Deep in the Heart of Me (34 page)

"I did…."

"The truth," I say holding her hands too hard.

She pulls her hands away and folds them on the table. She is staring ahead, looking at those boys. "It's not as hard as this place must be."

"Will my mom be all right? Don't lie to me. Will she live?"

"Yes, Tonio. Yes," she says, a catch in her voice.

"Then look at me. Can't you look at me and say it?"

She looks at me then. "Yes, Tonio. She lost a lot of blood. It has to rebuild."

I let out a breath. "You're sure?"

She grabs my arm. "Yes."

I slap my cap on the table and rip my hands through my hair.

She makes me stop. "Tonio."

We are looking at each other.

"You still gonna marry me?" I say.

She takes in a breath. "Maman says we must wait. Until you're," she gestures toward me, "and I'm…done with school."

I am just looking at her.

"There is a school in St. Louis…."

"St. Louis? You'll go away?"

"Not far. Miss Rivers says…."

"That old crone…."

"She has helped your dad write letters for your release, you know."

"I take it all back then," I say sullenly.

"Don't be like that," she says. "She's our friend."

"She'd put a river between us. Miss Rivers. Figures."

I give her a smile I don't mean. What's a river…to me? I can swim, I can paddle a boat, I can pay passage on a ferry.

"You don't like the farm," I suggest more than ask.

"Of course, I do," she says.

I sigh like a girl.

"I won't go if you don't want me to," she says. "I'll do anything you need while you're in here, Tonio. You are all that matters."

I'd grab her if I could, and I'd kiss her, and maybe I wouldn't stop.

I've already told her not to come back to this place. And it's sacrificial to say it. If I could see her each time, it would be something. It would be everything. But I can't let her come here. She's not this. She's no part of this. She should go to school. She shouldn't be sitting around waiting on me.

My father is back then, two guards on him. He's clutching a paper, and he strides to where we sit, and he's pissed off just like I didn't want.

"What happened?" I say.

"I wanted to see if I could get you more food."

"You make it sound like I complained," I say.

"You're too thin. It's enough they have to keep you here and work you. They can at least feed you for God sakes."

I look, and Foley is watching us.

I move my head closer to Dad's. "You can't do that. I can't have more food like some kind of a king."

"They told me no. When you're out of here, I'll go to the press."

"When I'm out of here you can do whatever you like, Dad. But not now."

I feel older now, almost equal to him. I'm the one who knows this place. I'm setting rules with him, and it's just that way.

"I've five hams in the truck for Christmas dinner and those they are taking."

"They have meat, Dad."

"I know that. But they sell everything to the shops in town. I'm telling you, boy, this is a plantation, and these boys are working it. It's big money here."

He's right. But that's not news to me.

"You'll have ham for dinner," he says pounding that finger on the table.

For a minute, there's nothing to say. I'll have ham for dinner then, though I'm not getting my hopes up. Hambone in broth and beans more likely.

I missed butchering. "Is it Bacon and Sidemeat?" That's what the girls named two of the hogs. They grow affection for them every year and hide in their room crying until it is time to taste the fresh sausage.

"Who the hell knows," Dad says. He speaks with the guard and leaves to pull the truck in back of the kitchen to unload the hams.

"Tonio," Sobe says, "are you sure you shouldn't go to St. Jacob's. If your dad can arrange it?"

"I'm sure," I say quickly. "When do you go to St. Louis?"

"I don't have to," she says.

"When?" I repeat.

"I could go next month at the start of the new term," she says softly.

"Where will you live?"

"In the dormitory. Miss Rivers arranged a scholarship, Tonio."

Miss Rivers, Miss Rivers.

St. Louis. That's far enough. I won't be adding to the miles by going to St. Jacob's.

I look up then, and Ulie is wiping counters in the back. He looks away quickly and keeps wiping.

"That's my friend Ulie," I tell her.

"The Colored boy?" she says.

"He's all right," I say.

She waves to him, and he looks down quick and wipes harder.

I could call him over, but I don't. He might say the wrong thing about being locked-up.

"You should go to that school then," I tell her.

I'm doing right, but inside I feel forgotten, like they are moving away from me, into a future I can't be part of.

"Not if…."

"You should go," I say again. I need her to just believe it. To do it. But I’m angry.

"Will it…upset you?" she says. "I know it's selfish with you in here."

"I don't expect you to stay frozen," I lie.

"Maman…she is so excited for me. I'm torn in two," she says, and I see her relief that I'm going along. What did she think I would say?

"I want you to go," I repeat even though I don't. I'm being generous. None of them would understand what it takes to be generous when you're locked up.

"Miss Rivers has been helping me catch up," she says all chatty now. Even if I don't like what she's saying, I love the gentle sound of her voice.

"Hurry up you two. We have to get on the road," Dad says coming inside from making his delivery.

She looks at me like I'm going to the gallows.

"I guess you can write me," I say.

"I will," she says.

"You don't very much," I say. I have not had a letter except for what my family brought.

"I have written," she says.

Like I figured they hold my mail. Especially since I was locked up. Maybe I'll get those letters now.

"Then send your letters with whoever comes to visit," I say. "Hear that Dad? When you come next, you have to give me letters so they don't see."

"You don't get your mail?" he says exasperated.

"I…been…I haven't had privileges."

"Why not?" he says.

I see Ulie back there cleaning up. He appears to have forgotten about me, but I know he's watching and listening.

"Around here, there doesn't have to be a reason for anything. So stop asking me why," I say. That's it.

He doesn't know what to say now.

"You have to get on the road. Don't come here and make trouble," I say just like that. "Don't bring gifts. Don't even come if you can't listen to me."

He is confused to be spoken to like that by me.

I am not as confused doing it. He has to learn not to make trouble.

"Do you hear me, Dad?" I say.

"Tonio," Sobe says.

"You go on to school," I say. "I'll get through this and come home. Until then, all of you need to be doing what I say because you go home, and I'm here. You hear me?"

I don't know why I'm so mad, but I do too. Dad has made them think I'm belly-aching about the food. And Sobe is going to go to school and forget about me.

"Well, you best get going," I say.

Dad shakes my hand, and Sobe crushes against me in a hug and kisses my cheek, and when she lets go, I feel so dizzy I hold onto a chair.

She looks at me the whole way, and I stand straight as I can, and my heart is pounding.

They go out, and the guard tells me to get to the barn for mucking out. There is no Sabbath here.

But I didn't ask for one, did I? Hell no I didn't.

The building looks like a castle. It's big and red-brown, and it has the most interesting architecture. I am hungry for something like this.

It's not that I don't love the farm. I do love it. And those who reside there. They have filled every empty space inside me that a family can fill—sisters- laughter and games and hairbows to tie, and homework to help with and sharing popped corn and cooking together and learning music together and songs and scary stories while lying in bed and teasing and hands to hold and secrets whispered about sweethearts and crushes and what you will be when you grow up and do you love Tonio? Have you kissed him?

And brothers—patient introductions to livestock and saddling a horse and swinging in the mow on a rope and whittling a stick and why Lou Gehrig is the best player in the League.

And a mother to talk everything over with as you bring her soup and help change the bed and give her a cold rag for her face and let her brush your hair while she tells you to go to school and to slow down and not be in a hurry to take on the world, but to prepare and build yourself and learn and think about how to step into the future with a careful step and your skirts held up and your pants rolled up, and your sleeves rolled up, one turn at a time.

And a father with an eye for his family who makes you feel safe and important, who speaks to you politely and makes you think you're something to be respected as he peels you a radish and gives you salt on a dish.

And a grandmother, quiet, but when she speaks it zings, and you laugh, and it's true, and she shows you how to knit a sock or make a bird from paper, or cut noodles evenly and lovingly, and when your cookie batter is too dry she can save it. She can save you.

I finally feel as though I have a home. I have everything but Tonio.

They cried when I left, and they sent a basket filled with everything I could imagine for comfort—warm things like socks and mitts and a scarf and books and paper for letters and envelopes in which to mail them. And peppermints and caramels made on the stove.

I know part of why they love me is that Tonio loves me. They could hold it against me, the trouble I've brought to their son, but they're kinder than that.

They are merciful to me. They are good. So good I cry in the Ford as Miss Rivers drives me to the city where I was going with him. Where we would marry, and I would lay with him, and it would be enough, all I would think about.

Miss Rivers has been so kind. She has a vision for me, for all of her modern thinking and sophistication, is not different from Maman's by very much. They both recognize I'm the scholar, and I shall have opportunity, because of it. Not that I'm helpless on my own, but they have been my mentors about the future.

I trust Miss Rivers because she's an educated woman herself. I trust Maman because no one loves Tonio more than she.

Except for me. I don't love him more, I love him as much and differently, of course, but it's real. It's deep. And it's fast, and it flows, and it rolls, and it waves.

He took on the world. He tried to. I owe him every opportunity I have, I owe him my life.

I have written that. But I do not wish to bury him with obligation. He must not feel saddled with me in any way.

When I get in my room and breathe its smell like old paper, and look around at its tiny perfection, it's narrow bed and simple desk, the window looking out at the courtyard, the lamp on the table that will shine its light on my books and essays and heat their pages, I sit softly on the bed, the basket from 'home' at my feet, two suitcases near the door.

I take my purse and snap it open and reach in the silky pocket along its wall and I pull it from there, my picture of him, given to me by his mother. He's twelve. It shows all of him, even his boots. He stands there, posed by their brand new truck, holding a lamb in his arms, and he's wearing a big grin.

His hair is covered by a cap I've seen Joseph wear now. He is already showing like a man. He's strong. His neck and shoulders, the arms around the lamb. His legs are skinnier, and there he is still a boy.

He is so handsome it breaks my heart. Every time I look.

The last time I saw him, little over a month ago, even suffering had not dimmed his beauty. He thinks I don't know how he struggled. He told me the right thing, but he thinks I don't know how impossible it felt to be so…right.

For me, there was something grown. He spoke to me with more than his boyish strength. It was something deeper in him. He knew it would cost. I saw his fear. And I saw him not let it stop him from doing right. It made me love him all the more.

I go to the desk and prop his picture against the lamp. He has to know, I couldn't stay there and hold his place. I couldn't live there without him, feel all the love he lacked. I had to be brave, like him. I had to try and find a way to be worthy. I had to get out of his way.

It was his place first.

I have to find mine.