enough to walk to Toledo if I’d wanted to,” she said. “But by then I had this job.”
“I’m glad you stayed,” I said.
“Oh, and before you get an idea in your head, don’t you ever let me hear about you hitchhiking, do you understand me?” she said, giving me her dead-serious face.
“Yes, ma’am,” I answered.
“It’s dangerous.” She shook her head. “I never should have taken the risk. But I had to go.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why did you leave if your family was nice to you?”
“My mother was already giving up her portion of meals for us,” she said. “That wouldn’t have changed if I’d stayed. And I knew they’d never take money from me if they could help it. It’s easier for them, with me gone. It’s hard enough for them as it is.”
“Why?”
“Because my mother’s colored and my dad’s white,” she said. “Not everybody likes that.”
I understood what she meant. Mama would’ve said we should stick to our own, that God had meant for it to be that way. Otherwise He would have said in the Bible that the races should mix. I didn’t know if she was right about that or not. But then again, I wasn’t sure Mama was the best to speak on matters of who should marry who.
“Anyway, it’s easier with one less person to care for,” Opal said.
“Do you ever write them letters?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I never have.”
“Why not?”
“If they knew where I was, they’d come for me.” She leaned against the back of the davenport and crossed her arms. “They’d make me come home, and I know that I’d just be a burden.”
“I don’t believe you would,” I said. “I bet they’d be glad to have you back.”
“That’s nice of you to say.” She reached up and wiped under her eyes. “Do you think that’s why my mama left?” I asked. “Because she thought she was a burden?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know why she’d ever leave somebody like you. Leaving your parents is one thing. That’s the way it goes. But it’s another thing to leave your kids.”
I thought Opal would make a good mama someday. She’d never be mean to her children and she wouldn’t leave them.
She used her warm hands to smooth my hair and looked me right in the eyes and smiled at me. She asked if I was all right and I nodded.
“Opal?” I asked. “Do you ever wish your problems would go away?”
“Sure I do,” she said. “I think most people do. Wouldn’t it be something to be able to forget about everything awful?”
“I wish I knew how to forget.” I shrugged. “No matter how I try, I just keep remembering the bad.”
“When I dance, I don’t think of anything but the music,” she said. “I don’t even think of what my feet are doing. Not really. All I do is keep my mind on the beat and my body goes along. For just a few minutes, I put everything else out of my mind.”
“That sounds nice,” I told her.
“You still want to learn how to dance?” she asked.
I nodded, hoping she might see the eagerness on my face.
“All right,” she said, smiling. “We can start Monday after school. But you’ve gotta promise to help me get supper on.”
I promised and we shook on it, sealing the deal tight as could be.
We spent the rest of the evening before bedtime listening to the radio and playing hands of poker for matchsticks. Opal popped some corn and even drizzled a little melted butter on top. It was a treat Aunt Carrie’d sent over and I knew Ray wouldn’t get something like that over at the Barnett house.
I’d stayed up later than Daddy might’ve let me. Opal had said it was all right with her just so long as I wasn’t sour to everybody the next day. I promised I wouldn’t be.
When I did get to bed, I could hardly keep my eyes open long enough to change into my nightie.
I slept fast and without dreaming at all.