The Color of Your Skin Ain’t the Color of Your Heart (15 page)

He was quieter than usual, and more somber and kept to himself, which I wouldn’t have expected from him. Before when he visited he always had something to say, always with a smile on his lips. Every once in a while I’d see him looking at me from off in the distance, and whenever we happened to pass each other, I kept having the feeling he wanted to say something but couldn’t bring himself to it. He looked at me sometimes, and, strange as it is to say it, I thought that he was looking at me as if … well, as if he
cared
about me. No white man had ever looked at me like that before. It was the most remarkable thing. It unnerved me. Why would he care about a friend of Katie’s that much?

He was different from last time, that much was plain. I wondered if it had something to do with what he’d said to Katie in the kitchen. I didn’t know what to make of it, but I went about my business as usual, though it was unsettling to have somebody else around who was acting so strange.

I suppose down inside I was a little bit irritated at him. It wasn’t that I wanted him to stay at Rosewood forever or take Katie away with him or anything like that. In fact, it had almost been a relief before when he’d left. But at the same time, I knew Katie was in a fix and he didn’t seem to care about doing anything to help. Anyone who wore fancy clothes like he did and talked about winning at poker must have more money than Katie did, and if he was her kin, how could he just leave? I guess I figured that, whatever he’d meant by what he said earlier, I wasn’t sure I trusted him not to just up and leave again and not care what happened to Katie.

I didn’t exactly know what I felt toward him, which made me confused and frustrated and all the more irritated at him. It made no sense—I’d be the first to admit that. But sometimes feelings don’t make sense. Feelings can just sweep over you for no good reason at all. So I reckon the strange way he’d been acting, and not knowing whether he was going to help Katie or not, had kind of gotten under my skin and made me agitated.

And I didn’t know why he kept looking at me so funny. It made me uncomfortable. It was just like the time before when he’d stood looking at me upstairs in my room just before he left. Why did he keep looking at me with that strange expression like he wanted to say something?

Sometime a little before noon, I was outside hanging some wash on the line. Katie was still asleep. She must have been really worn out! I heard a sound behind me.

I turned and there stood Mr. Daniels only three or four feet away. Again he was staring straight into my eyes.

“Hello, Mary Ann,” he said. “I’m sorry … I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“How did you know my name?” I said, trying to hide that he
had
startled me and that I’d nearly jumped out of my skin to see him standing there so close!

“I asked Emma,” he said with a smile. “She told me.”

“Nobody calls me that,” I said, going on with the laundry. “Nobody except Katie when she’s funning me.”

“It’s a nice name,” he said. “A pretty name.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“I mean it,” he said.

“It ain’t like a white man to think kindly about coloreds,” I said. I don’t know why I said it. It was probably a stupid thing to say to a man I hardly knew, though it was true enough. But once I’d said it I couldn’t get it back.

Mr. Daniels chuckled lightly. “You’re right about that,” he said. “But I’ve always been a little different than other white men in that regard.”

“Why’s that?” I asked, starting to relax a little as we talked.

“I reckon because that’s how my mama taught me—that’s Kathleen’s grandmother, her mama’s mother. Eliza Jane Daniels, that was her name. She taught Rosalind and Ward and Nelda and me that everyone was equal in God’s sight, and that if God had seen fit to make people with different-colored skin, then the least we could do was treat everyone equal.”

“Lots of white men go to church but are as mean as can be to coloreds.”

“I reckon that’s so,” he said. “But our mama taught us different. With her it was a real-life way to act, not just some religious words to talk about but ignore when the church doors close. I haven’t lived a life I’m completely proud of. But there’s one thing I have done that lots of men don’t. All my life, when I look at a man or woman, I don’t see what color they are. I suppose that’s my mama’s eyes looking out from mine.”

“That’s a little like something Henry said once,” I said.

I finally set down the pins in my hand and stopped trying to hang laundry and talk at the same time.

“Henry?”

“He’s the black man who works at the livery stable in town. He found out what we’re doing here—how we’re all alone. So he’s been helping us a lot.”

“That’s good of him. I’d like to meet him and express my gratitude. So … what did he say?”

“He said that the color of a person’s skin ain’t the color of their heart, and that it’s the color of their heart that matters most.”

“Then your Henry must be a wise man,” smiled Mr.

Daniels.

“I don’t think he can even read or write,” I said.

“That doesn’t matter if a man has wisdom,” he said. “And what he said about the color of a person’s heart is true all right. My mother couldn’t have said it better.”

It was quiet a minute. Mr. Daniels shuffled about on his feet. I was about to hang another sheet up on the line when he spoke up again.

“Were you … uh, born here at Rosewood?” he asked.

“No,” I answered.

“You weren’t?” He sounded surprised.

“No—don’t you remember,” I said, “when Katie was telling you what happened when you were here before …

I didn’t come until after the massacre, after both our families were killed. We’d never seen each other before then.”

“Oh … oh yes, of course. How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“When is your birthday?”

“I’ll be seventeen in August.”

He took in what I’d said with a thoughtful look.

“Where were you born, then?” he asked after a few seconds.

I hesitated. Suddenly reminders of William McSimmons flashed through my brain, and I remembered that he was probably still trying to find where Emma was and where I’d disappeared to after they’d tried to hang me. Why was Mr. Daniels asking so many questions? I didn’t want to talk about the McSimmons place.

“Uh, on a plantation on the other side of town,” I said after a moment.

“Yes … that’s right. I remember now Katie telling me that before.” But he still seemed puzzled. He looked away, and then back at me. His expression was full of question and uncertainty, like he was confused because of what I’d said.

“Mary Ann,” he said, “would you mind if I … if I ask you a question that’s a little personal?”

“I reckon not,” I said. I didn’t know what kind of a question that was. He’d been asking me questions the whole time we’d been talking. So what was the harm in one more?

“Would you mind telling me … what was your mother’s name?”

His words were so unexpected that I just stood there staring back at him. What could he possibly care about that?

“I don’t know why—” I began.

“Please, I know you may not understand,” he said, and his voice sounded almost urgent, “but it is important to me.”

“All right, then, I don’t reckon there’d be any harm in it,” I said. “Her name was Lemuela … Lemuela Jukes.”

The instant I said the name, his face showed a momentary look of shock, like I’d slapped him across the mouth.

He took a step back, still staring at me with an expression stranger than all the rest. His mouth seemed to go dry and his face was pale.

“And … and she was killed along with everyone else?” he said, his voice low and husky-like.

“Yes, sir,” I said, suddenly feeling very strange.

Mr. Daniels said nothing more. He just turned and walked slowly away.

I didn’t see him again for a couple of hours.

T
HE
S
HOCK OF
M
Y
L
IFE

22

I
WAS PRETTY BEWILDERED ABOUT HOW THE CONVERSATION
with Katie’s uncle had ended. And that look on his face was one I’ll never forget, though for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what it meant. It spooked me. I couldn’t get rid of the feeling it left me with. My skin kept crawling every time I thought of it.

I finished the laundry, did a few other chores, and went inside. It was about noon. I fixed Aleta and Emma some lunch, though I wasn’t hungry myself and Katie was still asleep. I was feeling too strange to eat. I was cleaning up the lunch things an hour or so later. I heard the outside door open. The others were all upstairs, so I knew it was him.

I heard his footsteps come into the kitchen. Something made me afraid to turn to face him. I felt all jittery. I could feel him standing there looking at me and waiting. Then I heard a chair slide back, and he sat down at the table.

Finally I turned and just stood there with the dish towel in my hands.

“I’m sorry for walking away before,” he said.

I kind of nodded, but there wasn’t anything to say.

“I know it might be hard for you to understand, but … what you said was a shock to me, though I had expected it.”

“What … you mean about—” ‘

‘Yes … about your mother,” said Mr. Daniels.

“Why was it a shock?” I asked. “What do you mean, you were expecting it? Expecting what?”

“When you told me her name,” he answered. “That’s what I was expecting. I guess that’s what I came back to find out. That’s why I had to ask. Although down inside I knew even before I asked. One look at you, once I saw the resemblance, and I knew.”

I didn’t have any idea what he was talking about.

He paused, and a strange, sad, though happy at the same time, kind of smile came over his face. “You look so much like her,” he said. “Especially your eyes, your lips, your forehead. Everything about you reminds me of her. You’re a very pretty young lady.”

“I don’t … but …” I began, though I didn’t even know what I was trying to say. “How could you … I mean, what—” “Mary Ann,” he said, “I knew your mother.”

I could hardly take it in. I just stared back at him dumbfounded.

‘ ‘I … I don’t … do you know the McSimmons … what did you have to do with … I never saw you around the plantation.”

“No … no, I’ve never met any of the McSimmons. In fact, I’ve never heard the name until just now. Is that where you and your family were slaves?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And it’s near here?”

“Not too far,” I said. “I don’t know—five or six miles, I reckon.”

“I see,” he nodded. “No, I’ve never been there.”

“So why did you know my mama?”

“I knew her before she was at the McSimmons’.”

That surprised me. I never knew she’d ever lived anywhere else, though I’d never thought much about it.

“Back then, Mary Ann,” he added, “believe it or not, your mama lived here at Rosewood.”

My eyes shot wide open. Now it was my turn to be shocked.

“But … how? Why was she
here
?” I said, finding a chair and sitting down.

“She was Rosalind’s house slave,” he answered.

“You mean … Katie’s mama?”

He nodded. “She was never actually a slave—she was Rosalind’s friend,” he said. “They were raised together up north.”

“My mama came from the North?”

“She did. They learned to sew together, to read together, to make pretty things. I was Rosalind’s older brother, you see, and I watched them grow up together. Your grandmother, Lemuela’s mother, was alone and poor, and let Lemuela live with our family to be Rosalind’s maid. They became such good friends, like you and Katie, that when Rosalind married Richard, Lemuela came down here with her as her housemaid.”

As I listened I glanced up. There was Katie standing in the doorway to the parlor. I hadn’t even heard her come down the stairs. She was listening intently.

“After Rosalind’s marriage,” Mr. Daniels went on, “I didn’t see either of them for a long time. After a while I wound up down here at Rosewood with Rosalind. Her husband and I never hit it off too well, but since I was kin, he put up with me and let me stay. But the biggest surprise of all was seeing your mama again, now all grown-up. That was in ’48.”

He paused and his voice got different, like he was thinking back and remembering a long time ago.

“I couldn’t keep my eyes off her,” he said with a sad smile. “When her work was done, she and I went for long walks—right out there,” he said, pointing through the window. “We went walking in those woods almost every evening that autumn as the weather began to turn. It was the happiest time of my life.”

He looked at me again, real deep into my eyes like he was staring straight into my soul.

“I grew to love your mother, Mary Ann,” he said, “… and she loved me too. She was the only woman I ever loved.”

His words were confusing and uncomfortable. I was feeling strange and hot, thoughts swirling inside my head. “But … but I don’t understand,” I tried to say, “… why was she a
McSimmons
slave if she was here?”

“Because Richard sold her.”

“Why did he do that? Why would he sell her if she was Katie’s mama’s friend?”